Watched the original Godzilla last night again after only seeing a part years ago. Where was I when I missed Raymond Burr in the film? The movie had its cardboard-like special effects. How could you help but see that the shoreline near Tokyo was not full of model boats and that the buildings in the distance were just made of cards. What I didn’t realize was that Raymond Burr held the movie together by being as convincing, as any sensible actor would be in this type of setting; the actors he had to act off were largely steel faced.
As a child one can marvel at the effects it took to get the submarine animal to bulldoze its way through the town, today the sluggishness makes that action all too ridiculous.
How one could possibly believe that a machine, which removes oxygen from water, would kill an animal that had otherwise been able to resurface, is beyond me. One can appreciate some of the Japanese acting among the secondary actor like the actress in love with the scientist who decided to give his life up to science over the failure to be have protected Tokyo from the monster.
Raymond played a reporter who gave a point-by-point coverage on the monster’s entry into the town until he was hit by a crumbling building.
What I have been able to learn from this film is that poor dialogues need to be revamped especially when the film editing is inferior. I suppose there are many lovers of cheesy films as this who appreciate the lack of acting ability, poor script and editing.
