- Director: Ishirô Honda
- Writers: Takeo MurataIshirô HondaShigeru Kayama
- Stars: Takashi ShimuraAkihiko HirataAkira Takarada
- Link: https://amzn.to/3jG7BEn
Synopsis
We start out on a boat full of Japanese sailors. They hear an explosion and see a huge flash underwater that sinks the ship. They get off a radio report before going down.
Ogata picks up the phone and hears about the disaster, so he cancels his date with Emiko. Another ship is sent to investigate what happened, but it’s quickly sunk too. Could it be a drifting sea mine or a volcanic eruption?
The local fisherman can’t catch anything. They think Godzilla may have done it, but he’s just an old legend. Godzilla is said to be a creature that lives in the sea and from time to time comes ashore to eat humans. They used to sacrifice girls to him in old times. At the very least, there is probably some kind of animal in the sea scaring away all the fish. The villagers perform a kind of exorcism ceremony so they can catch fish again.
Something destroys one of the local fisherman’s house. Was it just the storm? After a while there is an official inquiry, and reports say that seventeen houses were destroyed along with lots of livestock. Professor Yamane thinks it’s a long-lost creature and compares it to the Yeti.
Ogata and Emiko board a ship to search for the strange creature. They investigate the ruins of the houses and find radiation. It’s not widespread fallout, it’s just this one village. The professor finds a huge footprint, and it’s radioactive as well.
Then they hear footsteps and we finally get a glimpse of the animal. You know what it is— Godzilla! It makes the trademark “Godzilla roar” and stomps around after the villagers before vanishing into the ocean.
The professor thinks it’s a prehistoric creature that lived beneath the sea until experimental nuclear weapons tests drove it to the surface. The radiation proves that a nuclear bomb was involved. Rather than start a panic, they vote to keep their findings secret, but it leaks to the papers anyway.
The fleet is called in to drop depth charges. The professor is a zoologist, and he doesn’t want to kill Godzilla. That night, Godzilla is spotted by a cruise ship.
There’s a bit of a love triangle developing between Ogata, Emiko, and Dr. Serizawa. Serizawa is a scientist who shows Emiko his work- something that kills fish, apparently. He may be able to use this against Godzilla.
Suddenly, Godzilla attacks again. He comes into Tokyo this time and derails a train. They bring in international experts who want to build a huge electric fence all along the coastline. The army fights back the next time Godzilla makes landfall. Godzilla tears right through the giant electric fence and melts the towers with his radioactive breath. He makes mayhem all over Tokyo this time and cars, trucks, and people are squashed beneath the giant lizard.
Godzilla knocks out the transmitting tower, and all the reporters fall to their deaths. The city burns and the humans watch helplessly as Godzilla destroys pretty much everything. The Air Force shows up and shoot missiles at it, but that doesn’t have much effect. The monster eventually gets bored and heads back to the ocean.
We then get a disaster-recovery and sad-faced children montage. Emiko decides to tell Ogata about Serizawa’s secret project. We get a flashback to see what happened to the fish in his tank. The pellet he dropped it turned all the fish into skeletons! Emiko then swore not to tell, but this is all just too important to keep the secret. Ogata and Serizawa fight over the experiment, but Serizawa knows that if they use it even once, scientists around the world will want to use it as weapon. Finally Serizawa decides to burn all his notes and give Ogata the single oxygen killing weapon.
They pinpoint Godzilla’s location with a Geiger counter and prepare to use the new weapon against him. Ogata and Serizawa put on diving suits and head to the ocean floor. They pull Ogata back up, but Serizawa stays down on the ocean floor to set off his device at Godzilla’s feet. Serizawa then cuts the rope so they can’t pull him back up. Godzilla comes up for one final roar before sinking to the ocean floor, where he turns to bones and then dissolves. I’m sure we’ll never see him again!
The professor suggests that it’s not likely that Godzilla was the only member of his species, and if we keep doing nuclear testing, another may show up. ..
Commentary
It’s got a really big cast and a vast number of extras. There’s tanks, military transports, and soldiers everywhere, but not an American face in the entire film, which is odd since this was only thirteen years after the war and the permitted Japanese Defense Force was extremely limited at this time.
Godzilla’s design hasn’t really changed very much since this first film. The creature is obviously a man in a suit crushing miniatures, but all the elements are there that are still used in the modern Godzilla films. Godzilla’s heat breath looks like a fire extinguisher or something blowing smoke.
This is all played straight, there’s nothing tongue-in-cheek or campy about this. Godzilla’s personality changed a lot in future movies, eventually becoming a sort of guardian-hero for Japan, but he really is just a monster here.