Monster flicks precede the atomic bomb, but the 1950s brought us the first “monsdter as metaphor for atomic weaponry”
The original Gojira was, by I. Honda’s own admission, his country’s response to Harryhausen’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) – the first 1950s monster movie and the first “atomic menace” monster movie. It’s the URi-1950s monster flick, creating the tropes that would be associated with the genre – giant beast, awakened or created by atomic experimentation or testing,inexorably approaching the City, wreaking havoc, can’t be stopped by conventional weapons. Opposed by the Handsome Young Scientist and his romantic Female Scientist/assistant (and, sometimes, the eccentric Old Professor). They discover its one weakness, and the have only One Shot to kill the creature.
You could argue that, since this was the first appearance of these tropes, they weren’t cliches. Certainly they went out of their way to make them novel. The Beast couldn’t be destroyed not because it was absurdly invulnerable, but because it was infected with a prehistoric disease, and spreading its blood all over the city by wounding it or – worse, blasting it to bits – would only spread the contagion all over. The Creature was heading for the city – whereas most animals, even large ones, avoid large concentrrations of peopled – because it was, salmon-like, heading for its old breeding grounds.
TBf20kF was just as much a metaphor for atomic weaponry as Godzilla was, just not so obviously. It was broken out of the ice that surrounded it by atomic testing in the Arctic. And, in a neat bookend, atomic technology got rid of it. The disease contamination was “atomic cauterized” by them shooting a radioactive lance into the wound, getting rid of the disease and killing the creature simultaneously. It’s almost an anticipation of the 1957 Disney short “Our Friend the Atom”, where the atomic genie, depicted as brought about by nuclear weapons, is shown to b capable of beneficial results like curing diseases.
Inoshiro Honda reportedly wanted to use stop=-motion animation for Gojira, but lacked both money and time. So they used miniature models (I’ve seen pictures of them. I’m pretty sure the Godzilla seen “over the mountain” was one such puppet-model) and a “man in a suit”. But the action was slowed down on film and shown largely in the dark, making it somber, ponderous, and believable. The monster was, again, awakened by atomic testing (the opening scenes with the fishing boast being attacked by a great light from the sea are very clearly inspired by the case of the Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon}, which was caught in the fallout from the Castle Bravo test of the hydrogen bomb). Its destruction of the city by mechanical destruction and heat recalls the effects of the atomic blast (and its skin resembles keloid scars of burn victims), and the scenes of city-wide destruction look like the scenes from war-torn cities or of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Heck, in the original Japanese version they explicitly compare it to those atom-bombed cities.
In the Japanese film, though, we don’t get a demonstration of the benefiucial efects of radiation and atomic studies – we get the example of a Japanese scientist who created a “Doomsday weapon” in the form of Serizawa’s “Oxygen Destroyer”, and uses it to destroy Godzilla. But he first burns all his notes, and commits suicide in using the weapon rather than let the technology loose on the world. The message is clear – if Japan had built the atomic bomb, they wouldn’t have used it.
Both movies play on people’s insecurities and fears and on current events. Americans were definitely insecure when TBf20kF came out in 1953, by which time the Russians has exploded three atomic bombs. The US no longer had a monopoly on the technology, and it had people spooked. Japan was not only the only nation to suffer atomic attacks, it was also the first to suffer the effects of the hydrogen bomb, indirectly. The crew of the fishing boat Fukuryu Maru was caught in the fallouyt of the blast and its crew suffered the effects of radiation sickness. One died of pneumonia aggravated by the condition. But, unbelievably, their contaminated catch of fish was sold and distributed in Japan. When people found out, they panicked. Fish were tested with geiger counters. There’s film footage of people dumping fish into pits for burial. Fish is a huge part of the Japanese diet. For a US parallel – recall how freaked out hamburger-eating Americans were when Mad cow disease popped up in the US twenty years ago.
It’s not that odd to fimnd movies reflecting current knowledge anbd fears. In fact, it’s the normal case. When Cloverfield came out, the monster’s effect, with crumbling buildings producing clouds of smoke, reflected the experience when the World Trade Center collapsed in Manhattan in 2001, just seven years before…