Godzilla (1954)

A massive storm blows through an island. The villagers are fast asleep, except one family of three. Something is shaking the house, but it’s not the wind. Finally, in a dead panic, the younger brother bolts outside to confront the invader, with the others remaining in the home, doomed to their fate, as the house crumbles around them. An ancient roar rips through the air, as a bipedal behemoth rumbles through the village. The year is 1954, and Japanese audiences have just met Godzilla.

     By far, Godzilla (1954) is one of the most influential of all Science Fiction films. Even if you’re not into the big kiddie camp of the Japanese monster movies, this one is a must see! It follows the resurrection of a dinosaur, reawakened by radioactive weapons testing. Suspense fills your mind as a dark and foreboding animal raids through a village in the dead of the night. This is not a misunderstood creature, like the 1998’s Godzilla. This animal has purposely vaporized ships, killing its crewmembers, for no reason in particular. Sure, it sounds cliché in retrospective, but remember this is still the early 50’s. The film follows Godzilla as he rips through 300,000 volts of electrical wire, wipes out a tank division, and purposely pulls down a tower full of reporters, who annoy him with flash photography. At one point during the raid on Tokyo, he even breathes his trademark radioactive fire on the highway in front of him for no apparent reason. Clearly, this creature is looking for total destruction of Japan, as vengeance for waking him. No creature sympathy here.

     The sadness comes into play in the second half of the film, after Godzilla destroys Tokyo. The city’s survivors are being corralled into field hospitals. As the camera pans over the miserable scene, you hear a baby crying somewhere in the background, reminding viewers that even the innocence of children were destroyed, along with homes and lives.

     Before you start to say how silly and unrealistic a guy in a rubber suit looks on screen, I have to say in advance that the director actually made Godzilla look better in a suit than in stop motion, for the suit’s movements are slow and lumber some, as if he were actually a thousand tons. Another cool trick is that most monster scenes are shot with a low camera angle, so the audience feels like it’s looking up at something tall and massive, and not just a six foot tall guy in a suit The pitch-black night sky also casts a little darkness on the suit, hiding some of the less convincing prosthetics. One noteworthy feature is that this Godzilla design sports a pair of blank, crazed-looking eyes that stare down wildly at the fleeing people. It also has a pair of fangs, jutting out from his top jaws, like a viper. Its roar also has a much deeper pitch than the later models, giving it the sense of something powerful and angry. The sound of Godzilla’s roar was conceived by rubbing a pair of resin gloves across a bass violin, then slowing down the sound when the recording was played.

     The character development was sufficient enough to hold the film up, although most characters are cliché by today’s standards. There’s the helpless damsel who has real little control over the overall situation, other than revealing the secret of the deadly oxygen destroyer, followed by the wise and experienced Dr. Yamane, who works with locals and military authorities to defeat Godzilla. But the most fascinating character is Dr. Serizawa, a young scientist who is torn between protecting his deadly Oxygen Destroyer from possible misuse, and the desire to use it against Godzilla. In stark contrast to most American Sci-Fi heroes such as John Agar, this guy is a tragic hero, knowing that the only way to both defeat Godzilla and keep his secret weapon away from greedy hands is to sacrifice his own life to the device in the film’s climax. As a result, the villain and hero die together, both victims of reckless human actions in the Cold War.

     The most spectacular aspect of the film is the second attack Godzilla launches on Tokyo. The scene occurs at night, giving Godzilla a more menacing look, and the overall mood a darker and hopeless gravity. The low camera angles give the otherwise clumsy suit a realistic appearance. The miniatures aren’t too cheaply done, at least compared to future sequels, again thanks to the dark imagery of the film.

     A future American release of the film in 1956 saw the addition of Raymond Burr, who was placed in added, “Americanized” scenes to help audiences identify with a familiar face. It also helped audiences feel comfortable enjoying a film made by a country they had fought against only ten years prior. Burr wasn’t bad, but the scenes were obviously add-ins that had little significance to the main plot. Overall, this film is a great one. Its dark overtones of nuclear war and the forces of nature, combined with the horror of a stalking behemoth lifts this film to a Citizen Kane standing in the early sci-fi era.  

                                Godzilla, King of the Monster Movie Trailer (1956)