Violence/Gore: Lots of miniatures destroyed. Facial scars on war-surviving scientist. Several boats explode, plenty of death. A newscaster reports on his own demise. A woman has apparently taken her children out to be killed by Godzilla. Fish are dissolved. There is a suicide. Godzilla is murdered.

Sex/Nudity: Godzilla doesn’t wear a stitch of clothing.

Best Line: “We’ll be with your father soon.” (A mother indicating to her children that they will all die during Godzilla’s rampage in the city)

Score:

After a series of boats mysteriously explode off the coast of Japan, the population starts to worry. On an island near where the incidents occurred, an elder of the community suggests that perhaps a mythological beast named Godzilla might be the cause of all this disruption. Unfortunately, this being the 1950s and not the olden days, the virgin sacrifice doesn’t work anymore.

The way things do turn out, the culprit does turn out to be Godzilla, a gigantic aquatic dinosaur equipped with the frivolous ability to breath fire. This Godzilla is more bold and brazen then ever before, likely due to an uncomfortable H-bomb wake-up call that has left him with a nasty radioactive glow. As they say, this is one hot dinosaur.

It has been scientifically proven again and again that if you are awakened from your daily tasks by a nuclear explosion, you would become impervious to all known weapons (guns, tanks, planes, electricity, etc.) except for some wacky fantasy weapon. So it is no surprise that those are the conditions Godzilla exists under.

So, as buildings tumble, fires abound, radioactive trilobites appear and the entire defense system of Japan is constantly humiliated by a giant lizard that looks like the Cookie Monster with stegosaurus plates glued on its back, we wait for that lone gunman scientist to unleash that wacky weapon. And since the attractive female lead has no interest in him, we know it’s only a matter of time before he does the deed.

For subplots, there is the father scientist (Takashi Shimura of THE SEVEN SAMURAI and IKIRU fame, in a rare by-the-numbers performance), who wants to study Godzilla rather than destroy it; and the scientist’s daughter and her handsome but dull romantic interest, who have to convince an angst-ridden eyepatch-wearing scientist - who also appears to have a flame for the daughter - that he should unleash his terrifying new weapon in order to destroy Godzilla.

In spite of over twenty laughable sequels, the original GODZILLA has taken on the reputation of being something special, something impressive. Heck, it was nominated for Best Picture in Japan. Unfortunately, here in the US and in most other parts of the world, we didn’t get the original GODZILLA - we got GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS, a cheap reworking of the film with forty minutes cut out and twenty minutes of Raymond Burr cut in. This version has been the one available stateside until now.

Finally, somebody had the brilliant idea to re-release the film in its original Japanese version, so one could see what all the fuss is about. As expected, the film is more explicit in its references to the World War II bombings, but what comes as a real shock is that for the most part it’s no less dull than the Raymond Burr version.

There are a few choice moments in the film: a villager screaming in the rain before Godzilla’s first land strike; a newscaster broadcasting his own death over the radio; and a woman who has seemingly taken her children deliberately into Godzilla’s path of destruction. But none of this hides the fact that at its core, GODZILLA is just another ‘giant critter unleashed by nuclear energy’ flick, and a rather talky one at that. As is typical with the genre, there’s the cliché moment where the kindly elder spokesman has to decry nuclear testing under the guise of ‘if you blow up nuclear bombs, giant critters will cause substantial property damage.’ This is all well and good, but considering this film has over twenty sequels, one can’t help but think that the producers couldn’t wait to set off twenty-plus nuclear bombs.

The fearful, original Godzilla has an ill-fitted costume and silly eyes that resemble the aforementioned Cookie Monster. The audience I saw this with burst into hysterics every time this King of the Monsters reared its goofy head - not exactly terror at its most sublime.

The film was directed by Inoshiro Hondo, who directs with generic competence, stumbling out an effective moment every now and then but not really bringing Godzilla up to the level of, say, THEM! Hondo would later go on to direct such beloved entries in the series as KING KONG VS. GODZILLA, GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA, GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS and GODZILLA’S REVENGE. He would also churn out such fun flicks as ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE, FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, and KING KONG ESCAPES. In a way, by progressing past the seriousness of this first Godzilla entry and delving into pure rubber monster movie-making, he improved upon himself entertainment-wise.

NOTE: This review was based on the 2004 theatrical re-release.

AH