It took me a while, but I finally watched Godzilla, King of the Monsters! all the way through last night.

I’d never seen it straight through before, so this was important. It’s surprisingly effective, despite the fact that special effects have come a long way since the days of destroying model sets. A little slowly paced, but for the most part it was well done. It also provided an interesting comment on Japanese and American post-war relations.

Of course, there was the creature Godzilla, too.

I think it’s easy to see why this flick was so influential. You do see the monster, but it’s almost always in shadow, so you never get a true close-up of all the scaly details. Leaving a little bit in the dark when it comes to monster movies is always a good idea, methinks. The mayhem was also well photographed, though I was a bit dismayed that Takashi Shimura was so underused. C’est la vie.

Good movie. I’m not gonna run to see it again, but I’m glad I have it under my belt.