Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Directors:

Ishirô Honda
Terry O. Morse

Writers:

Ishirô Honda (writer)
Shigeru Kayama (story)

Release Date:

27 April 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Action

Tagline:

Makes KING KONG look like a Midget!

Plot:

A 400-foot (122-meter) dinosaur-like beast, awoken from undersea hibernation off the Japanese coast by atomic-bomb testing, attacks Tokyo.

Plot Keywords:

Godzilla | Japan | Monster | Reporter | Japanese

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Raymond Burr	...	Steve Martin
Takashi Shimura	...	Dr. Kyohei Yamane
Akira Takarada	...	Hideto Ogata
Momoko Kôchi	...	Emiko Yamane
Akihiko Hirata	...	Dr. Daisuke Serizawa
Frank Iwanaga	...	Security Officer Tomo Iwanaga
Toyoaki Suzuki	...	The Boy from Oto Island
Toranosuke Ogawa	...	President of Nankai Shipping Company
Takeo Oikawa	...	Chief of Emergency Headquarters
Kokuten Kodo	...	Old Man on Hill on Oto Island
Fuyuki Murakami	...	Scientist with Geiger Counter
Mikel Conrad	...	George Lawrence
Ren Yamamoto	...	The Boy's Older Brother [Bit]
Sachio Sakai	...	Interviewing Official on Oto Island [Bit]
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Miki Hayashi	...	(unconfirmed)
Kin Sugai	...	(unconfirmed)
Sammee Tong	...	Dr. Yamane (voice)

Also Known As:

Godzilla (USA) (video title)
Godzilla the Sea Beast (USA) (working title)
Kaijû-ô Gojira (Japan)

Runtime:

80 min (original U.S. theatrical release version) | USA:78 min (DVD release)

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

The original Japanese footage and the added American footage were all shot in standard academy (1.37:1). However, the U.S. distributor indicated that the film was to be projected in spherical widescreen. The cast and production credits that ran following the final fade-out were produced in hard-matted widescreen. Those theaters that had not installed wide screens could still run the release prints, which were full frame, but the cast and production credits would appear with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. When the television version was being prepared, the distributor avoided the lab cost of having the cast and production credit footage enlarged and re-framed to fill the television screen (as required by then current Federal Communicatins Commission [FCC] regulations) by simply removing this footage. At the fade-out, there is an abrupt cut to "The End." The loss of this footage, which ran approximately 90 seconds, reduced the running time to just under 79 minutes. The footage is believed to have been removed from the original master negative so that all reduction elements, and all elements used to produce the U.S. home video releases, were missing all cast and production credits. The elements for this footage were assumed to be lost, but this footage still exists in the surviving 35mm theatrical release prints. In Japan, however, the film was released in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1, and the end credits were found in pristine condition for the film's release on the 2006 DVD set (released in the USA by Classic Media) with the original Gojira (1954).

Goofs:

Continuity: As Steve Martin watches the "Godzilla" ceremony being performed on Odo Island, the same shots of the ceremony are repeated several times.

Quotes:

Dr. Serizawa: The Oxygen destroyer must not be used!
Ogata: If we do not defend ourselves from Godzilla now, what will become of us?
Dr. Serizawa: And what will become of us if a weapon, such as I now have, falls into the wrong hands?
Ogata: Then you have a responsibility no man has ever faced. You have your fear which might become reality. And you have Godzilla, which *is* reality.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990) (V)

I used to think this was it- not one of the best, but a cool prototype anyway

Oh when Americans first pillaged foreign product for big mainstream gains. With Godzilla, King of the Monsters! we see the beginning of a franchise in all its fractured, cheesy glory. After finally seeing the original Japanese version, Gojira, I also went back to the American version too, which I had seen when I was younger. The impression left by the Americanized version isn't very large, but when compared to the CGI 98 Godzilla at the time- I saw the first around the same time as they played the old ones over and over to build up publicity- it's a spring chicken, err, radioactive lizard to be exact. Seeing how its cut together here again, I'm a little surprised of how noticeable it all is with Burr in the scenes, but I don't mind terribly much (I can always think, well, it could be worse...it could be one of the Godzilla movies from the late 60s that time forgot).

Ultimately, what makes the movie exciting and dumb fun are the attack sequences, especially Godzilla's destruction of Tokyo. Also, as a kid, there's something very effective with the black and white, as it almost comes off as being darker than the other color-film Godzilla movies of the early 60s; one can see the ash all rising around, and a shot or two looks like it could've been lifted from the old newsreels following the end of WW2. Actually, Godzilla is, originally and with 'best intentions', an allegory for nuclear destruction. The American version doesn't stress this nearly as much as Gojira, and what is cut out now gets felt on a repeat viewing. But I could think of worse things to do on a Sunday afternoon.