Godzilla, King Of The Monsters

Godzilla, King Of The Monsters was an 80-minute, 1956, American, black-and-white science-fiction film adapted from the 1954 Japanese film "Gojira", which had previously been shown in the United States with subtitles in Japanese community theaters only and was not known in Europe.

Related Topics:
1956 - American - Science-fiction - Film - 1954 - Japanese - Gojira

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It is not known who "found" the original "Gojira" in a California "Chinatown" theater, but it was Jewell Enterprises Inc., a small film production company owned by Richard Kay and Harry Rybnick which, with backing from Terry Turner and Joseph E. Levine, successfully adapted it for American audiences. The adaptation process consisted of filming numerous new scenes featuring Raymond Burr and others, and inserting them seamlessly into an edited version of the Japanese original to create a new film with the appearance that all its material had come from the same hands. The new scenes, written by Al C. Ward and directed by Terry Morse, were photographed by Guy Roe with careful attention to matching the visual tone of the Japanese film, while Burr's on screen character appeared to interact with the original Japanese cast through intricate cutting and the use of doubles for the Japanese principals, in matching dress, shot from behind in direct interaction with Burr's character

Related Topics:
Chinatown - Jewell Enterprises Inc. - Film production company - Richard Kay - Harry Rybnick - Terry Turner - Joseph E. Levine - Scenes - Raymond Burr - Al C. Ward - Terry Morse - Guy Roe

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A documentary style was imposed on the original dramatic material through Burr's dialogue and stentorian narration - he plays a reporter, replacing a comical reporter character in the Japanese original. More importantly, his presence as the lead character, along with elimination of protracted dialogue regarding the arranged marriage between the Japanese heroine and a scientist (a concept unfamiliar to Westerners), scenes evincing an active affair between her and the young naval-officer hero (a concept unlikely to be accepted by many parents of the film's youthful target audience), and a raging debate in Japan's Diet over America's use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its continued experimentation with Atomic and Hydrogen bombs (a concept not likely to go over with American veterans of the recent war), served to ease American audiences into comfortable relationship with characters whose simple nationality might otherwise have made them pariahs. The theme of devastation of Japan by nuclear holocaust became sublimated in the editing, but was definitely not eliminated, giving the film a subversiveness on the "nuclear question" which would later be consciously recognized by the youngsters at whom the film was aimed, as they entered adulthood.

Related Topics:
Documentary - Diet - Atomic bomb - Hiroshima - Nagasaki - Hydrogen bomb

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The film was distributed in the western USA by Godzilla Releasing Corp. and in the eastern half by Joseph Levine's Embassy Pictures Corporation, then just a Boston-based states rights exchange. It was given a-film promotion, and was an immediate success. It easily exported to Europe and South America, where the original was unknown, and even made its way full circle back to Japan, where it was exhibited with Japanese subtitles for the American dialogue. The door was therewith opened in the Americas and Europe for importation of unexpurgated Japanese science-fiction and horror films, and other commercial film product, and made Toho Films, which had retained producer credit, an advertising plus. After its theatrical run was finished, Godzilla, King Of The Monsters became a TV staple for decades, even into the cable years; and spawned innumerable sequels.

Related Topics:
Godzilla Releasing Corp. - Embassy Pictures Corporation - States rights exchange - A-film - Toho Films

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