Gojira

TCM is running a night of movies directed by Inoshiro Honda tonight, starting with Gojira at 8:00 PM. Americans, of course, would know the movie as Godzilla. However, the Godzilla that Americans know isn't quite the same as the one the Japanese know. When the movie was first going to be distributed to a borad American viewing audience, there were establishing scenes added with Raymond Burr as an American journalist, and all of the dialogue dubbed into English. This was released as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

The last time the movie showed up -- at least, I think when TCM had the "Drive-In Monsters" summer feature a year or two ago was the last time -- TCM played Godzilla, King of the Monsters! I suppose that's not inappropriate, as that would probably have been the movie that brought people to the drive-in back in the day. There's also the interesting topic of what constitutes a new movie, but that's a topic for a different day.

At any rate, TCM's schedule page today seems to imply that it's the original, Perry Mason-less version of Gojira that's airing today. The TCM schedule even calls it Gojira and not Godzilla. (The pronunciation shouldn't be an issue for English-speaking audiences, who have all the letters in Gojira; as I understand it, Japanese doesn't have the "dz" combination and definitely not the L.) TCM is also showing Rodan at 9:45 PM and Mothra at 11:15. That last one was originally called Mosura in Japanese (I don't believe Japanese has the "th" sound), so I find it interesting that TCM is using the Japanese title for one of the movies and the English-language title for the other.