Godzilla (1954)

[Drunk Monk]

This is the original Japanese version, not the watered down one with Raymond Burr. Honda was an outstanding director in B&W - Godzilla’s skin texture makes so much more sense. Some of the crowd scenes are quite big, especially the choral scene. And the details of the models is amazing, so intricate just to get smashed. A true classic Thar not only launched a franchise, it bore a genre.

[Drunk Monk]

Godzilla: King of Monsters! (1956)

This is the Hollywood version with Raymond Burr, playing the distractingly named Steve Martin. Director Terry Morse puts his name before Ishiro Honda. It’s a brutal reworking, cutting out most of the H-bomb message and slicing in scenes with Burr that are drab gray into Honda’s stark and masterful use of B&W. Burr narrates and the backs of a few actors are substituted in to add him into scenes. It was allegedly only a days work for Burr. Some of the dialog is dubbed to English. Some powerful scenes are left in Japanese with no translation like the random woman clutching her children as Godzilla rampages over them, telling the kids not to be afraid because they will all join their daddy soon. Some of the reworking is clever, whitewashing the tale for a western palette, but seeing this back2back with the original makes the difference gaping and profound. Arguably, Godzilla may not have become the global franchise that it has without this version but it hardly compares to the impact of the original.