Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)
Ah, Godzilla... Few things in life give me greater pleasure than giant monsters, and the pinnacle of the genre is Godzilla. First released in 1954, the original Gojira was a smashing success for Toho Studios, and the launching pad for one of the most glorious movie franchises in history. Gojira was, of course, a rip off of 1953's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, retold from a Japanese perspective with Japanese style. It was written as a horror film with a very serious message about the dangers of nuclear war. In that respect, it's a fine movie even without the big lizard. Seen today it's just a cool movie, but to the Japanese in 1954, just nine years since the end of the war, it was a frightening reminder of their past.
This was supposed to be a stand-alone film, Godzilla dies at the end and that is that. Toho was stunned by the financial and critical success of the movie and sequels were quickly on the way. In 1956, the American film company TransWorld edited and dubbed Gojira into English. They released the film under the name Godzilla, King of the Monsters, and that's what I will review here. There are some major differences between the two versions, really making them two separate movies. I'll deal with them as they come.
And now on to our show...
We open with kind of a prologue, setting up a good chunk of the rest of the movie to be a flashback. We pan across a scene of a demolished urban corridor showing enormous destruction (most probably actual footage of a bombed Japanese city from WWII). A voice-over from Steve Martin, foreign correspondent for the United World News, tells us that just a few days ago this smoking ruin was Tokyo and teases us that some great, unstoppable force destroyed it. We cut to the inside of a makeshift field hospital as our hero Steve is being carried in on a stretcher. The dead and dying litter the overcrowded building and moans and crying drown out all other noises. It's a disturbing way to start out a monster movie, but again this is a monster movie with a message. A shot of a small boy setting off a Geiger counter is especially moving. Surrounded by bandaged and irradiated survivors, Steve finds Emiko Yamane, the daughter of Japan's leading paleontologist, who is helping with the rescue effort. They reconnect and share their survival stories in some stilted and forced dialogue. Steve's memory takes us back to just a few days past...
Steve.
This entire prologue was added in the American version to introduce us to Raymond Burr's Steve Martin character and to tease the audience with the aftermath of destruction. Perhaps it would have been better to leave the destruction until the end to heighten the audience's sense of dread and anticipation, as it was in the original Japanese version, but I guess the American producers wanted to have a "hook" to keep watchers in their seats waiting for the promised city-stomping. Evidence of the addition of this sequence can be seen when Emiko talks to Steve, at all times keeping her back perfectly to the camera so we can't see her face. They dressed some random actress in the clothes that the Emiko character was wearing and as the same voice dubs her in the whole movie, you can't really tell unless you are looking. They do insert a shot of Emiko's face and dub in dialogue, but the background of that shot in no way matches the field hospital where Steve is.
Nice try.
Anyway, Steve's memory takes us to a civil airliner crossing the Pacific towards Japan, a Pan American Airlines Boeing 377 StratoCruiser. Steve is aboard, smoking a cigarette and relaxing. Smoking on a plane? How 1950s. His voice-over tells us that he's stopping off in Japan for a layover on a flight from Chicago to Cairo. He's happy because he's going to meet up with "old college buddy" Doctor Serizawa, who is a noted "theoretical scientist". The old college buddy line was added in the American version to link Steve with the cast and make him blend into the action better. Their ages are a little off to be college buddies, however, with Steve being 10 years older. As well, it will soon be established that Steve speaks virtually no Japanese and Serizawa doesn't speak English, so that must have been a really boring college friendship. Also, at no time during the movie do Steve and Serizawa meet face-to-face and Steve doesn't seem too broken up when he dies at the end. Btw, knowing how slow these planes were compared to modern jets, a flight from Chicago to Tokyo must have taken forever. Those seats don't look all that comfortable, and with guys puffing unfiltered Camels onboard, it must have been hell. I sure hope they had in-flight movies. Also, Steve's voice-over tells us that they are flying at 10,000 feet. The StratoCruiser was designed to fly at around 30,000 feet for a smoother flight, so if they were at 10,000 it must have been a horribly bumpy ride.
Ugh.
At the Tokyo airport Steve, now with a jaunty pipe, is questioned by Security Official Tomo Iwanaga, played by a very bad actor. Tomo is also an American-version character and will serve as Steve's shadow for the entirety of the movie, being here to get Steve into important meetings and to translate the native language for him. Steve is aware that Tomo has questioned other people on his flight (though he sure looks surprised when it's his turn) and wants to know what the deal is. Tomo asks if he saw something strange last night (he didn't) and then commences to tell Steve all about the latest crisis.
