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Movie Title: Godzilla (1956) Studio: Toho Studios Release Date: April 27, 1956 Director(s): Ishiro Honda, Terry O. Morse Producer(s): Joseph E. Levine, Terry Turner Rated (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X): N/A Starring: Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura, Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi IMDB Page ONLINE MOVIE REVIEW RATING: 2 ½ out of 5

In 1954, Toho Studios released their first foray into science fiction monster movies titled Gojira. The movie did well in Japan , but the dark undertone to the movie may have prompted Toho's decision to work with an American production company to release the English version, Godzilla , in the States in 1956.

The result is a marketing masterpiece that excels as a sales vehicle but fails miserably as a movie. There was two things that Toho did, in conjunction with American production company Jewell Enterprises Inc, that made this movie moderately successful in the United States .

The first thing they did was to cast American star actor Raymond Burr in their re-cut version of the movie. Burr was a popular television and movie actor in 1956, and he would help sell tickets to the American movie public.

The second thing Toho did was change the original tone of the Gojira film, which was dark and ominous, to something more simplistic about a monster that terrorizes Japan . American movie audiences would not have reacted well to seeing the true effects of the atomic bombs on the people of Japan 11 years after the end of World War II, so the theme of the movie was watered down into something Americans could handle.

This movie was created as a marketing piece for Toho in the United States , and it was only released in the United States . Subsequent translations of the movie have been released in other countries, but this version was originally made to break Toho into the United States movie market. It worked, but Godzilla compromises the powerful message the original Gojira was meant to have, and that has stayed with Toho since 1956.

To make this film, Raymond Burr filmed his parts as American international news reporter Steve Martin in one 24 hour period. Considering the amazing amount of scenes, wardrobe changes and make-up sessions Burr had to endure to make this movie, to do his parts in one day was an amazing feat.

Burr's scenes were then mixed in with scenes from the original Gojira to create Godzilla . Reporter Steve Martin conveniently knows all of the important people in this movie and all of the important people conveniently remember Steve Martin, even if they have only met him once.

The contrast in the dark and grainy look of the original movie compared to the crisp look of the film used to shoot Burr's scenes is extremely evident. It is a shame because the American producers went way out of their way to make the sets for Burr's scenes line up exactly with the sets in the original film. If it were not for the difference in the look of the film, you would never know that these are two movies mixed together.

One of the annoying aspects of this movie is the constant switch back and forth between English and Japanese. Steve Martin has an interpreter tell him what is going on in many scenes, but the same characters that spoke Japanese just one scene prior suddenly start speaking perfect English (in different sounding voices) in the next scene. The movie makers also tried to get the Japanese actors mouth movements to line up with the English words they were trying to say. The whole thing just does not work.

Steve Martin manages to get in the middle of everything in this movie, and for a guy that says he does not spend a lot of time in Japan (he had not seen the friend he was visiting in Japan , Dr. Serizawa, for a few years) he certainly has a deep set of roots in the country.

As a marketing tool this movie did its job. It is pretty evident that Toho was not thinking of the long-term effects of this kind of a re-do of their movie. The original Gojira had a limited, and unsuccessful, run in the States before this version came out. In the original movie there is a lot of discussion, and outward anger, regarding the bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima . Those scenes, and the undertone of doom they bring that made the original version so good, are gone in Godzilla.

Toho sold its soul for success in the United States , and it worked. But the lingering effects of Godzilla ring as loudly as the bad decision Toho made in allowing the release of the American Godzilla movie in 1998.