BONUS BLOG -- 1954: GOJIRA

What’s it about?

In case there’s anybody who doesn’t know the story of Godzilla, here it is. Underwater tests of atomic bombs disturb a prehistoric monster known in Japanese legends as Gojira and cause him to come to the surface in a seriously bad mood. After trashing the island of Odo, the monster moves towards the mainland and destroys much of Tokyo in a couple of midnight raids.

Meanwhile, a scientist has developed an oxygen destroying substance that could be used to make a weapon even more powerful than the atomic bomb. The substance is seemingly the only thing that might stop Gojira, but the scientist is unwilling to share his discovery until he has converted it into a form that cannot be used as a military weapon. As the destruction and death toll mounts, the scientist finds himself faced with a moral dilemma -- let Gojira continue on his rampage, or stop him and give the world a new deadly weapon in the process.


Illustration copyright 2009 Dennis J. Reinmueller


Is it any good?

The ending is really terrific, though there are parts in the middle that are fairly dull. The first third of the movie mostly follows the arrival of Gojira -- from the mysterious sinking of ships to the destruction of Odo to the first appearances of the monster himself. The second third is mostly concerned with Gojira’s attacks on Tokyo and the attempts to stop him with conventional weapons. Finally, the end of the movie -- where things really come alive -- deal with the devastating aftermath of the monster attacks and the scientist’s moral dilemma.

It seems strange to say, but the weakest part of the movie are really the attacks on Tokyo. Gojira was reportedly the first movie to use a suited actor so extensively in monster attack sequences -- previous movies like THE LOST WORLD (1925), KING KONG (1933), MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), and THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) had all used stop-motion animation. Any novelty that may have attached to the man-in-a-suit approach in 1954 has been erased by fifty years of sequels and knock-offs with the same kind of miniatures being destroyed in much the same way. Some of the miniatures are pretty neat (the boats especially look very good), and several shots of Gojira are quite striking -- when he rises suddenly from underwater or from behind a hill, or is framed by fire as he stalks through Tokyo. But overall, both Gojira himself and the attack sequences feel too familiar to be truly exciting anymore.

But it’s worth sitting through those Tokyo attacks to get the final third of the movie. There’s an appropriately dramatic demonstration of the oxygen destroyer in the laboratory. (Though the true effects of the discovery are unnecessarily withheld from the audience until late in the movie.) The invention itself makes absolutely no sense as explained -- but the important thing is the chilling effect it has on living matter. The scenes after Gojira’s final attack on Tokyo are also very effective. It’s no secret that the movie is a parable about atomic weapons -- and in fact the movie lays this on a bit thick -- but knowing that Japan had suffered two nuclear attacks less than ten years before GOJIRA was released really does give the aftermath of the radioactive rampage an extra layer of emotional depth.

As a final note, I ought to say that it’s been at least fifteen years since I’ve seen the American re-cutting of GODZILLA from 1956 (with Raymond Burr inserted to appease American audiences), so I can’t really say how it compares to the Japanese original.

For the rest of my thoughts on 1954 in sci-fi movies, see the entry on THEM!