Tomo with Steve.
A few notes here. Tomo says he does this just because Steve is a reporter, but seriously, is Steve really in a need-to-know position? Aren't there other American reporters who are already in Japan that Tomo would be better to hook up with? Steve just got off a plane and doesn't even work for one of the Japan bureaus. And also, why is Tomo's office in the Tokyo airport? Seems like a strange place for it. Steve is sure standing really close to Tomo when they are talking, he even moved around the desk to stand about one foot from him. Egregious violation of personal space.
Ok, I've jumped here a bit for the sake of clarity, but while Steve was flying to Japan strange things were happening out in the ocean. Tomo will paraphrase the following scenes for Steve to get him up to speed, but I'll recap them here. On the deck of a good-sized Japanese commercial freighter on the open sea, the crew is relaxing, playing music and napping. Suddenly, a bright flash of light bathes the ship and it immediately bursts into flame. The radio operator frantically transmits an SOS as water pours into the cabin. This brilliant opening sequence is based on a real-life experience. In March of 1954, just before Gojira went into production, the Japanese papers were full of stories about the Dai-go Fukuryu Maru, a Japanese tuna fishing boat that was unexpectedly caught in the fallout from the first American H-Bomb test on Bikini Island. With this natural tie-in to the subject matter, the producers added this scene in as a tribute.
Somehow this ship managed to get off lengthy, if cryptic, radio and telegraph messages before she sank, saying that the sea was aflame and such. From what we saw, the ship was fried pretty quickly, bursting into flames almost immediately, I wonder how they had time for such a long message? Don't wireless units need electrical power? Btw, the two things that are notoriously difficult to do in miniature are flames and water. This shot of the model ship burning (and the ones to follow of other ships) plainly show these problems. The flames look huge in comparison to the size of the model and the water is too rolling and wavy.
Down she goes.
We now rejoin Steve and Tomo, having moved into the offices of the Nankai Steamship Company, the owners of the missing freighter. The room is bursting with chattering, running men and concerned relatives of the crew are crowding outside the door demanding answers. In all these scenes in the office, Steve looks almost bored, even annoyed, and with everyone else in the room all frantic he seems like he's in a different movie. He's also looks really huge, but I guess that's what you get when you pair an inordinately tall American with an Asian cast. The President of the shipping company comes in, concern and sorrow evident in his face. Tomo translates the conversations for Steve as the President asks what went wrong. While no one knows exactly what happened, a rescue ship is now on it's way to the site of the sinking.
Steve needs Babel Fish.
Here I have to mention how great the dubbing is throughout the entire movie. It's not that the English dubbing of Japanese speakers is good, though it is above par, it's what they choose not to dub that makes it so wonderful. For most of the movie Steve is in the background and people are speaking Japanese all around him, but they are not dubbed (except where it's unavoidable). Instead, someone, usually Tomo, translates for him and the audience. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really does add a sense of authenticity to the movie, putting us into the shoes of Steve's character as he tries to figure out what is going on in a foreign land. There are also numerous scenes where not knowing what the cast is saying helps to add to the dramatic tension and the mystery. Most notable is the ending scene, which I'll address at that point, however.
Anyway, we cut to a quick shot of the rescue ship sailing along. And since Godzilla loves to snack on ships, the sea flashes and foams and the ship bursts into flame. As the ship model sinks, its stern rises to reveal the chain that was pulling it along the water tank, along with the fact that it has no screws or rudders. Very cheesy. Cut then to our first media circus, an event that will become common in Godzilla movies. It's obviously some time later, as Steve is wiring his editor in Chicago that now eight ships have been sunk and all shipping traffic has been suspended. Steve decides to stay in Japan to see the story out.
How do you check Facebook on that phone?
Ok, now we cut out to the open sea where three men hanging onto a plank being pulled out of the water by a boat crew. While in the water the men were screaming and waving and jumping up and down with much mad energy, but as soon as they are rescued they almost immediately fall into comas and die (!!). Steve's ghostly voice-over tells us that these are "some of the few survivors" and they "died of strange burns and shock." Well, they didn't seem very shocked a minute ago, now did they?
Saved from the sharks.
