Godzilla, King of the Monsters! poster & wallpaper

Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura, Raymond Burr

The first of the Godzilla movies, and the most somber and serious in tone, Godzilla, King of the Monsters was originally a 98-minute Japanese horror film, until a U.S. company bought the rights...( read more  read more... ) and reissued the film at its current 79 minutes, replacing sequences involving a Japanese reporter with new inserts of a dour, pipe-smoking Raymond Burr. True to the fashion of cautionary monster movies, Godzilla has arisen due to nuclear radiation--a 400-foot, fire-breathing dinosaur resurrected in Tokyo Bay--and proceeds to devastate Tokyo. Hardly a bogus building is left unbusted, nary a toy tank unmelted, by the reptilian rogue, until scientists discover another weapon of awesome destruction that just might stop him. The special effects are impressive, with the filming done so as to mask the fact that the monster is just a guy in a rubber suit, working better here than in the sequels, where they seem to have given up any pretense to that fact, in favor of flamboyant effects and battle sequences that more often than not are delightfully, unabashedly juvenile. The DVD includes a wonderful 25-minute documentary on movie monsters, pieced together from old trailers. This DVD offers your choice of Dolby 5.1 Surround or Mono, cropped-screen or letterboxed, and a plethora of other features. It is also available in a boxed set with four more of the best Godzilla flicks by director Inoshiro Honda. --Jim Gay

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74% liked it

7,404 ratings

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78% liked it

18 critics

Unrated, 79 min.

Directed by: Ishirô Honda

Release Date: April 27, 1956

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DVD Release Date: May 5, 1998

Stats: 404 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (404)

  • cacutshaw
    January 17, 2008
    cacutshaw
    The one I grew up with. I haven't seen this in a long while, but after finally seeing the Japanese version I'm very curious to revisit it. As a side note, before I saw the Japanese version, this was a five star film.
  • threefolddado
    May 4, 2007
    threefolddado
    See the Japanese version. It's better.
  • donaldwhite1
    November 23, 2009
    donaldwhite1
    This movie was the Japanese attempt to tell the story of World War II without admitting their own guilt in starting the war or the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. They could show the suffering of the Japanese civilians by having the cities of Japan destroyed by a giant...( read more) fire breathing radioactive dinosaur that rises mysteriously from the sea. Godzilla is in fact the good old US of A. No sea going dinosaur ever burned Japanese cities and spread radioactive fallout across the landscape. It was the U.S. Army Air Force. But the Japanese didn't want to offend us since we were protecting them from communist invasion from Korea. Therefore they had a giant lizard do it in the movie. The version released in America was dubbed into English and extra scenes with Raymond Burr added and scenes that might offend U.S. audiences deleted. The added scenes are obviously out of place and don't fit the Japanese story. The Japanese actors seem to be acting their hearts out but the English dialog seems flat and unemotional. Godzilla is actually seen in less than 30 percent of the movie. Sometimes all you see is his head. In the U.S. version there is actually only about 17 minutes of Godzilla smashing cardboard miniatures of a Tokyo. By using black and white film and keeping everything slightly out of focus it's not as obvious as in later Japanese monster movies made in color and filmed in sharp focus. I guess the only reason this film was popular in America was because it was shown at drive-in movie theaters and the American people of 1954 still enjoyed the sight of Japanese getting smashed even if it was by a giant lizard. Although Godzilla was supposed to be the bad guy, Americans probably saw him as the hero. Americans who lived through World War II know exactly what this country did to Japan and why we did it. If you were to ask someone of that generation they will tell you the Japanese deserved every bit of all the damage we did to them. That was the generation that in the 1950's was having fun driving their new cars to the drive-in movies on Friday nights and watching a guy in a rubber lizard suit smash models of Japanese cities.
  • Yelverton
    November 20, 2009
    Yelverton
    Classic monster film, which started one of the longest franchises in history.
  • EVERYTHINGISBIGGERINTEXAS
    July 7, 2009
    EVERYTHINGISBIGGERINTEXAS
    This is the movie that spawned countless seqeuls and made me the Godzilla fan that I am. The monster Godzilla was inspired by the real life horror of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan during world war II it is quite a chilling theme in the movie. Godzillas rampage through civ...( read more)ilization shows just how easily we humans can extinguish life from our own planet.
  • micpierce
    May 26, 2009
    micpierce
    it was a little sad.
  • lothda
    May 16, 2009
    lothda
    This is the Americanized version of the Japanese classic. Watch the original version which is now available on DVD.
  • goji054
    November 4, 2008
    goji054
    The original version is better, but this still keeps the basic idea
  • mattakunobaka
    October 15, 2008
    mattakunobaka
    Titled "Gojira" in Japan. Raymond Burr ("Perry Mason", "Ironside" on TV) was spliced into the American Version of this film; decades later, he would reprise the role of "Steve Martin" in "Godzilla 1985", which I believe was his last role. Still a great movie to watch.
  • olechristian
    October 7, 2008
    olechristian
    Godzilla is the man.

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  • In 'Godzilla' (1954) What was the weapon used to 'slay' the King of Monsters?  Answer »
  • What year was Gojira released as Godzilla, King of the Monsters in the United States?  Answer »
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