Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956) on Netflix
NR19561h 20mActionHorrorSci-Fi
American reporter Steve Martin stops over in Tokyo as ships vanish offshore. With security officer Tomo Iwanaga he travels to Odo Island, where villagers blame a sea monster called Godzilla.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.3/109,657 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
Steve Martin, an American reporter traveling to Cairo, has a layover in Tokyo and plans to look up his old friend Dr. Daisuke Serizawa. His plane passes over waters where a ship has just exploded and caught fire, and all hands are lost. Authorities question Martin, and he tells them he saw nothing. When seven more ships disappear, he decides to stay in Japan to find out what is going on. With policeman Tomo Iwanaga he goes to Odo Island, near the waters where the ships were lost. A typhoon catches them there, and during the storm something comes ashore, killing several inhabitants and destroying buildings. The islanders have long believed in a sea monster called Godzilla.
Cast
- Toyoaki Suzukias Shinkichi
Show all 20 cast
- Amy Iwanabeas Emiko Yamane (voice) (uncredited)
- Ren Imaizumias Radio Operator (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The entire English dub was recorded in under five hours, with voice actors James Hong and Sammee Tong reading every single role between them at a table with one microphone, never once seeing the actual footage as they recorded.
- The American version left out overt references to the atom bomb and hydrogen bomb, including the bombing of Nagasaki, the Bikini Island tests and the radioactive contamination of tuna by American and Russian bomb tests.
- Morse was paid $10,000 for re-writing and directing the American version, and Burr was paid the same amount for what was officially a single day's work.
- New footage was produced with Burr interacting with body doubles who were filmed over their shoulders to conceal their faces, and Morse kept most of the original Japanese dialogue rather than dub the whole film.
- The film was the first Japanese feature to become a commercial hit in the United States, and at the time it was only the fourth foreign film ever to gross more than $1 million at the American box office.
- Cozzi had to pad his version because mid-seventies theatrical films had to run 90 minutes: the original was 1 hour and 20 minutes, so material was added and the final length reached 1 hour and 45 minutes.
- The Italian colorized version was released as Godzilla, but fans and Cozzi himself call it Cozzilla; Cozzi said his colorization was the first attempt ever done at colorizing a black-and-white feature.
- Director Steven Spielberg has openly credited this film as a very prominent inspiration for his 1993 film adaptation of Jurassic Park.
