Gojira, 1954

"GOJIRA," the original, uncut and unaltered version of the film released in the US as "Godzilla," is way, way better than the movie nearly all of us saw in the States. Gone is the moronic insertion, after the fact, of the Raymond Burr character, added to make the film palatable to US audiences. And restored are the clear references -- reflected in Godzilla's radioactive breath (it can vaporize people) and trail of fiery destruction -- to the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and the blitzkrieg of Allied firebombing that preceded them. The film is also a fascinating look at post-World War II Japan (it was made only eight years after the war). Sure, the special effects by today's standards are laughable (they never were state-of-the-art even in 1954), but that's part of the fun. This original is a can't-miss for any monster-movie fan or devotee of Godzilla. The DVD includes an interesting short on the making of the Godzilla suit (yup, the monster was a man in a rubber suit; the budget couldn't handle anything better), and a pretty useless commentary of the film that wastes its time documenting differences between the originating novel or the film's storyboards as opposed to what we see on screen, instead of putting "GOJIRA" into a political, social and film-history context.

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