KING OF THE MONSTERS GODZILLA Movie Review
Gojira
About 20 years ago, New York's Japan House cleared the calendar of its normally high-toned film series—works of directors like Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse were the typical fare—for a special event: a retrospective of Toho Studios' most popular monster films, titled “Thank You, Godzilla.” There was a lot to be thankful for, as by some measures the infusion of cash that Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan pumped into the financially troubled Japanese film industry in the 1950s may have saved it from an extinction similar to that which Tokyo suffered in so many of those films. Godzilla made a big impression in more ways than monetary, as evidenced by his enduring international popularity and his recent big-budget Hollywood resurrection. In director Inoshiro Honda's Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the old boy (whose Japanese name, Gojira, is a combination of gorilla and kujira, or whale) was not the hero and protector of children (or proud daddy of little Minya) that he became in later years. Godzilla was the terrible manifestation of Japan's nuclear legacy, a submerged but undead beast that was the living, fire-breathing proof that the nuclear holocaust suffered by the Japanese was neither gone nor forgotten, and was ready to wreak further destruction anytime atomic weapons were again unleashed. King of the Monsters, indeed. The original film, in stark black and white, includes something few of the others in the series would ever show again—human carnage, including bandaged, bleeding children who are suffering as a result of what these terrible weapons have unleashed. Though the audience isn't beaten over the head with this symbolism, Godzilla's release during the height of the Cold War may have been a more effective, subliminal anti-nuke message than many of us assume. If so, then we all owe you a note of thanks, Godzilla. With Takashi Shimura, Momoko Kochi, and Raymond Burr as correspondent Steve Martin. (Burr's sequences for the American version were directed by Terry Morse.)
NEXT STOP… Rodan, Mothra, Black Rain (1989, Imamura)
1956 80m/B JP Momoko Kochi, Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura; D: Inoshiro Honda, Terry Morse; W: Takeo Murata; C: Masao Tamai; M: Akira Ifukube. VHS, LV PAR, VES