Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

Directors:

Ishirô Honda
Terry O. Morse

Writers:

Ishirô Honda
Shigeru Kayama (story)
(more)

Release Date:

27 April 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Makes KING KONG look like a Midget!

Plot:

A 400-foot (122-meter) dinosaur-like beast, awoken from undersea hibernation off the Japanese coast by atomic-bomb testing, attacks Tokyo.

Plot Keywords:

Godzilla | Japan | Monster | Japanese | Reporter

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Raymond Burr	...	Steve Martin
Takashi Shimura	...	Dr. Yamane
Momoko Kôchi	...	Emiko (as Momoko Kochi)
Akira Takarada	...	Ogata
Akihiko Hirata	...	Dr. Serizawa
Sachio Sakai	...	Hagiwara
Fuyuki Murakami	...	Dr. Tabata
Ren Yamamoto	...	Seiji
Toyoaki Suzuki	...	Shinkichi
Tadashi Okabe	...	Dr. Tabata's Assistant
Toranosuke Ogawa	...	President of Company
Frank Iwanaga	...	Security Officer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mikel Conrad	...	George Lawrence (uncredited)
Kan Hayashi	...	(uncredited)
James Hong	...	Ogata / Serizawa (voice) (uncredited)
Ren Imaizumi	...	Radio Operator (uncredited)
Kokuten Kôdô	...	Old Man on Hill on Oto Island (uncredited)
Tsuruko Mano	...	The Boy's Mother [Bit] (uncredited)
Lee Miller	...	Man in Line at Airport (uncredited)
Haruo Nakajima	...	Godzilla (uncredited)
Takeo Oikawa	...	Chief of Emergency Headquarters (uncredited)
Kenji Sahara	...	Man on Boat (uncredited)
Kin Sugai	...	(uncredited)
Ryosaku Takasugi	...	Godzilla (uncredited)
Katsumi Tezuka	...	Godzilla (uncredited)
Sammee Tong	...	Dr. Yamane (voice) (uncredited)

Directed by
Ishirô Honda
Terry O. Morse

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Ishirô Honda
Shigeru Kayama		story
Takeo Murata
Al C. Ward		US sequences

Produced by
Edward B. Barison	....	producer
Richard Kay	....	producer
Joseph E. Levine	....	executive producer
Harry Rybnick	....	producer
Tomoyuki Tanaka	....	producer: Japanese material
Terry Turner	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Akira Ifukube

Cinematography by
Masao Tamai

Film Editing by
Terry O. Morse

Production Design by
Satoru Chûko

Art Direction by
Satoru Chûko
Takeo Kita

Set Decoration by
George Rohr

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ira Webb	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Hisashi Shimonaga	....	sound
Arthur B. Smith	....	sound (as Art Smith)

Special Effects by
Kuichirô Kishida	....	special effects
Hiroshi Mukoyama	....	special effects
Eiji Tsuburaya	....	special effects
Akira Watanabe	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Guy Roe	....	cinematographer: American footage

Production Companies

• Toho Company (original version)
• Jewell Enterprises Inc.

Distributors

• Embassy Pictures Corporation (1956) (USA) (theatrical) (USA: Eastern)
• TransWorld Releasing Corp. (1956) (USA) (theatrical) (USA: Western)
• Anderson Digital (2013) (USA) (video) (Digital)
• Vestron Video (1980) (USA) (VHS)
• Simitar Video (1992) (USA) (VHS)
• Paramount Home Video (1994) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• GoodTimes Home Video (1996) (USA) (VHS)
• Zontarian Video (1996) (USA) (VHS)
• Simitar Video (1998) (USA) (DVD)
• Classic Media (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Sony Music Entertainment (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• Nihon Eiga Satellite Broadcasting (2008) (Japan) (TV)
• Toho Company (1956) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2012) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray) (with "Gojira")

Other Companies

• Godzilla Releasing Co.  releasing agency
• Toho Studios  sound stages

Also Known As:

"Godzilla" - USA (informal title)

Runtime:

80 min (original U.S. theatrical release version) | USA:78 min (television version)

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

Al C. Ward, who later wrote the entire 171-episode run of "Medical Center," was given a choice of $2500 up front to write the American scenes for "Godzilla" or five percent of the profits. Ward, thinking the movie would bomb, second-guessed himself and took the money. He later admitted to telling students of his college movie writing classes that he always regretted the decision. It was estimated he could have raked in $5 million in his lifetime from residuals.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As Steve Martin and friend fly to Odo Island, the shot of them sitting in the helicopter was obviously filmed in front of a regular wall (the roof does not curve as it would in a helicopter, but instead goes straight up).

