Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)

Directed by

Terry O. Morse, Ishirō Honda

Genre

action film, horror film, science fiction film, kaiju

Country

United States, Japan

Runtime

1h 20m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 283 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An American reporter arrives in Japan and witnesses a giant monster rising from the sea to attack the country. He documents the destruction and the efforts to stop the creature.

tensesomberatmosphericfatherlyheavyclassiclarge-scale

What happens

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (Japanese: 怪獣王ゴジラ, Hepburn: Kaijū Ō Gojira) is a 1956 kaiju film directed by Terry O. Morse and Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. It is a heavily re-edited American localization, or "Americanization", of the 1954 Japanese film Godzilla. The film was a Japanese-American co-production, with the original footage produced by Toho Co., Ltd., and the new footage produced by Jewell Enterprises. The film stars Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura, Momoko Kōchi, Akira Takarada, and Akihiko Hirata, with Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla. In the film, an American reporter covers a giant reptilian monster's attack on Japan. In 1955, Edmund Goldman acquired the 1954 film from Toho and enlisted the aid of Paul Schreibman, Harold Ross, Richard Kay, and Joseph E. Levine to produce a revised version for American audiences. This version dubbed most of the Japanese dialogue into English, and altered and removed key plot points and themes. New footage was produced with Burr interacting with body doubles and Japanese-American actors in an attempt to make it seem like Burr was part of the original Japanese production. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! was theatrically released in the United States in late April 1956, and was followed by an international release. In the United States, it grossed $2 million at the box office against an estimated $100,000 production budget. Initial critical reviews were mixed, but retroactive reviews were favorable. The film was responsible for introducing Godzilla to a worldwide audience, as the 1954 film remained unavailable officially outside of Japan until 2004. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Godzilla (1954)
• Rodan (1956)
• Godzilla 2000 (1999)
• The Return of Godzilla (1984)
• Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (1996)
• The Mysterians (1957)
• Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
• Shin Godzilla (2016)