-= Godzilla Raids Again (1955) =-
Spoilers Ahead - this post contains the plot for Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
My personal notes can be found at the bottom
Our film begins with the shot of a plane flying over sea. The pilot, named Tsukioka, is a pilot for a fishery/cannery and he is looking for schools of fish to inform the fishing boats about; when he spots one, he radioes it in and the nearest fishing boat heads that way. Tsukioka is flirting with the radio operator, Hidemi, and her colleague is jokingly telling her that's unacceptable behavior (especially because Hidemi's dad is their boss) but she playfully says she'll buy her coworker some red bean soup. To this, her colleage is like "nevermind then hehe". Another pilot also out on a flight (Kobayashi) starts having sudden engine issues, and Tsukioka is called in to help him as the plane makes an emergency landing on a nearby island.
As the two men sit on the island and recouperate, lighting a fire to rest for a bit before they return to Osaka in Tsukioka's plane, they see Godzilla peeking his head over some rocks. Strangely, however, Godzilla is seen fighting something, another large creature. As the two fall into the ocean as they tussle, Kobayashi and Tsukioka make their escape back home. Back in the city, they inform their company about what they saw, and are then shown looking over a bunch of pictures of dinosaurs to identify what it was they saw fighting Godzilla. They stumble upon one that looks exactly like our mystery monster, and we see that Professor Yamane makes a triumphant return to this second film!
They call our new monster Anguirus, an ankylosaurus. Yamane continues by reading a report on specifically Anguirus, written by Dr. Piotr Hodor from the Polish Paleontology Association --
"Anguirus, ranging from 150 to 200 feet in height, is exclusively carnivorous and extremely violent. It's extremely nimble for its massive size. Furthermore, the most remarkable difference bwteen it and other animals is that its brain is distrubited across its thorax and abdomen, which contributes to its remarkable agility."
Koyabashi and Tsukioka go on to say that Anguirus made a surprise attack from behind on Godzilla. Yamane says there are currently no measures to fight Godzilla at the time, and instead, he brings film that shows the devastation Godzilla caused back in Tokyo previously during the Godzilla (1954) film. Clips directly from the previous film show, particularly when Godzilla is breaking through the electric fence, melting the pylons, and chewing on the train. Yamane continues by saying all their weaponry wasn't enough to stop Godzilla last time, to which someone else brings up the Oxygen Destroyer-- but Yamane says that there is no more Destroyers and Serizawa, the only man who knew the science behind it, passed away. This is apparently not the original, but a second Godzilla, they conclude. They settle on imposing a blackout and evacuating citizens once they find out where Godzilla and Anguirus will emerge next. Finally, he claims Godzilla is sensitive to light, suspecting it brings back memories from the H-bomb blast-- so maybe drop flares to lure him.
Tsukioka and Hidemi chat about what fate awaits Osaka, hoping it wont be a repeat of Tokyo. Some other people discuss the problem with Godzilla hanging out in the waters, driving away fish. We see a shot of a party wih people slow dancing with a live singer, and we see Hidemi and Tsukioka dancing together. In my humble opinion they already have better chemistry than Ogata and Emiko; no offense to the OGs. The dancing is interrupted by an alert going out, warning that Godzilla has been spotted. The dancers all flee as the intercom asks people to exit calmly, which they are obviously not doing.
A blackout is issued to not draw Godzilla near since the light draws him near. Tanks, fire engines, and servicemen wait on Osaka's shoreline in preparation as the planes drop the flares, catching Godzilla's attention. We then have a really cute shot of Godzilla watching the flares fall. Citizens of Osaka are evacuated, including prisoners. They riot in the back of their transport truck and end up escaping -- 3 in particular. Tsukioka and Kobayashi are driving back in a car when they get stopped by police and asked to follow the truck the prisoners escaped in. The prisoner's truck crashes into what looks like a factory, releasing dark flammable gases. Eventually the whole encampment is ablaze, catching Godzilla's attention moreso than the flares, causing him to return to the Osaka coast. Tanks and planes shoot at him to no avail. This time they actually shoot the suit with fireworks, making contact, unlike in the previous film. He uses his heat ray to set a plane on fire, causing it to crash land and explode.
Then, if things couldn't get any worse, Anguirus appears from the ocean. The defense force attempts to hit him with missiles, but it seems to make both him and Godzilla angrier as the two duel it out. Godzilla uses his heat ray and destroys a bunch of boats, but it doesn't seem to effect Anguirus at all. Someone mentions that the flares that drew Godzilla away ended up drawing Anguirus to the coast. We see Hidemi at home where she can see tons of smoke and fire on the horizon, and she knows something bad has happened-- worrying about Kobayashi and Tsukioka who may still be near the area.
Anguirus repeatedly rears up and bites Godzilla on the neck, mostly doing that and using his claws to swipe at the bipedal Godzilla as they destroy numerous buildings and structures. We once again see the three prisoners who are responsible for the explosion that drew in Godzilla as they attempt to run away from the destruction. I'm honestly shocked they survived the crash and explosion at all. The two monsters cause the nearby subway ceiling to cave in, allowing water to repidly flood inside, which is where the prisoners were hiding lol. There is a cool moment where the two monsters face down and stare at each other for a moment, sizing one another up, before they continue to battle.
