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Movie Title: King Kong Vs Godzilla (American Version) Studio: Toho Studios, RKO General Pictures Release Date: June 3, 1963 (United States) Director(s): Ishiro Honda Producer(s): John Beck, Tomoyuki Tanaka Rated (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X): N/A Starring: Michael Keith, Harry Holcombe, Haruo Nakajima, Katsumi Tezuka, Tadao Takashima IMDB Page ONLINE MOVIE REVIEW RATING: 1 ½ out of 5

Reviewing the American and Japanese versions of King Kong Vs Godzilla is necessary because they are two completely different movies. The problems with the two movies are similar, but the overall feel of the two movies is different.

Let's get one thing out of the way immediately. According to Toho Studios, King Kong wins the battle and there is no secret nod to Godzilla at the end of the Japanese version. Kong was significantly more popular than Godzilla, and it was determined that Kong should win. Toho wanted to use King Kong to raise Godzilla's fame in the United States , and it worked.

This is the first time either King Kong (in any form) or Godzilla was filmed in color. Despite his obvious charcoal gray skin, this is one of the movies that started the notion that Godzilla is a big, green monster.

Godzilla fans are grateful to this movie for establishing the legacy of Godzilla. This was the highest grossing Godzilla movie of the 1960's, it sold more movie tickets than any Godzilla movie in history and it convinced Toho to make a franchise out of Godzilla. But, as a movie critic, there are so many things wrong with this movie that it makes me wonder why it remains so popular today.

Toho's naïve approach to the set-up of King Kong is strange to watch. The “natives” are Japanese actors in brown make-up. Kong's initial battle on his tropical island is against a giant octopus that is obviously a clear bag of meat. When the natives throw torches and spears at Kong or the octopus, they make a shadow on the projection screen they were being thrown at and bounce off. That is just the beginning of the problems with this movie.

Godzilla is 400 feet tall and possesses a powerful radioactive breath. The Godzilla character had undergone some developmental changes prior to this movie. Some changes, such as turning the lethal breath from a mist to a beam, were well done. Other changes, such as Godzilla clapping and making a crunching noise when his claws come together, are annoying. But we can begin to see the beginnings of the Godzilla that we will all come to know and love.

King Kong is supposed to be 50 feet tall and possesses no special lethal powers except for strength. For this movie, Kong is expanded greatly and the effect is awkward to watch. Toho does use the familiar Kong clichés of destroying a train to find a beautiful woman and then climbing a building with her, but unlike the American Kong movies there is no reason for this. It is a completely random act used to give movie-goers a familiar frame of reference.

Making forced perspective movies is difficult. In this movie, Kong's size changes constantly. On his island he is small enough to pick up clay jars about four feet tall with his hands and drink from them. When Kong is in Japan , he is able to pick up a woman and she can be seen in his hand. When Godzilla appears, Kong is suddenly 400 feet tall.

The timing in many scenes is way off. We are led to believe that the Japanese army builds a wall of high-tension electrical wires around the entire city of Tokyo in less than a day, or that the army can dig a hole big enough for a 400 foot tall monster and line it with explosives and poisonous gas in less than a day. When the gas explodes, the army is allowed within feet of the hole without anyone dying from the gas. An army general looks out his standard pair of binoculars and sees a full-sized image of Godzilla, but yet he estimates that Godzilla is hours away. Those are either some strong binoculars, or some terrible script writers.

As for the writing, it is awful in this movie. The scientific expert brought in by the United Nations news staff (I didn't even know the UN had a news staff) was useless. They would as him questions and he would not have any answers . . . at first. As the movie goes on, this expert suddenly becomes very knowledgeable on all things to do with Kong and Godzilla.

When the Japanese television crew finds Kong they instantly call him King Kong with no explanation as to where the name came from. For some reason, it is asserted in the movie that drums are needed to put Kong to sleep. In reality, he is drugged by something called Soma and the drum angle is completely useless.

The concept behind this movie should have never gotten off the ground, but if you are going to make King Kong big enough to fight Godzilla then at least write a good movie about it.

I am hoping the Japanese version is better.