A populace paralyzed with fear demands action and the Japanese government assembles a panel of security officers and scientists. These experts include famed paleontologist Doctor Yamane (remember, Emiko's father?). Steve and Tomo are here too, hanging out in the press box with the rest of the reporters. Btw, watch the reporter on the far right, he keeps smiling as if he didn't know the camera was rolling yet. Steve tells us that he knows Yamane from Serizawa, thus completing the loop of trying desperately to tie Steve into the film. Doctor Yamane is played by Takashi Shimura, one of the greatest Japanese film actors of the twentieth century and a staple of the early Godzilla movies. At the meeting, Yamane suggests that they question the natives on Oto Island, which lies in close proximity to the attacks, which apparently have all been bunched in an area east of Japan. That last part I just inferred, because we are never told that, but it makes sense when they show maps.
At the meeting.
We segue now to Oto Island, followed by Steve's continuous voice-over, which is growing older by the minute. Oto is an isolated island populated by several hundred primitive locals and we now see about 50 of them sitting on the shore, just watching the sea. A group shot shows in the background three ladies with bare breasts, which is ok because of the "National Geographic Rule of Nudity", which states that, while civilized breasts are a no-no in 1950s movies, breasts of primitive women are ok.
I like boats.
As we watch, a man washes up on shore. From the reactions the islanders show, I'm guessing that they know this man, though I don't see how as Steve tells us that he is a survivor of a ship attack. Steve also says that these islanders are "the only ones to see a survivor of the attacks". Uh, what about the three guys on the plank a few scenes ago? I think that something got cut out by the American editors and the original made a lot more sense. Btw, the islanders start shaking the poor man like he's just scored the winning goal against England in the World Cup. Nice first aid technique, guys.
He ded.
The next morning a helicopter is dispatched to Oto Island from Tokyo to interview the locals, which carries Steve and Tomo as well. Steve pronounces it "hee-lee-o-copter", and that's funny. The stock footage helicopter is a Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw with Japanese markings, but in close-ups they want us to believe Steve and Tomo are inside it, but the wood panelling behind him kinda destroys the illusion.
Yeah, that's not a helicopter.
For the rest of the scenes set on Oto Island this day, Steve looks positively bored and just a bit hung over. I wonder if there were problems on the set in 1956? Tomo spends the rest of the movie in a tight uniform with a hundred buttons and a peaked cap, which when combined with his slight build and goofy speech patterns, makes him a frightening dead-ringer for Officer Barney Fife. Steve and Tomo mingle with the natives, learning that they believe that an ancient sea monster of their legends named "Godzilla" is to blame for the attacks. That night they go to an interpretive dance ceremony (maybe stock footage?) where the natives don phallus-shaped masks and dance to appease the sea monster. Tomo, in lame tour guide voice, tells Steve that two centuries ago these dance ceremonies included sacrificing virgin girls to Godzilla. Shame this is never expanded on, would have been nice if at some point in the future, as Godzilla is torching Japan, someone would suggest sacrificing a virgin.
Bringing culture.
Later that night, a big storm suddenly, and I mean suddenly, blows up, bringing torrential rains, stabs of lightning and gale-force winds. As well, there are dull "booms" as if someone very heavy was walking along (gee, wonder who?). Steve and Tomo take shelter by hugging the trunk of a small tree. Is the base of a skinny tree really the best place to hide from a storm and a potential rampaging giant lizard? Steve and Tomo stay latched onto that tree trunk for the entire sequence, despite being lashed by wind and rain in what must have been a painful take for the actors. Though we never see him on camera, we know that Godzilla shows up on the island and creates some damage, knocking over a house. All this is very suspenseful and not actually seeing the monster makes it doubly so.
Hold on tight!
The ending shot of our stay on Oto shows a model helicopter being knocked around by the wind and the rain. At first viewing I really thought that this was supposed to be some kid's toy copter that the Director, in an artistic mood, decided to film. Then I realized that maybe it was supposed to actually represent the helicopter that Steve flew in on. If that was true, then it was one of the worst models in all of recorded history and I'm ashamed for the entire Japanese nation.
Eh, maybe not that bad.
We now cut back to Japan. Some of the natives have been flown in to a press conference in Tokyo the next day to report what they saw for the government. There Steve, sans Tomo, listens in and we see him taking notes as they talk? Now he understands Japanese enough to transcribe it? What? Anyway, each of the natives describe what they saw and their belief that Godzilla is to blame.