Finally, Godzilla gains the upper hand, biting Anguirus' neck as he wails, and it seems as if Anguirus has been gravely wounded as he falls into the nearby water. Godzilla then uses his breath to set Anguirus' body on fire, winning the fight. A news bulliten says that Anguirus' defeat has seemed to pacify Godzilla, as he then returns to the sea-- but we're only about halfway through the movie so you know there's more.
We then get back to our human characters where they're examining the remains of the wreckage, revealing they have found no trace of where Godzilla has gone. The highter ups of the company decide that they'll be moving the fishery and cannery to Hokkaido for the time being. They all have a sweet moment where they're all conversing and laughing despite the situation, much more humanity than we saw in the previous film.
We have a bit of a time skip to Hokkaido, where Kobayashi has been moved. He jokes about finding a bride while he's flying and scanning the sea for fish. A fishing boat gets a report on the location of a large fish school as they wave a hello to the pilot.
Hidemi and Tsukioka have come to Hokkaido now that the fishery/cannery in Osaka has been rebuilt and they chat with him over the radio. Tsukioka gets to meet with some old friends as the group attends a celebration. They're drinking and singing and having a good time, except for Hidemi, because she's confused why everyone keeps calling Kobayashi "Mr.Groom". Kobayashi goes back and forth between two parities, where Hidemi pries and asks if he's found a girlfriend-- he hasn't quite yet, but he mentions there's a certain girl.... when someone comes in and reports that one of the company's ships has sunk and they believe it was Godzilla. Planes are then sent out to search the area, Tsukioka being among them. Kobayashi comes in to the radio room and asks Hidemi what girls like, and she replies with things like handbags, watches, and stockings. Tsukioka is still flying and searching for wreckage when he sees Godzilla swimming, which he reports. Low on fuel, Tsukioka returns to report back and they make a plan to trap and kill Godzilla. While he does this, Kobayashi hurries out to take over the tracking from Tsukioka, and he leaves his journal behind-- which Hidemi finds is holding a picture of the girl he's crushing on.
The defense force is sent out, and they drop bombs on Godzilla at the island he has emerged on-- but they have no effect. Kobayashi unfortuntely gets hit by his heat ray as he distracts Godzilla and crashes, but it causes an avalanche, which gives Tsukioka an idea. He informs the pilot he's flying with to use the mountain and snow to their advantage-- to cause an avalanche large enough to bury Godzilla. They create a fire wall with barrels to keep the monster contained in one area as the fighter planes return after being equipped with missiles, blowing up the mountain further, causing the avalanche to cover Godzilla. Tsukioka lands the final missle shots that do so; his revenge for Kobayashi's death.
-= Notes =-
The paleontology in this film vastly improved from the previous one, and while it's inaccurate to what we know to be true today, at the time it was what science knew. When Anguirus is named and we see the first picture of him in the dinosaur book, I wish they could have included an actual picture of an ankylosaur instead and not just the cut-paste Anguirus picture. They were like "that's an ankylosaur" among all of the actual biological 50s paleoart illustrations so it just seemed kind of silly. Maybe calling him a "type" of ankylosaur, but he doesn't even have a clubbed tail so!!!! At least they got the years of the mesozoic more accurate, saying dinosaurs walked the earth 70-150 million years ago instead of 2 mya. That's a significant difference in geological time that's worth noting.
Another point about Anguirus being a supposed ankylosaur is interesting in the sense that the report Yamane reads from claims that Anguirus specifically is a very violent carnivore, but despite being quadrupedal he's very nimble because his brain is distributed across its thorax and abdomen. Despite obviously being incorrect, I enjoyed this little addition -- in the early years of paleontology, many people thought stegosaurus in particular (not ankylosaurs) had a brain in its head and a second one in its tail-- because the brain case on stegosaurs is so small, people imagined that something so big could not survive with a brain as small as a walnut. So obviously, they must have a second brain in the base of their tail where there's a large cavity in the hip area!
We now know today that modern birds (who are taxonomically dinosaurs) have that same sacral cavity that stores glycogen. It seems silly in retrospect, but that's what people believed at the time-- so having paleontological information like that in a film (which was pre-dinosaur renaissance, mind you) is really cool.
In addition, ankylosaurs (and stegosaurs for that matter) were herbivorous, but if I were a modern day Godzilla writer I would just write that off as "oh Anguirus is a derived secondarily-carnivorous ankylosaur" instead of retconning it.
Besides the paleontology, I liked that the human characters had some nice moments. The romance between Tsukioka and Hidemi, the potential romance for Kobayashi and the resulting sullenness that came with the realization that he was dead and his girlfriend would have to find that out, and the moments where they were able to drink and laugh really gave some humanity to the film. Even in times of hardship and disaster, that's the nature of the human spirit-- to have hope.
1.9.2024
