That Time Steve Martin Brought Godzilla To The US
No, not that Steve Martin.
Godzilla demolished Tokyo when the kaiju first emerged from the depths 72 years ago in the original Godzilla’s premiere in Japan, but he didn't make landfall in the United States until two years later. Godzilla: King of the Monsters! was an American edit that went beyond dubbing the film into English, adding scenes and a new protagonist, an American reporter who served as a point-of-view character for '50s audiences watching this foreign flick. While the original 1954 Godzilla is a masterpiece and by far the stronger of the two versions, King of the Monsters! is a largely respectful and effective adaptation that played an important role in Godzilla becoming an international icon. We can thank Steve Martin for that.
Well, no, not that Steve Martin. While the Only Murders in the Building star was around when King of the Monsters! came out, the comedian had nothing to do with Godzilla on account of being 10 years old. Steve Martin just happened to be the name of the American reporter character the US adaptation added to the plot. Steve Martin did a great job introducing Godzilla to the world, as both the character and the actor who played him, Raymond Burr, understood what made Godzilla important — and they would return three decades later to confirm it.
Broadly speaking, Godzilla (Gojira in Japanese) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters! have the same basic plot. A giant monster emerges from the sea and attacks Tokyo. A tortured scientist, Dr. Serizawa, has created a weapon that could be used to destroy Godzilla, but he is unwilling to reveal its existence to the world because he's afraid of what could happen. A love triangle involving the woman he was betrothed to and the sailor she's really interested in, complicates things, and the scientist eventually allows the weapon to be used to slay the monster — but he sacrifices himself in the process so it can never be recreated. In King of the Monsters!, Steve Martin is a reporter who finds himself in Tokyo when ships start mysteriously sinking, so he goes along to report on them, eventually covering the destruction of Tokyo himself. He happens to know Serizawa from college in the pre-war days, which helps get him involved in the main plot, though he's primarily a bystander rather than a person who actively drives events forward.
Filmed over the course of six days using sets and body doubles that helped sell the illusion that Steve Martin had been in the movie the whole time, King of the Monsters! is a fairly impressive work of adaptation. A lot of the dialogue between Japanese characters is not dubbed, and is translated for Steve (and the audience), helping to convey that this is a Japanese story; we're just observers. Certain choices, like opening the film in medias res with an injured Steve getting pulled from the ruins of Tokyo and then revealing what happened in flashback, are good storytelling.
Godzilla stomps through the city in Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the re-edited US release of Godzilla.
It's not perfect. Godzilla is a horror movie made by people whose country had been hit with two nuclear weapons less than a decade before the film came out, and it shows. King of the Monsters! edits out most of the overt references to atomic bombs or hydrogen bomb tests, toned down the anti-war themes, and notably ends with Steve Martin observing that with the demise of Godzilla "the world can wake up and live again." The original ends with a somber warning that another Godzilla will surely emerge if bomb tests continue. It's for this very reason that Godzilla is a masterpiece and King of the Monsters! is good for what it is.
These changes also almost certainly helped make King of the Monsters! a hit. When it came out on April 4, 1956, it would become only the fourth foreign film ever to gross more than $1 million at the American box office. It's hard to imagine this happening in mid-'50s America had the original Godzilla be simply subtitled and released in theaters — or even if it had been dubbed but kept otherwise entirely unchanged from the original. Audiences needed an observer like them (nevermind that Burr was Canadian) to serve as a point of view character. It's really only been in the past couple of decades that general audiences have been more open to "foreign" films. And while it's nice to think that the more explicit, harrowing references to the horrors of American bombing and continued nuclear testing wouldn't have turned Cold War-era yankee moviegoers off, you can sadly see why the deeper message of Godzilla would've been omitted in favor of the spectacle.
The Godzilla King of the Monsters! poster advertises Raymond Burr’s leading role.
Still, even if Steve Martin's closing report downplayed the atomic horror Godzilla represented, he took Godzilla seriously rather than treat him as a silly popcorn monster. This was made especially clear when Steve Martin returned, nearly 30 years later, for Godzilla 1985. An American re-edit of The Return of Godzilla, the 1984 movie that did away with all of the increasingly goofy sequels of the '60s and '70s in favor of a more sober franchise reboot, 1985 did a worse version of what King of the Monsters! did. New scenes involving Americans pondering what to do about Godzilla's attack on Japan were added and plot lines were cut or altered — most offensively a change to make a Soviet soldier seem like he was intentionally firing a nuclear weapon that would revive Godzilla rather than it having it be an accident as in the original film. Also, there was gratuitous Dr. Pepper product placement.
Raymond Burr was innocent, though. Although in his later years and in failing health, Burr returned to reprise his role from King of the Monsters!, as the former reporter having been brought in as a Godzilla expert since he had firsthand experience with the kaiju. Out of respect for Godzilla's importance as a nuclear allegory, Burr refused to let the producers of this American version make a mockery of Godzilla by having him say comedic lines. When watching the added American scenes in Godzilla 1985, it's clear that Burr is tonally in a different movie than the rest of the jokey brass on the fake Pentagon set were. Steve Martin helped introduce the West to Godzilla. It might not have been perfect, but he understood that this was no ordinary monster. That hadn't changed these decades later.
One thing had clearly changed in the mid-'80s, though. At this point the other Steve Martin — the comedian — had appeared in films like The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains. That's why in Godzilla 1985, Burr's character is referred to only by "Steve" or "Mr. Martin."