A standard shot in this movie, inserting Steve into the flow of the story.
Doctor Yamane then gets up to speak and we see that his tie is out of his jacket and in front of the button. Since this must have been on purpose because it's so obvious, we are forced to ask why? Are they trying to paint Yamane as the typical scientist who only cares about his work and not social conventions like dress and attire? That seems a bit outdated, even for 1954, and Yamane is the hero of the Japanese version, after all. Perhaps, however, it was just a gaff and they just kept the camera rolling without wasting film for a second take. During WWII, Japan saw a critical shortage of film stock and every inch was valuable and not to be wasted. It's well known that even into the 1960s, many Japanese film makers were loath to re-shoot scenes, a holdover from the days of shortages. Who knows, but his tie still looks goofy. Anyway, Yamane expounds that there is something freaky going on and a scientific research party should be formed to go to Oto Island and check it out. That's a good plan.
Yamane's tie out.
Not so good a plan is to have the scientific research party travel to Oto Island by boat! Sailing a ship into the very teeth of Godzilla's territory, when a dozen ships before them have been sunk, just seems real stupid, especially for a bunch of supposedly smart scientist-types. Steve voices concern over just this fact, even though he and Tomo will join the expedition. I wonder if the American producers watched this scene and also realized how dumb it was and so added Steve's line to somehow remove the American character from culpability. Btw, what exactly is Tomo's job? How is he able to essentially follow Steve around for the entire movie, sleeping in tents one day and attending Parliament meetings the next?
Ok, on the voyage to Oto, we meet the rest of our cast. The lovely Emiko is Doctor Yamane's 20ish daughter (remember her from the prologue?). Her beau is Hideto Ogata, a Marine Officer of some sort, I think with the Nankai Steamship Company. Ogata is played by Akira Takarada, who was only 20-years old when this movie was filmed, but he did such an outstanding job that he was given a virtual lifetime contract with Toho Studios. The hitch in their budding love is that Emiko is engaged to none other than Doctor Serizawa, Steve's old college buddy. Ah, Seven Degrees of Steve Martin. More on this later, as it becomes the focus of the movie.
Ogata with Emiko.
Searching the wreckage of the village, the team, led by Dr. Yamane, finds what appear to be huge footprints made by a creature unknown to modern science, and they are radioactive to boot. They then find living Trilobites in the footprints. What? Are they implying that Godzilla is actually millions of years old? Is he immortal? Was he just in a stasis chamber like Khan? Did the H-Bomb tests also revive the Trilobites? That is left unexplained as suddenly the natives freak out and run away. Godzilla is coming! Everyone runs up into the hills, and as they approach the crest, Godzilla rises up over it. Gotta say he's pretty ugly at first sight, with a plump, bumpy head and two goofy looking canine teeth. We only get a head-and-shoulders shot here, and the bluescreening is painfully obvious.
Rah!
Godzilla roars but it's not the "Godzilla roar" that we are all familiar with. Akira Ifukube, considered to be the best Godzilla composer, along with writing the musical score, came up with Godzilla's classic roar. He created it by rubbing a contrabass with a resin-coated leather glove. This trademark roar was heard a few times in the Japanese version but not in the American version for some reason. We Americans would have to wait until the very end of Godzilla Raids Again in 1959 for that roar. Everyone runs back down the hill. Emiko falls down while running away because it's the 1950s, and every female lead has to fall down fleeing from the monster. Luckily, her stud Ogata saves her (duh). What about all the other women running at the same time? I don't see any of them falling down. Of course, they are all hearty island stock. Not to be undone, Tomo falls down too. He, however, is saved by Steve. I guess Godzilla just wanders back into the sea because he is not seen again while our heroes are on Oto Island. Maybe he was just looking for a TGI Fridays.
Emiko screaming at the sight of Godzilla.
