From the 1954 film, Gojira directed by Honda Ishiro

As I remember it, Houston ABC affiliate, KTRH, would show Godzilla movies with some regularity on Sunday afternoons. That memory shares the same space in my sense of nostalgia as Star Trek marathons and Kung Fu theater. Mildly fascinated with only a passing interest by the colorful cast of monsters and super low-budget but stylish miniature effects, I still don’t love this series of films. But I have a profound respect for it.

I think the most compelling reason that ‘Gojira’ ought to be kept fresh in our mind is not merely the use of the atomic bomb, but the effect it has had on the people of Japan. In the day of its initial theatrical release, I can only imagine a crude approximation of how important this film was to the Japanese audience. ‘Gojira’ was nominated for best picture in Japan that year. ‘Seven Samurai’, Japan’s other world-famous film export by one of their most important artists in cinema, Akira Kurosawa, was also released that year. ‘Seven Samurai’ won the award, but the fact that these two seemingly disparate films were in category competition speaks volumes. Interestingly enough, both films share one of cinema’s top performers, Shimura Takashi.