Godzilla, King of the Monsters
(1954)
AKA
Godzilla
(Page 3)
To tone down the message of the film, Morse cut out a significant amount of footage of the Japanese actors (and included a couple more brief glimpses of the monster, as well as roars that weren't there before). Instead he adds scenes of Raymond Burr, who is an actor that I do like. I enjoyed watching Perry Mason when I was younger, and seeing him younger and slimmer is a bit of a pleasure. What I don't like about Burr is his role as Steve Martin (no, not that Steve Martin) in the movie, which is redundant and unneccessary. Steve exists merely to spoonfeed the plot to American audiences, explain what is going on to minimalize the dubbing. Most of the time, he does absolutly nothing, and stands three feet to the side while other people get their hands dirty. He does interact with characters from the Gojira edit, but it's through body doubles with their backs turned to the camera. The notable exception is a brief conversation with Emiko late in the film, which extra footage is used and dubbed to mimic a conversation with Steve, however it's obviously not the intended use of the scene since Emiko is staring upward, yet Steve is lying in a stretcher on the floor.
When there is a situation he couldn't possibly be present for, dubbing is utilized. However, the dubbing in the film is made dreadfully appearant since we also catch glimpses of the Japanese actors speaking in their native tongue, so when it switches to a half bored audio voice over that lacks emoting, the change is really quite jarring. There does seem to be an effort to match actual lip movements, however, but the voice actors aren't trying hard enough.
All things considered, though, the edit isn't terrible. It butchers and dumbs down the original version, but it's coherant and decent enough in it's own way nonetheless. This was the version I grew up with, so it has a special place in my heart.
The real offender here is the rarely seen 1977 Italian Luigi Cozzi edit, merely titled Godzilla, which is basicly the same as the King of the Monsters edit, only with a few appaling touches.
Cozzi's film is "colorized" (for the lack of a better word). His colorizing technique is highly annoying in that it looks like a child's coloring book who simply refused to color within the lines. Colors are thrown all over the place, and get tiresome long before they get beautiful.
If only that were the least of the film's problems. Cozzi's editing touches are so tacky and tasteless, that it's mindboggling. Stock footage of Hiroshima has been added, showcasing real devastation and real corpses, charred beyond recognition. It's disgusting. The rest of his edits are less questionable, but still bothersome. Most notably is during Godzilla's second attack on Tokyo, which scenes are constantly replayed in slow motion to the point of becoming tedious.
I think Cozzi's intent was to return the film to it's warning message roots, and, to a lesser degree, turn it into some sort of bizarre art film. It didn't work. The original Gojira worked because it was subtle and let the audience disect the message themselves. Cozzi's Godzilla hammers the message into people's skulls and gives the audience a headache.
Cozzi's Godzilla is a definate curiosity piece to those who collect Godzilla, though. I reccommend watching it at least once if you're interested. Just Bring a bottle of asprin.
LUIGI COZZI'S CUT OF GODZILLA ON GOOGLE VIDEO (DUBBED IN ITALIAN, SUBTITTLED IN ENGLISH)
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