Back in Tokyo, the scientists all huddle. Doctor Yamane is giving a lecture for the uninformed (us), complete with a slide show. This entire scene is a wonderful show of how far the science of ancient life has come since 1954. The first slide is a bad drawing of a sauropod dinosaur. Yamane says, "It can be safely assumed that two million years ago (let's try 150 million years ago) this Brontosaurus (actually an Apatosaurus) and other ancient reptiles roamed the earth. It was known as the Jurassic Age." The next slide is another bad drawing of a therapod in a typical landscape of volcanoes and ferns. The therapod is depicted in the old school-style of big and lumbering and standing nearly bolt upright. Yamane continues, "During this period, there was another species which we may call the intermediary animal, a cross between the land-living animals and the sea-living animals." The next slide is a bad painting, errr...photograph of Godzilla peeking over the hill that the survey team took the other day. Yamane names the creature "Godzilla" from the legends of Oto Island. They beat you to that, Doctor, by hundreds of years apparently. He then says, "Judging from this photograph, this creature is over 400-feet tall." How can you tell that? In the Japanese version Godzilla is 50-meters tall (182 feet), so I guess the Americans thought that was too small and bumped it up to 400 feet. When Godzilla is wandering through Tokyo later, you can tell that he's much closer to 182-feet tall than 400.
Proof positive.
The slide show over, Yamane then opens discussion about where Godzilla came from and why he's here. He at first advances the idea that by some freak of nature, the breed of animal that is Godzilla has been living since the Jurassic Age and just has not had any reason to come out of hiding until recently. This is hard to believe, but it might explain some of the myths and legends about sea monsters and dragons that're so prevalent in Asia. He then goes on to say that the radiation in the footprints was Strontium-90, a product of H-Bombs, and that the repeated testing of these weapons has resurrected this animal. This is less believable, but that's our story. In the end, they decide to let the Navy have a crack at him first.
Charts.
Now for the love triangle. While the scientific debate rages, Emiko has decided to tell her fiancee Doctor Serizawa the truth about Ogata. Their marriage was arranged when they were just kids and in the ensuing years Emiko has fallen deeply in love with Ogata. She still loves Serizawa, just not "that way" anymore. Who hasn't heard that before, eh, guys? She musters her strength and goes to tell him at his house/laboratory. Played by Godzilla legend Akihiko Hirata, Serizawa's “look” is pure 1950's Mad Scientist, with a science-guy lab coat and black eye patch. main distinguishing feature, other than his scientist-guy lab coat, is a black eye patch. The run of the film, however, will show Serizawa to be just as noble and conflicted as the rest of the cast.
Serizawa.
The American version cut a good 40 minutes from the Japanese film, replacing it with about 20 minutes of Raymond Burr. Most of the omissions have to do with the relationship between Emiko, Serizawa and Ogata and we suffer for this loss. Emiko tries to tell him, and you can see the genuine pain in her emotions as she struggles. Serizawa, however, has too much on his mind for this sort of thing. He takes Emiko down into his basement lab, filled with bubbling beakers and the like, including a large fish tank filled with ocean fish. He seems to be working alone in his basement, strange for a "noted scientist in his field", but there you go.
And she's really cute.
Here he shows her his great discovery, a horrible device that destroys all oxygen and surrounding life in water, named the "Oxygen Destroyer". A small ball of this substance dropped in the fish tank quickly strips the flesh off the fish. This display horrifies Emiko and rightly so, and Serizawa makes her promise that she won't tell anyone, which makes us wonder why he showed her in the first place. Later, back at home, Emiko admits to Ogata that she was too conflicted to tell Serizawa the truth, Ogata understands and does not push the matter. This is again a strong character moment for both Emiko and Ogata and they carry themselves in a very adult manner.
A terrible sight.
The Japanese Navy now goes out to hunt Godzilla using sonar and depth charges. Sonar, eh? Great idea, too bad they forgot about it in later movies where Godzilla manages to wander around the oceans completely undetected. I suspect that the shots of the ships are stock footage from WWII as the film quality is of a much lower resolution than the rest of the film. There also seems to be too many destroyers present for 1954 Japan, wasn't their navy pretty well disarmed still? Back at the Yamane house, the good doctor is disgusted as he watches the Navy working on TV. He sulks in his study as he says to us, "They are so wrong. Godzilla should not be destroyed, he should be studied."
Japanese Navy to the attack.
Sure that the Navy has succeeded, Tokyo rejoices. A bad model of a cruise ship plies the waters of Tokyo Bay, filled with carousing and dancing people. Godzilla, far from dead, pops his head out of the water near the ship. We hear the thundering booms! of him walking as the terrified passengers run about and scream. Uh, booms? How could Godzilla walking through the water cause booms? Wouldn't the neck-deep water absorb the sound? Without doing any damage, Godzilla then dives back into the water and disappears.