Quotes:

Steve Martin:[asking Officer Iwanaga]
Steve Martin:What is the name of this monster?
Old Man on Hill on Oto Island:Godzilla...
Security Officer Tomo Iwanaga:You hear that? Godzilla.
Steve Martin:So, they believe that this Godzilla is responsible for all the ship disasters?
Security Officer Tomo Iwanaga:They're certain of it!

Movie Connections:

Edited into Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990) (V)

Tokyo Burning

**SPOILERS** An obvious Japanese version of "The Beast of 20,000 Fathoms" the movie "Godzilla" quickly overshadowed its predecessor and has become one of he most popular monster movies of all times. With it having at least a dozen sequels over the last 55 years after it's initial release in 1954.

"Godzilla, King of the Monsters" is the Americanized version of the movie that has Raymond Burr as American reporter Steve Martin. As he film begins we see Martin recounting what he just lived through after Godzilla demolished the city of Tokyo leaving thousands of dead and wounded, like himself, in his wake. Just days before Martin landed in Tokyo on a stopover to his trip to Cairo Egypt never suspecting that he'll be reporting the biggest story of the 20th century.

It was during that time that a number of Japanese fishing boats and their crews were incinerated by rays of deadly radiation coming from the ocean floor. Together with his good friend Japan's top paleontologist the eminent Dr. Kyohei Yamane, Takashi Ahimura, Martin and a boatload of Japanese newsmen including Dr. Yamane's 22 year-old daughter Emiko, Momok Kochi, traveled to the out of the way Ito Island where one of the few surviving fishermen, of the radiation attacks, came from. It's on Oto Island where it's been reported by the local natives that a gigantic prehistoric monster has suddenly made an unexpected, after some 2 million years, and unwanted public appearance!

I didn't take long for the monster-Godzilla-to show his, or its, face proving beyond a doubt that he's in fact real not some made up legend by the Ito islanders. He later also does a number on the island leaving most of it in ruins! Out of the water and on to dry land Godzilla then attacks, under the cover of night, the bustling Japanese city of Tokyo which we soon find out was just a probing action on his part. Godzilla was testing out the city's defenses to find a weak spot for his later and far more devastating attack 24 hours, again under the cover of darkness, later. With nothing to stop it Godzilla turns the city of Tokyo into a hell on earth causing more damage to it then even the great fire bombings of Tokyo in March 1945 by Gen. LaMay's fleet of B-29 bombers.

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Steve Martin who had witnessed the destruction of the city from his hotel window ended up buried under the rubble barely surviving the carnage. Martin is later responsible in getting the ball rolling in Godzilla's destruction through Emiko's hand picked, by her and his parents, future husband top Japanese scientist Dr. Daiskuke "Eyepatch" Serizawa. It was Dr. Serizawa who was Martin's good friend and collage classmate, despite a ten year age difference, who knew about his underwater experiments that in the end lead to Godzilla's demise. It was the romantic triangle between Dr. Serizawa and Emiko's new love Japanese Japanese Navy sailor Ogata, Akira Takerada, whom she met and fell in love with on her and Steve Martins trip to Oto Island that was the reason the he in the end used his secret oxygen destroyer capsule, that he swore Emiko to secrecy, to do in the raging prehistoric beast. A life long pacifist Dr. Serizawa now with his love Emiko leaving him for Ogata felt that the only thing in life left for him to do is do in Godzilla before he destroys the Japanese Islands and the tens of millions of people living on them.

***MAJOR MAJOR SPOILER*** In the ultimate act of self sacrifice Dr. Serizawa in keeping the secret of the deadly oxygen destroyer from the world at large and out of the hands of any nation, like the US & USSR, who'll use it for military purposes takes that secret to his watery grave together with Godzilla whom it ends up destroying!

P.S One thing about the movie "Godzilla" that really stands out is the first class, very rare in a monster film, acting by those in it. The love triangle between Emiko Ogata and Dr. Serizawa was so well done and heart-fully convincing that it in fact overshadowed the main theme in the movie; A 400 foot prehistoric monster on the loose in a major 20th century metropolis: Tokyo Japan. It's that Academy Award caliber acting that raised the film heads and shoulders above the many 1950's monster film, in the US and abroad, that it competed with at the time!