Godzilla in Hollywood (Part 1)

Godzilla in Hollywood

 

It’s easy to forget that Godzilla—one of the most famous movie monsters in the history of cinema—has not been prominent in American filmmaking for 85 % of the character’s history. We are experiencing a monster movie renaissance in North America, and Godzilla has been more prolific in the past few years than ever before, but Godzilla was and always has been a Japanese citizen—seriously, in 2015 he officially became one, look it up if you don’t believe me!

More to the point, Godzilla was originally intended to be a metaphor for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the twilight of World War II. The original film is a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear testing that only a country who experienced the horrors of such weaponry firsthand could have produced. From that point on, Toho, the Japanese company behind the original, released numerous sequels and reboots throughout the years, but Godzilla’s international fame grew in tandem, and he became a worldwide phenomenon long before the 21^st century.

I’ve already covered the extensive history of the Godzilla franchise, but this will be a different perspective. I’m going to walk us through Godzilla’s adventures in Hollywood, which have had ups and downs and even controversies throughout the franchise’s seventy-year history.

 

Part 1: Godzilla Goes International

 

In 1954, the original Godzilla (called Gojira in Japan) premiered and was an instant success. The creators had no idea their monster movie would end up starting the longest running movie series in history, but what helped the monster become one of the biggest icons in all of pop culture were the international releases of the early films, and the original in particular. Director Ishiro Honda even cited American critics who praised it as the ones who turned the tide on the early discussions of the film. Initially, reviews were mixed in Japan, but many Japanese moviegoers connected with its themes.

Godzilla represented Japan’s fears of nuclear destruction, and it resonated with the people who lived through it, because it wasn’t just a movie monster—it was more than that. There have been many academic essays written about Gojira’s role in helping postwar Japan cope with what they experienced, the political undertones of the film, and the cautionary tale the film tells. But how would citizens of the country who dropped the atomic bombs in the first place react? American distributors were not confident in releasing the original Japanese cut of Gojira in North American theaters, but it was sought out for international release not just because of its financial success in Japan, but because it fit perfectly into the trend of sci-fi/horror films of the 1950s. That was no coincidence, since Gojira was actually inspired by earlier American films quite a bit.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms came out in 1953 and served as direct inspiration for Godzilla being depicted as a radiated dinosaur-like creature rising from the depths after being woken up by nuclear testing. The same year Gojira premiered in Japan, the American film Them! was another atomic monster success, so Godzilla was primed for triumph. Instead of simply dubbing over the Japanese actors, the original film was “Americanized” with the intent to re-release it beyond just North America as its own film, distinctly separate from the Japanese original. Toho co-produced the new film with Jewell Enterprises, and new footage shot for this version was directed by Terry O. Morse. This wasn’t the case of a foreign film being butchered by Hollywood, though; the final cut was approved by Toho.

The main change was re-contextualizing the story from a Japanese perspective to an American one. Raymond Burr was cast as a news reporter named Steve Martin who travels to Tokyo and documents the discovery of Godzilla, the monster’s attack on the city, and the monster’s defeat from the Oxygen Destroyer created by his old friend Dr. Serizawa. Body doubles were used to make it seem like Burr was present and interacting with the actors from the original cut of the film, and Japanese dialogue was overdubbed into English. The original version starts with Godzilla (unseen) attacking a fishing boat, but the Americanized version starts with Steve Martin trapped under rubble in the ruins of Tokyo, then uses a flashback narrative for the first half to show how he ended up there. Not too much of the Godzilla footage is lost between the cuts, but there are some shots missing. The most notable difference of all is how the somber tone of the original is softened, which is hard to articulate, but when you watch both versions, the difference in tone is undeniable.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! was released in the United States in April of 1956—about a year and a half after Gojira premiered in Japan—and was a financial success. When it went international it became a worldwide hit, and was even a success when it came out in Japan in 1957, with the English lines subtitled in Japanese. It’s a weird idea to think of now: a movie being re-released with added scenes in another language. King of the Monsters! was significant for being the first Japanese film (Americanization notwithstanding) to be a box office success in North America, and with World War II and the atomic bombings being so recent in memory, it seemed a noteworthy representation of a changed world.

