That's true, the DVDs are at least mostly in widescreen, but some are
not, such as the now out-of-print King Kong vs. Godzilla. Godzilla's
Revenge *is* underrated, mostly by those who fail to appreciate the
fact that it is a commentary on the then-current state of the Japanese
family and the pros and cons of Japan's postwar economic miracle.

The stock footage issue in Godzilla's Revenge continued throughout most
of the 1970s Godzilla films. When making Godzilla vs. Gigan, Toho
tightened the purse strings even further: the soundtrack, by Akira
Ifukube, is actually made up of parts of Ifukube's scores to various
other Toho films, such as Atragon, Destroy All Monsters, Frankenstein
Conquers the World, and Latitude Zero.

Chris


On Tuesday, February 4, 2003, at 10:44 AM, Scott Andrew Hutchins wrote:

> The U.S. DVDs of the Godzilla films are all widescreen (except for
> _Terror
> of Mechagodzilla_ and those made in 1.33), but they offer only the
> English-dubbed version, even in cases where there was little or no
> cutting
> from the Japanese version (which basically includes _Godzilla's
> Revenge_, an
> underrated family drama in which Godzilla appears only in dream
> sequences,
> much loathed due to the fact it has so much stock footage).
>
> Scott Andrew Hutchins
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Examine The Life of Timon of Athens at Cracks in the Fourth Wall
> Theatre & Filmworks
> http://mywebpages.comcast.net/scottandrewh
>
> "But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth,
> lust and
> stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude,
> justice
> and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all...why then perhaps
> we
> *must* stand fast a little--even at the risk of being heroes." --Sir
> Thomas
> More, _A Man for All Seasons_, by Robert Bolt
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Christopher Nuzzi" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 8:07 PM
> Subject: Re: 40 for DVD--not likely
>
>
>> On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 10:45 PM, Scott Andrew Hutchins
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Matango (Ishiro Honda, 1963)
>>
>>
>> Obviously, the list is in no particular order, otherwise Matango, the
>> Fungus of Terror (AKA Attack of the Mushroom People) would be first.
>> :-)
>>
>> Seriously, Ishiro Honda is a director who is often overlooked,
>> dismissed as "the director of those awful Godzilla movies" by most. In
>> fact, he was a great filmmaker who worked as assistant director with
>> Kurosawa on some of his later films, such as Kagemusha and Ran.
>>
>> As for the Godzilla films, before you criticize, see the original
>> Japanese versions, in widescreen for the ones that were filmed that
>> way. They are very different films than the badly dubbed, re-edited,
>> panned-and-scanned versions that most Americans have seen on TV in
>> their childhood. In particular, see the original Japanese version of
>> Godzilla (1954), which features Takashi Shimura of Seven Samurai fame
>> as the lead. The American version was butchered of about half of its
>> footage in order to make room for poorly integrated scenes featuring
>> Raymond Burr as an American reporter.
>>
>> Chris Nuzzi
>>
>> ----
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