Godzilla & TheAtomic Rat Pack
By Mike Marino

The nightmare of WWII ended with a big bang. Two big bangs actually as atomic bombs were dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan to end the war in the Pacific. In retrospect it appears Japan forget two things. Be sure you can finish what you start and never take knife to a gun fight. The war was over, but a new age was on the horizon...the dawn of the nuclear age! Japan is the only country where atomic weapons have actually been used on a population, so it's no wonder they became vehemently anti-nuke and anti-war in thought and action. It was this same "coming of nuclear age" that not only brought a peaceful full tilt boogie economy to this tiny island nation, but it also gave the world an international cinematic treasure. Gojira! Or as we affectionately know him in America, Godzilla!

Godzilla, a mutated product of the nuclear age, made his first appearance on the silver scream screen in Japan in 1954 with a not so thinly veiled anti-nuclear/anti-war message. Not just of the atom bomb but of the much more powerful H-bomb tests held earlier that year at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. In time over 20 G'ster monster flicks were made with a stellar cast of other nuked outcast monsters such as Rodan and Mothra. Combined these crazed creatures were the equivalent of the Vegas Rat Pack which make Godzilla the undisputed Sinatra of Monster Island!! If sci fi were sex, then Godzilla was our G-Spot! The Godzilla brand was the creation of Toho Studio's in Japan who excelled at the art form known as kaiju, creating the Rubber Suited Rebel With A Cause, miniature sets that were frighteningly realistic, and cheesy effects that make today’s computer generated film effects look amateurish by comparison, making today’s films more like a Playstation reproduction than filmatic art. Blue Screens and graphics suck Spielberg and Bruckheimer, eat some cheese and get back on track.

Toho had an early start in the Japanese film industry starting in Tokyo in 1936. In 1941, Japanese General Tojo was trying to gain a toe hold in the Pacific by ordering the attack on Pearl Harbor. At this point Toho Studio's turned their attention to producing propaganda films for the home town crowd, which didn't sit well with the American Occupation Forces after the Japanese surrender. (By the way, Tojo was tried, sentenced and hung for war crimes. The post war economy of Japan eventually got back on track, and Toho was back in the film biz full tilt boogie. The landmark breakthrough for Toho was not Godzilla however, but the production and release in 1954 of classic film, The Seven Samurai, about a Japanese Village who hires seven seasoned samurai to protect them during the feudal wars. The rights to "Seven" were eventually sold to an American film company who used the premise to create an American Film Classic. The Magnificent Seven. Loose the samurai and add wild west gunslingers hired to protect a Mexican village and the translation is unmistakable. Taking the genealogy a step further, and it may be stretch but you could say the Mag 7 spawned the Three Amigo's! Not that far fetched, I assure you.

Gojira was released in Japan in 1954, and the last Toho Godzilla film was released in 1975, with a Toho revival in 1984. Toho Studios produced most Godzilla films except for the 1998 version starring Matthew Broderick. The rights to produce that particular film were sold to Tri-Star Pictures. Although the film is enjoyable enough, Godzilla is an oversized iguana! Not a dinosaur as the original. Not only that, iguana's walk on four legs, some how this iguana learned to walk on two legs and look like a dinosaur..sort of a shape shifting iguana Iggy Pop!

The origin of the name Gojira is in fact a combination two Japanese words. Gorira (gorilla) and Kujira (whale) to denote the monsters size and aquatic origins. In the United States it was shown at first primarily in Japanese-American communities in 1955. By 1956 it was titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters and released in theaters all across the country. Godzilla would be left alone but in this American release, Raymond Burr was added to give it a Caucasian boost! His segments were filmed separately and edited and inserted in the film in post production. Notice he never is in the same scene with anyone else but asks and answers questions. The newly inserted clips of Burr are of a different contrast as well as opposed to the original footage. The best part of all this duct tape production method is the fact that most of the dialogue of the actors, especially the dubbed in English for the Japanese actors, has in interesting time delay that you get used to in time, say your fifth viewing of the film, but at first is laughable, but soon becomes loveable.

The G'ster concept was the offspring of two films primarily. King Kong, with it's stop action movement, and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms which featured the creature created by Hollywood’s ace monster maker, Ray Harryhausen, who also gave us UFO's in Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers and a space lizard that came from 20,000,000 Miles to Earth! So..just who the hell played Godzilla in most of the Toho tofu funfests of atomic monster gone berserk? It was a gentleman named Eiji Tsuburaya who donned the 200 pound costume as he stepped not so lightly, an atomic bull in a Japanese china shop and leveled most of Tokyo. Over and over again. The costume was made of melted rubber tires that were fashioned and designed into the rock star of Atomic Monsters. In effect if the creature Godzilla was the Frankenstein monster, then Tsuburaya was Boris Karloff! One of my favorites in the series, and there are many is the one with Mechagodzilla, the heavy metal Led Zeppelin alter ego of our rubber suited creature from the depths of Japanese imagination. Destroy All Monsters is another, but nothing beats the original Godzilla: King of the Monsters with a Raymond Burr up it's cinematic ass!

I don't care how good you are, without a strong supporting cast, you ain't shit. In Godzilla's case the members of the "rat pack fraternity" of the Toho monster mafia, include Rodan, the Flying Monster, Mothra, the slimy slug, King Ghidorah, Varan, Minilla and others. They brought havoc to earthlings in one form or another, sort of like the Republican Party here in America, and Godzilla on many occasions jumped into the fray to save our puny ass, over and over again. In the end, humanity would turn on Godzilla and try to waste him with rockets and gunfire and torpedoes and planes and tanks and atomic weapons, oh my. So much for gratitude.

Godzilla, the Final Wars is probably the worst of the Toho series. Too much reliance on computer graphics and it somehow losses it's appeal. Hopefully, in the new Godzilla, slated to be released in a year or so by Toho, they will get back on track with some really dandy art and cheesy effects that made Godzilla so goddamned charming. Either way, the Atomic Monster Rat Pack is getting ready to roar again on the big screen. Raymond Burr is long gone, but Godzilla will live forever, destroying Tokyo yet again in the 21st Century, and like Sinatra, he'll do it His Way!