With Godzilla still alive and now in the bay, Tokyo panics and the citizens flee inland. The next night the Japanese military gathers up to try to protect the city from Godzilla. We see shots of trucks and jeeps racing about (though having watched this film so many times I've noticed that there are only three trucks and one jeep total and they just keep filming them in different locations). Hey! Where is the American military during all this? Christ, in 1954, with the Korean War still smoldering, there were more American GIs in Japan than in Germany! I do realize this is a Japanese movie, one that is subtly anti-American, but at least a few throw-away lines telling us what the rest of the world is doing about all this monster stuff would be nice. Yokohama, one of the largest American naval bases in the world, is right there in Tokyo Bay! Godzilla essentially just surfaced in a lake filled with the Seventh Fleet!
M-24 Chaffee tanks roll.
That night, Godzilla initiates his first attack on Tokyo, the first of what will ultimately become dozens of stompings over the next 70 years. Coming ashore in the dock section of the city, he's greeted by machinegun fire for all of about five seconds, the totality of the Japanese military's response to Godzilla's first attack. As somber music plays, he crushes a few buildings and then steps in front of a train that hits his foot. Ticked at this, he smashes up the train, even lifting a car in his jaws before tossing it back down. I have a problem with the size of the train car versus the size of the foot, which gives the allusion that Godzilla is ten times bigger than he really is. It's also painfully obvious that the close-ups are really bad puppets. Eek. This train scene begins a long and storied line of Godzilla vs. The Railroads, which is seen in virtually every Godzilla sequel. Btw, in the Japanese version, we join the commuters on the train pondering their luck before just Godzilla smacks it. One woman bemoans that it was a miracle she "survived Nagasaki", but now has to face Godzilla. Other man quips, "Back to the shelters again!". This scene was cut because of the obvious anti-American bent.
Godzilla eats a train car.
A random thought on Godzilla's physical appearance here. His spiky dorsal spines seem to flop around way too much. If they are indeed like similar dorsal spikes and plates on modern reptiles and fossilized dinosaurs, then they're attached directly to the animal's vertebrae and should not wiggle like they do with Godzilla. This bothers me to no end.
Godzilla attacks!
Godzilla then returns to the water, having made his point, I guess. Although his attack was brief, there was much damage. As Godzilla only seems to be attacking at night, during the day the government has plenty of time to consider ways to destroy Godzilla. Tomo tells us that the new plan involves using a line of electrified high-tension wires juiced with 300,000 volts to hold him back. The editing is real confusing here, in some ways it seems like the towers and wires were already there and they were just going to bump up the power to them, while in other places it seems like the military is building the whole set-up from scratch. Since they only have like half a day, there is no way on earth that they could build a 20-mile line of 300-foot tall electrical towers. Anyway, just in case the wires fail, the army brings in some towed field artillery and more tanks and line the bay with barrels while searchlights ply the dark waters.
The next night Godzilla reappears and again wades ashore. He easily breaks through the electrical barrier, apparently with little pain. This, like the train attack, will become standard fare in other Godzilla movies and if we don't see it then we get mad. While he's still amongst the wires, the military opens up a furious barrage with machineguns, field pieces, and tanks all firing like mad. The artillery pieces are obviously models as there's no recoil when they "fire" and in the flashes of light you can see that the people around them are plastic figures. I counted at least seven solid hits from large caliber guns but they seemingly have no effect on the Big Guy.
Godzilla in the wires.
Really mad now, and still somewhat entangled in the wires, the Godzilla puppet head sprays aerosol "fire" from it's mouth, which is cool but looks really cheap here. This Atomic Fire Breath melts the towers around him, which bend and drip like the plastic models they are. Preceding the breath, Godzilla's dorsal spines heat up, crackling with white light. It's never established anywhere in the series what the spines have to do with the Fire Breath. Are they gathering and conducting energy from the air to route to Godzilla's mouth? Are they venting excess heat and energy from his body when he prepares to fire his breath? Any ideas?
Throughout this entire second attack, Steve and Tomo are on the upper floor of a building with a ring-side view of the action. In his frequent cut-away close-ups, Steve alternately looks truly bored and on anti-depressants in some shots, and all sweaty and glassy-eyed like he's strung out on crystal in others. Steve whips out this huge tape recorder which is a box the size of a suitcase with a reel-to-reel setup on top and a microphone on a thick cord. Good thing they still have power even though Godzilla is mangling the city, because this thing must need a lot of juice. He begins to talk into it as he watches the carnage outside, stating that he is leaving a recorded account of the coming events for his editor George in Chicago. This cleverly allows him to narrate the action to the audience without sounding hokey. Btw, we never know if George got this tape.
