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The American Version

Wait a minute, what?

A shooting script, by Ib Melchior and Edwin Watson and dated 5/7/57, exists for a movie called The Volcano Monsters. This was to be the American release of Gojira no Gyakushu, sort of. In fact, all that The Volcano Monsters was going to cull from no Gyakushu was the footage of the monsters fighting; a whole new movie, with American actors, was going to be made around these scenes. And even these scenes were to be chopped apart, as the monsters were now supposed to be regular dinosaurs, and so every scene of Godzilla breathing his ray was to be specifically excised. Toho was apparently all for this, and even sent two apparently unique Godzilla and Anguirus suits to America, for shooting additional scenes. (These suits have long since disappeared, and indeed, only a single photograph exists as solid evidence of their ever having been real). However, the brand new studio that was to make this film, AB-PT Pictures, folded with terrifying speed. And so The Volcano Monsters never came to pass. This is, perhaps, fortunate; Ib Melchior went on to use some of his concepts from this script in the screenplay for Reptilicus, which happens to be the worst giant-monster movie in this or any possible universe.

Instead, Gojira no Gyakushu was released in the U.S. in 1959, under the title Gigantis, the Fire Monster. “What the hell?” you ask? It seems nobody really knows what the hell, though one of its American backers has said that this was to fool local audiences into thinking this was an all-new monster. So an all-new monster would be better than Godzilla? Wha? In any case, Gigantis was re-edited by Hugo Grimaldi, and dubbed by voice actors including Keye Luke and Paul Frees. It was released on a double bill with Teenagers from Outer Space. One of its radio ads began, quite honestly, with the exclamation, “Hey kids!”

The lost Volcano Monsters suits. Bring them to me immediately!

If these seem like bad signs to you, you’d be right. The changes made to the American version of this film were much more trivial than the large-scale alterations made to Gojira, but at the same time, they were much, much stupider. Godzilla (er, Gigantis) and Anguirus are now “fire monsters,” and we are treated to a short film about the genesis of such creatures, with some of the worst dinosaur modeling conceivable by man. Other, pointless new footage, of the ‘progress of man’ and 1950s stuff like that, is attached to the beginning and end. Some of the dialogue becomes utterly ludicrous; “If anything happens,” Tsukioka reassures Hidemi, “you can always run into the hills.” Hey, thanks! Earlier, scoffing at something Hidemi says, her boyfriend exclaims, “Ah, banana oil,” which was apparently mocked even by the dub actors. Apparently, this and many other questionable choices were made in service of achieving lip-sync, which I must admit is done extremely well – but really, when up against the wall, just abandon it, huh? Tsukioka now narrates the film, and he narrates the crap out of it. “I picked up my intercom,” he says at one point; “I lowered my head,” at another. It’s a bloody radio drama now. And Kobayashi is given a voice that would sound entirely appropriate coming out of a cartoon hippo. The main pleasure to be gleaned from this version is in listening for the voice of George Takei – Sulu from Star Trek – who dubs a number of minor characters.

The DVD

Hooraaaaaay!

This and Mothra vs. Godzilla constitute the second wave of DVDs from Classic Media, where Gojira was the first. And, like that first DVD, this one is handled very well indeed. It is not a two-disc set this time, but then, this movie is no Gojira.

Both the Japanese and American versions of the film are on this DVD, both in their original ‘fullscreen’ aspect ratio. The Japanese version is, of course, subtitled, and the subtitles and video transfers are all excellent. There are exactly three special features.

One is a slide-show of Japanese posters for the film, which is neato.

Another is “The Art of Suit Acting,” produced and narrated by Ed Godziszewski, who did the same for the featurettes on Gojira. This 14-minute feature consists of Mr. Godziszewski reading off biographies of the major suit actors for the Showa Godzilla films, over stills of those same actors. Godziszewski is extremely knowledgeable, and provides fascinating information; Haruo Nakajima, who played Godzilla, kept the monster’s arms close to the body so as to look less human; did you know that? Now, Godziszewski’s reading is still a bit dry, but never mind – these featurettes are entertaining and informative and your reviewer is looking forward to more.

The final special feature is a commentary track by Steve Ryfle. This one is considerably better that the Gojira commentaries, a much more entertaining listen. Perhaps Ryfle has warmed up to the process, or perhaps he works better alone (he was partnered with Godziszewski for the first). Or perhaps it’s more entertaining because it’s attached to the crappy American version of a not-very-good movie, and Ryfle goes right ahead and makes fun of things; Tsukioka, he tells us, “literally almost never shuts up,” for example. And this is not at the expense of credit where it’s due; he especially likes pointing out good SFX shots. Nor is it at the expense of dizzying amounts of information. A woman singing at a club appears briefly; Ryfle is a man who can give you a short biography pf her, and he does so. He identifies the specific, real book that the scientists give Our Heroes to look at. Your reviewer has said before that all he does here is in the shadow of Ryfle’s accomplishments, and now he’s saying it again, because it can’t be said enough. And the icing on the cake is that Ryfle brings in guest stars from time to time – Stuart Galbraith IV, Ed Godziszewski, and Bob Burns, as well as recordings of two 1959 radio ads for the film. The only way the commentary could be better is if they’d put one on the Japanese version of the film as well – Lord knows, Ryfle could fill it – but that would require two discs. And it would be irresponsible to say that this film deserves that.

Movie:
U.S. Version: ½
DVD: