Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956): written by Shigeru Kayama, Takeo Murata, Ishiro Honda, and Al Ward; directed by Ishiro Honda and Terry Morse; starring Raymond Burr (Steve Martin), Takashi Shimura (Dr. Yamaane), Momoko Kochi (Emiko), Akira Takarada (Ogata), Akihiko Hirata (Dr. Serizawa), and Fuyuki Murakami (Dr. Tabata): Not the Japanese cut of Godzilla (well, Gojira) but the American version, a big hit in the States that helped fuel the giant monster boom of the 1950's and 1960's.
This version basically tells the same story as the original Japanese film, but with Raymond Burr interpolated into the movie as narrator and lone Caucasian (well, his editor gets a brief appearance too). Burr plays Steve Martin (!!!!), an American journalist on vacation in Japan when Gojira...errr....Godzilla emerges from the sea to wreak havoc.
Steve Martin is the only American journalist in Japan at this time, or at least it sure seems so. And what a great job he does! In the daring tradition of frontline reporters, he's pretty much everywhere Godzilla strikes, albeit never in the same shot.
He's also friends with all the major characters of the original cut. We know because they spend a lot of time talking to him, but only in the same shot when they're photographed from behind.
Anyway, I can't say as the frame story improves the movie. The characterization of the Japanese characters gets whittled down to almost nothing because STEVE MARTIN must tell us what's going on. If only they could have tricked Godzilla into putting on.... THE CRUEL SHOES.
The sequences showing the destruction of cities, people, and trains still hold a curious and elemental power. The original movie-makers weren't squeamish about showing people engulfed in flame, or doomed mothers and children about to be crushed, burned, or boiled to death.
The 'Godzilla Attacks' theme is one helluva piece of music, too. I wish the whole movie were scored to that unnerving, propulsive, jittery string-based symphony of destruction and dread! Thank you, composer Akira Ifukube!
It is interesting to evaluate the two major English-language cuts of Godzilla/Gojira together. The non-Burr version is better, scarier, and sadder. Still, reporter Steve Martin has a lot of gumption! And this American version is remarkably free of racism -- what we are presented with are simply Japanese citizens faced with an immeasurable horror. Recommended.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956): adapted by Daniel Mainwaring from the novel by Jack Finney; directed by Don Siegel; starring Kevin McCarthy (Dr. Miles Bennell), and Dana Wynter (Becky Driscoll): Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the first of four (!) film adaptations of Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers, and it's still the best.*
I'd put it in a list of both Top 25 science-fiction movie and Top 25 horror movies ever made. And the term it made popular 60 years ago -- "pod people" -- remains in our mass-cultural lexicon to this day, used primarily now by people who probably have never seen the movie, much less read the novel it's based on.
Made on a shoestring budget, Invasion of the Body Snatchers became a surprise horror hit in 1956. Don Siegel's direction and Daniel Mainwaring's script keep things tight, perhaps a bit too tight when it comes to the rapid acceptance by several characters of an invasion of pod people. But that's a minor quibble.
Kevin McCarthy does a fine job portraying the gradually mounting paranoid exhaustion of a man who doesn't dare go to sleep, and Dana Wynter is fine as well as McCarthy's love interest.
It's the creepiness of the concept, and that concept's portrayal, that makes the whole movie sing. You will be replaced by an emotionless replica of yourself -- and that replica will talk about how great this development is. This first adaptation keeps the mechanics of the 'changeover' murky, which is a plus. A couple of later adaptations would make the switch from person to pod-person a piece of graphic visual horror (and a job for the garbage-men).
The studio found the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers too disturbing to release. So they added a frame narrative. It's a little annoying, but not too much so. Of course, all versions diverge radically when it comes to the novel's ending. And critical interpretations also differ as to the movie's sub-textual commentary on the American state of affairs c. 1956.
Is this an allegory about Communism? (Joseph) McCarthyism? Consumerism and mass culture? Good question. As the movie isn't really 'about' any of these things, it supports all the above interpretations and more. Highly recommended.
* Followed by Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1993), and The Invasion (2007).
