Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka
Writer(s): Shigeaki Hidaka, Takeo Murata
Release Date: 1955
Appearing Monsters: Godzilla, Anguirus
Also Released As: Gojira no Gyakushu (Japan), Gigantis, The Fire Monster (USA)Often in film history there are movies that have productions that are more interesting that the movie itself. Freddy vs. Jason for example has a fascinating near-20 year history which is inherently more interesting than what we actually got in the end. In the case of the Godzilla franchise, the idea of an interesting production and sub-standard conclusion is never more apt than 1955’s Godzilla Raids Again.
Iwao Mori, the Toho executive producer who gave Tomoyuki Tanaka the green light for Gojira, was away in Italy when the movie became the biggest box office opening in Japan. Upon his return, he gave Tanaka one simple instruction – make a sequel. Just five months later, Godzilla Raids Again smashed into cinema screens and this time, he wasn’t alone. In a move that would become a staple part of the franchise, The King of the Monsters was going to take on a kaiju foe.
Anguirus, an irradiated Anklosaurus, is one of the most celebrated kaiju in the Godzilla franchise. In a poll on popular monsters by G-Fan, he placed third behind genre leaders Gamera and Godzilla and he would appear in several movies in a main role after Godzilla Raids Again. However, for such a popular character, he would take a long stay of absence between Godzilla vs. Gigan in 1971 and his fleeting cameo in Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004. His role in this movie might just be to give Godzilla something to hit other than buildings again, but he is a great adversary to The King of the Monsters.
Sadly though, while Toho were adding a new character to the Godzilla family, they were to lose two of its core members – composer Akira Ifukube and writer/director Ishiro Honda.
For fear of losing momentum on the kaiju’s popularity, Godzilla Raids Again was fast tracked into production. Because of this, the movie was made quicker than the original movie and reportedly cheaper. As a result, the movie really suffers. One has to wonder whether had the movie had Honda at the helm it would have been any better, but his presence is missed. At the time of the movie’s production and release, Honda was working on melodrama Love Tide and in his place was a man who already had 50 credits to his name, Motoyoshi Oda. However, despite his numerous directorial roles, Oda was seen to be nothing more than a hack.
Although Honda or Ifukube didn’t return (Ifukube was in such high demand he couldn’t fit this movie into his schedule as was replaced with Masaru Sato), special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya did. However, his special effects work isn’t quite up to scratch as their previous effort, likely down to the pressure of time and lack of money. In what some claim was an accident, one of the cameras in the 3-camera set-up was not set to record at high speed. Because of this, two of the cameras shot at 72-frames a second (just as they had done with Gojira) while the third was set to 12 frames. Because of this, the footage switches between slow and super quick. Although it was most likely an accident, Eiji Tsuburaya was apperantly quite pleased with the footage when he saw the dailies and the method was implemented for future Godzilla movies.
The fact of the matter remains though, Godzilla Raids Again just isn’t a great movie, nor is it a worthy successor to Honda’s original masterpiece. It feels like exactly what it is – a cash-in movie. The film tries to balance two plots (the monster fight and the melodrama love angle) but neither are particuarly gripping. With that said, the monster rumble in Osaka is the movie’s clear highlight and it would become a good benchmark fir future monster showdowns. Although the Godzilla suit was slimmed down to help suitmation-actor Haruo Nakajima, it still looks menacing and Katsumi Tezuka does a great job in the Anguirus suit.
But a good monster brawl does not a good film make. Godzilla Raids Again opened on 24th April 1955 and, although it sold less tickets than its predecessor, it did good business for Toho. Worse though, it didn’t meet the expectations of critics, fans or even the Toho staff. Tomoyuki Tanaka and several other members of the camera crew felt that the rushed schedule played a factor in the movie’s lacklustre energy. But, depsite the film not being well recieved, its cultural impact was felt. Just as Gojira had taken inspiration from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, many Japanese produced kaiju movies took the blueprint laid out by Gojira and Godzilla Raids Again.
It seemed as though the King of the Monster’s popularity was to be short lived as Godzilla would sit on the shelf for the next seven years. But before he did, he would grace US cinema screens again – just under a different name.
Gigantis, The Fire Monster (1958)
Much like Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the US release of Godzilla Raids Again was given a US make-over. However this time, rather than just filming some new scenes, they would changing everything.
Producers Henry Rybnick and Edward Barrison of AB-PT Productions planned on taking the Godzilla Raids Again footage and re-tooling it into a brand new movie called The Volcano Monsters with a target release of 1957. They removed all scenes with Japanese actors, Godzilla breathing fire and they scaled down the monsters so they looked more like Dinosaurs. They had screenwriters Ib Melchoir and Ed Watson write the script and hired American actors to film the new scenes. Toho even shipped the Godzilla and Anguirus suits so they could shoot new footage of the monsters for their new film.
Sadly, The Volcano Monsters never went into production as AB-PT Productions closed its doors in 1957 after only releasing one film (the aptly titled Beginning of the End directed by Bert I. Gordon). The American rights to the Godzilla Raids Again footage were sold to producers Paul Schreibman, Edmunnd Goldman and Newton P. Jacobs for Warner Brothers shortly after the company’s demise. Rather than re-tool the film like Rybnick and Barrison had planned, Warner simply re-dubbed the movie (with George Takei in his first film role) and added an opening monologue montage to explain the backstory – however they made variations within the dialogue which made it a vastly different film than its Orient counter-part. The biggest change in the film was the name of its lead character – Godzilla.
There are two conflicting stories to why Godzilla was re-named Gigantis. Some people claim it’s because Warner could not gain permission from Joseph E. Levine (who had produced Godzilla: King of the Monsters) so they had to rename him. But other sources assume it was Schreibman’s choice to rename the creature so as to fool American audiences into thinking they were getting a brand new monster rather than a sequel to Godzilla: King of the Monsters. While we may never know the true version of events, the latter story seems to be the most likely as Godzilla’s trademark roar is replaced with Anguirus’ roar – an indication that they intended Gigantis and Godzilla to be seen as different monsters.
They also altered certain aspects of the story. For instance Kobayashi, who heroically gives his life to save his friend during the final battle with Godzilla, is reduced to nothing more than a bumbling side-kick through his voice dubbing. On top of that, his sub-plot where he is looking for his future wife (which is revealed at the end of the movie to be office co-worker Hidemi Yamaji – however he dies before he can tell her) is basically removed. The only shot that remained from the original footage is Hidemi finding a picture of her in Kobayashi’s wallet, only they make it look like nothing more than a secret crush. Plenty of stock footage of nuclear explosions was taken from educational films to give a prologue about “mechanical monsters” and Masaru Sato’s score is removed and replaced with stock music from other science fiction films.
The changes didn’t really help. Gigantis, The Fire Monster is no better than its Japanese counter-part and is actually worse for the most part. American fans and movie goers saw through the Gigantis façade and greatly criticised the film and the producers for trying to rip them off. The movie remained titled Gigantis, The Fire Monster all the way up until the 2006 Classic Media DVD release of the movie where Toho asked for the title card to be changed to its proper title of Godzilla Raids Again.
Over in the Land of the Rising Sun, Godzilla would stay in a icy slumber until he was brought out of retirement to take on one of cinema’s most iconic giant monsters – King Kong in the 1963 classic King Kong vs. Godzilla.
