Godzilla, King of the Monsters 1956

     Reporter Steve Martin flies to Tokyo after a report of the mysterious sinking of a large ship.  The few survivors are burned and they have radiation poisoning.  Steve discovers a 400-foot amphibious monster brought back to life by nuclear testing.  Godzilla is more powerful than the army, navy and the air force and he is rampaging the city.  Nothing seems to be able to stop him, even a line of high voltage towers are nothing against him.  The only person with any idea of how to stop the beast is Dr. Kyohei Yamane.  He has recently discovered a substance that can destroy oxygen in water.  Dr. Yamane is afraid that releasing the substance will create more danger than Godzilla. 

     Surprisingly, there is a lot of humor in this movie!!  You can tell some scenes of the cars, trains, helicopter and city are toy models.  Godzilla is shown shaking a train section in his mouth and it’s really just a toy model.  There are two deep-sea divers and they use the original metal hard hats with the air hose leading to the surface. I couldn’t figure out how Raymond Burr could keep a serious face but his scenes were added in later.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

106 min, Sci-Fi directed by Luigi Cozzi, Ishiro Honda, Terry O. Morse with Raymond Burr, Akihiko Hirata, Momoko Kochi, Takashi Shimura, Akira Takarada.

Note:  6.2 out of 10 on Imdb, 83% critic 73% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon 4.4* out of 5* with 359 reviews.

Special Note: This movie was filmed in 1954 and titled Gojira, it was picked up for distribution and modification in 1956.  The name Gojira is a combination of gorilla and kujira, slang for big clumsy ox.  It was a re-edited Italian-language dubbed version and Raymond Burr was added to the original footage.  It features 80 minutes from the original Godzilla made in 1954 and the US version, King of the Monsters! made in 1956 plus 25 minutes of WWII newsreel footage and clips from other 1950’s monster movies.