'Godzilla'
Royally restored

A LANDMARK IN the history of cinematic cheese occurred in April of 1956, when the Japanese sci-fi thriller Godzilla made its first U.S. appearance – kicking off many years of kiddie matinees and Creature Features broadcasts that introduced whole generations to the concepts of camp and unintentional humor. About 19 months earlier, another milestone was logged – by the same movie, sorta. But what premiered in 1954 Japan as Gojira was vastly different from the admittedly delightful travesty that would be the only version most Westerners ever saw. At long last, this fully restored print of the Toho classic offers plenty of surprises for casual fans not fanatical enough to have already tracked it down in the import bins. Gojira was a very serious movie, a cautionary allegory about humanity's possible future self-destruction, created by a nation that had entered the atomic age in the worst way possible at World War II's close. The 150-foot-tall amphibious monster, a freak dinosaur-era survivor, is flushed from its deep-sea lair when H-bomb tests kill the oceanic food supply. The radiation also makes it "unkillable" and able to exhale an atomic death ray. After attacking some fishing boats and an island populace, the angry creature hits the big city, where his memorable rampage improves on King Kong's visit to New York City. More like a 1970s disaster movie (or The War of the Worlds) than like your standard 1950s drive-in opus, Ishiro Honda's 98-minute cut features several emergency military-governmental meetings, a somewhat ponderous young-love triangle (which invariably leads to one party's self-sacrifice), and much discussion of scientific ethics – most of which was, natch, excised from the slimmed-down, souped-up U.S. cut. The latter, billed as Godzilla, King of the Monsters, instead featured laughable English-language dubbing and a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr as an American reporter in crudely inserted new scenes. The shortened run time used only an hour of Honda's original footage. What's still surprising about the 50-year-old "real Godzilla" is how un-laughable it is, for the most part, despite sometimes creaky FX and dialogue. It's the true king – the American version is, you might say, its big ol' queen consort. See Rep Clock for show times. (Dennis Harvey)