GORGO (1961)

GORGO (1961)

Tagline: Like nothing you've ever seen before!

(Sci-Fi, Kaiju, Glowing Red Eyes) [PG]

Note: This movie did not get an MPAA rating. Typically when it comes out on TV it lands a TV-PG rating, so I am going to go ahead and say it would have gotten that rating if it came out in theaters these days. 

Admiral Brooks, I realize the situation is fantastic…

Oh man, so this is basically Britain’s answer to Godzilla. After an undersea earthquake, a salvage boat is almost sunk and the two men in charge of the vessel named Joe Ryan and Sam Slade decide to stick around the Irish coast. Not too long after a giant lizard-like creature at least 25 feet tall arises from the ocean. Joe and Sam seek to exploit it and decide to drag the creature they call “Gorgo” to London for display. Little do they know, Gorgo is the baby…and it’s not alone. 

It should be known that of all the non-Godzilla flicks that came out in the ’60s, this thing is the undisputed ruler. I absolutely LOVE Gamera and Godzilla, but after GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE, the Gamera movies started getting pretty kid-friendly or at least were purposely aimed at kids. GORGO is more aimed at the original GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS crowd. It’s more serious but also kind of sad approach. At the time the special effects were pretty groundbreaking and the movie was one of 15 movies considered in 1961 for best effects. One thing I loved about this flick is that they gave Gorgo red glowing eyes. He was already pretty fierce-looking, but those eyes are just awesome. 

Acting wise the two central characters are played by Bill Travers as Joe Ryan and William Sylvester as Sam Slade. I am not too familiar with Travers, but William Sylvester’s big claim to fame is 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I was bored to death by that movie as a kid, but hey, maybe I will do a review of it after a second viewing and see if I change my mind someday. All of the acting in this movie is solid for its time. I will say that if you are not used to the acting style of the era, it might come across as slightly stiff, but I thought it was solid for this production. 

If there are any complaints I can say that the lower abdomen part of the suit does look overly vinyl or whatever they used for it. I think a few scales or something could have resolved that without too much more expense. The other issue is that the film does “appear” to use a lot of military stock footage. This is another thing that was super common in the era. Kaiju movie masters at TOHO did this all the time and many of their movies even reuse scenes from their own earlier movies. I am not saying that you need to lower “do your own shots” standards for films like this. Just that in an apple-to-apple comparison, GORGO is really well done. You could also that trying to take Gorgo to London was very “KING KONG” ish, but this thing has way more destruction and also doesn’t have a beauty and the best angle. Speaking of that, I guess for some reason the novelization of the movie added a bunch of steaming sex sequences that had nothing to do with the rest of the film. Thank God, they left that out of this movie so that you can show your kids how they did things downtown back in the day. 

Overall it’s possible you really needed to see this when you were young to truly embrace how awesome it is, but from my perspective, the complaints don’t hold up. The storyline is engaging for a kaiju film and I really wanted to see Sean (the little kid in the film) in this thing a bit more because he wasn’t nearly as annoying as almost any other kid in any other kaiju film ever made (maybe with the exception of Mako in the flashback scenes of PACIFIC RIM because even though she's just crying, she is not nagging). 

I loved this film, for me, it’s a strong 7 out of 7 and a fantastic effort to capitalize on the popularity of GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS. Even the lit-up models look amazing. I do think this deserved a sequel and I am pretty bummed that never panned out.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF KING BROTHERS PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.