Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956)

The American version of Godzilla, or maybe the Americanized Godzilla, depending on how you want to approach it was for many people their first introduction to the terrifying two-legged titan of film name Godzilla. Much of the footage in the movie is recut from the original Japanese release of Gojira, with additional scenes shot to try to match the Japanese film where possible.

Most of the notes from the original Gojira are preserved, from the atomic horror himself to the love triangle centered around Emiko that eventually drives Dr. Serizawa to his sacrifice. Much of the Japanese dialog is left in Japanese, with the added footage of reporter Steve Martin (played by Raymond Burr) receiving a translation of the dialog or commenting on it to other new characters. Compared to the chop job some other Japanese films of the time had received this is quite respectful, though it is likely that it was also a budgetary concern. Dubbing the film would have cost money and left the film with no name-brand actors to help draw an audience. By investing in Raymond Burr, an action who may not have been a top-tier star but was nonetheless recognizable to much of the public the producers were able to add a familiar face to soften the blow and draw in viewers to the strange, terrible world of Godzilla.

Care was taken, within reason, to try to set the scenes filmed with the new characters into settings that resembled the ones from the original movie. The hallways sequence where Steve Martin meets Dr. Yamane looks like it could pass for a hallway in a government building anywhere in the world, though the inclusion of a Japanese wall scroll lets the viewer know where in the world that hall was.

In his interactions with characters that were supposed to be characters from the original film, Steve is generally courteous. His reporter character is supposed to be friends or acquaintances with many of those characters and he acts the part, respectfully engaging with Dr. Yamane, inquiring about Dr. Serizawa. There may be a hint of patronization in his actions, but it's a much different depiction of the Japanese people compared to the often-seen depictions of Asians in other contemporary movies.

Godzilla builds up to the same crescendo as Gojira, only with the intrepid reporter also being perilously imperiled by the gigantic monster. And yet for all of his screen time, Steve Martin is only an observer to the action, an observer to the story, inviting contemporary American audiences into the world of Japanese cinema.

So while there are people that decry the tampering of the original film that took place to make this American release of the movie, I think they forget that in the movie landscape of the 1950's, such tampering was needed to bring the product to the world outside of art cinema and that it ultimately led to more cultural exchange and understanding between America and Japan.

And honestly, from watching this on TNT or TBS when I was a kid, I have a soft-spot for Raymond Burr's earnest performance as Steve Martin and the sense of gravitas his narration provided to the film.