Gojira [Godzilla] (1954)

(On Cable TV, July 2019) I first saw the Americanized version of Gojira (the one with Raymond Burr) a few decades ago, but had clearly forgotten most of it given that a look at the original Japanese version kept most of its power to surprise me. [July 2019: Having seen the Americanized Godzilla, King of the Monsters right after this one, I can understand the reaction—the American version feels like a highlight reel of the original that cuts away much of the gradual buildup.]  Given that this is the original kaiju movie that spawned it all, it’s no surprise to find out that this Gojira feels very different from all the other ones. Made at a time when the conventions of monster movies did not exist, its first half-hour is a mystery that only gradually reveals the existence and then the shape of the monster, with much of the destruction occurring two thirds of the way through in order to provide a climactic ending that defeats the monster but feels much smaller than the citywide destruction that precedes it. There’s more human material than you’d expect, what with a romantic triangle and a tortured scientist reluctant to kill the monster. The special effects are rough and obvious, but they still have an effective earnestness that bests a lot of expensive CGI—the point being that the scenes where Godzilla goes to town, complete with atomic breath, are still effective enough to be worth a watch. It’s not possible to talk about this original Japanese Gojira without mentioning the social subtext that comes with it, released nine years after Hiroshima/Nagasaki and explicitly presenting the monster as a product of atomic blasts with the promise of more to come.