Steve on his tape recorder.
Now into the suburbs, Godzilla starts fire-breathing buildings at random, including some oil storage tanks which explode quite nicely. The power stays on throughout the attack, despite the damage and the whole downing of the power lines from before, many buildings even show lighted windows as Godzilla is crunching them up. They also obviously have no interior structures as they collapse like hollow models.
Burn, baby, burn.
Steve tells us that, "They're moving an entire Tank Corps to point-blank firing range!". Now a Tank Corps has a lot of tanks but we only get to see a total of two plastic models of M-24 Chaffees clanking up to fire at Godzilla. I counted nine good hits with their 75mm guns before the "Tank Corps" realizes they are wasting ammo and attempts to pull back. Godzilla nukes our two tanks with his Atomic Fire Breath for good measure.
Godzilla now continues his rampage deeper into the city, blasting entire blocks and even individual police cars with his Atomic Fire Breath and kicking and wailing his tail around. In one neat shot, we get a street-level view of Godzilla leaning over an apartment block, in the windows we can see frantic people running. This is a great composite shot, maybe the best in the whole movie. To the Japanese audience in 1954, the sight of Tokyo burning must have been amazingly powerful. Keep in mind that just nine years before, Tokyo was nearly burned to the bedrock by American bombers and certainly millions were killed. A good percentage of the audience must have personally lived through the fire bombings and this must have made them weep. In one particularly moving scene, a mother huddles with her two young children in the shadow of Godzilla. Just before being incinerated, she tells them, "We're going to join daddy in a moment." The American version left this scene in but did not translate her last words, what a travesty. He then knocks over a clock tower (telling us it's now 11:00pm) and munches a radio tower filled with reporters who keep flashing him with their cameras. Stupid reporters. When he bites the radio tower it's never more obvious that this terrible monster is just a rubber suit. As he bites, the sides of his rubber mouth bow out and the teeth visibly bend. Cheap fun.
Stupid buildings.
Finally having enough of Steve's annoying voice-over, Godzilla moves for his building. Crushing it in, Tomo is killed and Steve is blessedly knocked out. Now, for some reason Godzilla heads back towards the bay because in the next scene he's knee-deep in the water again. Kicking over a few bridges he continues to wreck havoc on his way out the door. And now, finally, the Japanese Air Force shows up. Where were you before? A bunch of Sabre jets swoop in, rockets firing. On my DVD, you can actually see the wires that they used to simulate the rockets shooting out from the toy planes. Really cheap fun.
Ignore the wires.
The JSDAF actually manages to drive off Godzilla, marking a rare victory for the military in a Godzilla movie. However, it should be noted that none of the rockets seemed to actually hit Godzilla, so maybe he was just ready to go home anyway. The Japanese pilots must suck, because while we see rockets whizzing by and hear lots of bangs and whooshes on the sound track, there are no visible splashes of water or signs of hits around Godzilla in the several shots of him reentering from the water while under fire. Could they just not afford underwater squibs in their diorama set?
Nice profile shot.
The next day we're at the hospital where the prologue began. The rest of the movie from here on is not a flashback but set in real-time. Emiko tells Steve and Ogata (who has joined them) about Doctor Serizawa's Oxygen Destroyer and they all agree that this weapon is Japan's only hope to stop Godzilla. Emiko and Ogata now visit Serizawa and ask him for his help. There is brief but wonderful scene here where Emiko and Ogata wait in Serizawa's study for him. There is a small fish tank on a table, and the scene opens with Emiko running her fingers across the tank. As Serizawa comes into the room, he sees Emiko first and his face visibly brightens. He quickly sees Ogata, however, and while his face falls, he retains his composure and asks them to sit down. Once seated, Ogata tells him that he knows of the Oxygen Destroyer. Serizawa, shaken, denies its existence but the genuinely injured glance he casts at Emiko says otherwise. Emiko, ashamed at her betrayal, lowers her head. This is an extremely well done piece of acting on all their parts and is indicative of some of the great writing that this film gives us.
Best character in movie, I say.