The same producers who made Godzilla, King of the Monsters! purchased the North American rights to Toho’s Goijira sequel, which would eventually become known as Godzilla Raids Again. They didn’t want to just Americanize it or dub it, though, they wanted to use the monster footage to make a whole new movie called The Volcano Monsters, and Toho approved of this, even sending the suits for Godzilla and the new monster Anguirus overseas for them to shoot new scenes. That plan eventually fell through, and they ended up just dubbing over the film, while also making a few additions and edits. The worst change was the new American title. It was called Gigantis, the Fire Monster, allegedly because the monster in the first movie died, so this was supposed to be a new monster, but there’s no question that the original intention was for it to just be a new Godzilla monster, not a whole new monster. A little piece of trivia to note, here: Toho came up with the Americanized version of the name Gojira themselves, so even the name Godzilla isn’t the work of Hollywood.

The third Godzilla film borrowed the most famous American giant monster and would cement the Godzilla formula for the next dozen sequels to follow. King Kong vs. Godzilla seems like a match made in heaven, but originally, the idea was to pit Godzilla against the Frankenstein monster, so Kong was actually a second choice. It was a success in Japan, and the Americanized version is closer to Godzilla, King of the Monsters! than Godzilla Raids Again in terms of production. Michael Keith was cast as Eric Carter, a U.N. reporter who comments on the action throughout the film in a way that's similar to but more passive than Raymond Burr’s character Steve Martin, and music cues from classic Universal monster movies (namely Creature from the Black Lagoon) replaced pretty much the entire original score. The Americanized version ended up being quite different from the original Japanese cut, losing much of the political satire and almost making it seem as if the previous two films never happened.

The next film in the series, Mothra vs. Godzilla, was not as heavily edited for its American release. It was retitled Godzilla vs. The Thing to generate curiosity about Big G’s rival, and was primarily just dubbed over in English, but Toho did shoot a bit of new footage specifically for the US version. This is how most of the American versions for the rest of the Showa era films were done for international distribution, and the repeatedly goofy, inaccurate dubbing is what led to Godzilla films often being made fun of by many American moviegoers. Some of the films were never released in theaters, and all of the ones that were released always got paired with another sci-fi film to make a double feature, which used to be common back then.

Finally, in 1984, Godzilla returned for a reboot to the series that took the monster back to the dark, serious origins of the original, and served as a direct sequel to 1954’s Gojira. After being around for thirty years, many people knew about Godzilla, but not many people in North America took the monster seriously anymore. You might think by this point that the international release would more or less match the original Japanese version, but oh no, they went back to the same strategy implemented for Godzilla, King of the Monsters! and ended up creating what I think might be the only Americanized sequel to an Americanized version of a Japanese film.

Godzilla 1985, as it was called, dubbed over the Japanese actors, recut and reordered many shots and even entire scenes, and stripped away some of the more serious political themes. The one thing they didn’t change for this one was the music. Most of the original score was left intact—thankfully, I might add, because the score is one of the best parts of the film. Hollywood B-movie legend Roger Corman had a hand in this American revival of Godzilla, which is fitting since he was clearly inspired by earlier Godzilla films and produced and directed multiple monster movies of his own. His company New World Pictures distributed the movie and funded the shooting of additional scenes with American actors. Most notable of all was the return of Raymond Burr as Steve Martin from Godzilla, King of the Monsters! though his role was not as substantial as it was before, and once again the added American scenes mostly consisted of the actors just standing around watching the action unfold—only this time, they drank way more Dr. Pepper. Joking aside, though, one new welcome addition was a closing monologue by Raymond Burr, who wrote it himself, as he was a self-proclaimed sympathetic fan of the monster and wished for the film to be taken seriously.

While The Return of Godzilla (as the Japanese version has become known) was successful enough to launch a new series of sequels in Japan, Godzilla 1985 did not work for most American moviegoers and only further cemented Big G’s status as a cheesy foreign movie monster. Many viewed the special effects as subpar compared to what Hollywood could produce, and it only ended up making about 4 million bucks at the box office. It did well on home video, which is how I first saw it, and while some have reappraised it in the years since, I don’t think many fans would cite either the original Japanese version or the Americanized version as one of the all-time best Godzilla movies—though it is still better than the critics at the time made it out to be and I find it nostalgic to look back on.

After Godzilla 1985’s failure, Hollywood gave up on re-releasing the new series of Japanese films in America. Godzilla vs. Biollante, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Godzilla vs. Mothra, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah all came out in Japan but were unavailable to North American fans for years. In the 1990’s, though, was when Godzilla would take his first real step into Hollywood, in one of the most ill-fated reboots of all-time.