Saturday 19 March 2011

Godzilla True Stories

The first Godzilla was an $800,000 movie. The largest of any Japanese movie budget at the time. It was very serious and a meaphor for the destruction and suffering of the people after Hiroshima and the fire bombing that occurred just 10 years before. Thusly you see a lot of temple praying scenes.

The name of the monster was 'Gojira'. Go= gorilla. Kujira = whale. So, gorilla whale = Gojira. But hard to pronounce for Americans. A USA producer bought it, hired Raymond Burr for only 4 days, filmed perfectly matching scenes in Hollywood, and changed the name to Godzilla.
 
Raymond Burr was not in the movie, but top actors from Japan including the leader of 'The Seven Samurai'. Now you can get the double DVD with the original Japanese version with English sub-titles, or the US version with Burr in it and in english. Later Burr appeared in 'Godzilla 1990'.

When you watch it again and realize that all the Burr scenes were done later you will be impressed with how he is cut into the movie. He's often just observing events with Japanese extras behind him to match the scenes that were already taken. But it fits because he plays a reporter.
In the hospital where he is injured and talking to the nurse. It was originally the nurse talking to a Japanese actor. Burr was flawlessly inserted. And this was before CGS. Fooled me, even as an adult.

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