Let me again offer a quick explanation of the Oxygen Destroyer. It seems that while experimenting with oxygen, Serizawa came across a "terrible chemical discovery, a way to destroy all oxygen in water, thereby disintegrating all living matter in water." And furthermore "an amount no larger than a baseball could turn Tokyo Bay into a graveyard." The science of the Oxygen Destroyer is dubious at best, but it is no more outlandish than similar "doomsday" weapons invented by the mad scientists of other 1950s movies, so I will let it slide.
Serizawa kept the secret of his Oxygen Destroyer because of the destruction it could bring as a weapon, deciding instead to continue working on it in secret to find some counteracting good it could be used for. In the Japanese version, Serizawa fears that the Oxygen Destroyer might be used by the "military" to fuel a new arms race. In the American version, however, his fear is that it will fall into the "wrong hands". This is a subtle but important difference, and reflects the mood in America in 1956 towards the Russians. Echoes of Serizawa's doubts and guilt were seen in Albert Einstein's and Robert Oppenheimer's public statements that they wished to hell they hadn't created the H-bomb after realizing how much misery and destruction it would cause the world. The makers of this movie very neatly wove that sentiment into Serizawa's dialogue. This paints Serizawa in a very noble light, but also proves to be a conflict that is consuming him emotionally. Serizawa refuses to give up the weapon and he and Ogata actually tussle over a box containing the formulas. Tastefully, the fight between the two men is heard, not seen, a fish tank blocking the scene until it is over. In the end, Serizawa, visibly embarrassed that they were fighting, helps Ogata to his feet and apologizes.
Great movie, really.
Serizawa still can't bring himself to use the Oxygen Destroyer. Ogata counters his worry of it being used for evil by telling him that he has to choose between that fear that might become reality and reality itself, which is Godzilla. At that moment a television broadcast of the destruction Godzilla brought comes on and Serizawa stares at it in silence. The broadcast scenes are horrific, with mangled bodies and smoking rubble mixing with school children praying for deliverance from Godzilla's evil. This pushes Serizawa into action and he agrees to use the Oxygen Destroyer on Godzilla as long as it is only used just this once. To assure this, he begins to burn the formulae in the stove, destroying any evidence of its manufacture.
Such a good movie.
The next day, a Navy patrol boat carrying the cast hunts Godzilla with a Geiger counter, eventually finding him in the relatively shallow waters of Tokyo Bay. Is Godzilla sleeping down there? Does he sleep during the day and only become active at night? This would explain a lot, but earlier we saw him on Oto Island during the day. The Oxygen Destroyer must be placed by hand, so Ogata and Serizawa don diving suits and enter the water. Take a look at the bandanna worn by Doctor Serizawa under his diving helmet, it's a kamikaze blossom, and its symbolism cannot be overlooked. On the fantail, Emiko watches with trepidation as the two men she loves disappear beneath the water.
The Oxygen Destroyer.
Beneath the waves, they find Godzilla and Serizawa activates the Oxygen Destroyer. Ogata begins his assent, but then realizes that Serizawa is not with him. Having already cut his weights, he cannot slow his assent. He frantically screams Serizawa's name into the radio over and over, begging him to come up, a gut-wrenching thing to watch and hear. As soon as Ogata pops to the surface alone, the look on Emiko's face tells us that she instantly knows what Serizawa is doing. Knowing that, with his papers destroyed, the only record of the Oxygen Destroyer is in his head, Doctor Serizawa has decided to sacrifice himself so that its secret will never threaten the world.
Beneath the waves.
While Serizawa pulls out a knife and cuts his air hose, the Oxygen Destroyer works to perfection and Godzilla is reduced to a skeleton. Words cannot describe how exceptionally good this final set piece is. From the time the two men go down into the water to the ending credits, it is a powerful and moving show of personal sacrifice and sorrow, mingled with the joy of having killed off the monster. The music is incredibly well-matched to the drama on the screen, true masterwork by composer Akira Ifukube. The general lack of dubbing here gives it even more punch, we don't need to have Ogata's pleading to Serizawa translated, that sort of pain and helplessness is universal. Kudos, as well, to the American editors for not ruining it with too many needless shots of Steve.
It is over for them all.
Godzilla has rightfully earned its place in film history. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie, you will be duly impressed.
Written in April 2004 by Nathan Decker.
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that's between you and the vengeful wrath of your personal god...