Godzilla, King Of The Monsters

1956

Directed By... Inoshiro Honda / Terry Morse

Starring... Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura, Momoko Kochi, Akira Takarada, Haru Nakajima

There's trouble in Japan, BIG TROUBLE... Ships are being lost at sea, lots and lots of ships...

Some Japanese scientists and an American newspaper reporter head out to an island that seems to be central to the problem area... There they discover that the natives have a legend about a 400 foot tall sea monster called Godzilla that just happens to make a brief appearance while they are there...

The beast then swims over to Tokyo and demolishes the dock area... Fearing a return of Godzilla, a 350,000 volt perimeter of high tension wires is activated... However, when the monster does return, this mode of defense has absolutely no effect whatsoever... Godzilla then proceeds to destroy the city with his big feet and his extremely bad breath...

A Japanese scientist has recently developed a weapon that he calls an Oxygen Destroyer, but fears that it might fall into the wrong hands and be used for evil purposes... When this device is released in water it strips the flesh off any living thing within range... When his fiancee finally convinces him to use it on Godzilla, he burns all his notes and takes the weapon to the bottom of the sea and kills Godzilla and himself in the process thus making sure that the world will never learn the secret of the device... Well, mabey the fact that his girlfriend was going to marry someone else helped him decide to commit suicide...

This is the original and definitely the best of the Godzilla series... The floppy rubber suit isn't so great but the miniature sets are excellent and the destruction of Tokyo is very realistic... The American reporter (Raymond Burr, yes that Perry Mason guy) was dubbed in later for the North American release and was not in the original Japanese version... This is why there are two directors listed in the credits...