Arkhaven Spotlight: Gorgo
Go away, you make me sad.
For some peculiar reason Godzilla is only popular in Japan and America. Other countries are aware of him but they never took the interest in him that America did.
Japan is one of those countries the US has a special relationship with, it pretty much began with Commodore Perry. It was a relationship that definitely had some love/hate vibes going on. We had a huge war with them, and a prolonged occupation afterward. Godzilla is frequently viewed as a metaphorical stand in for America, hell, he was hatched on Bikini Atoll in 1955 which technically made him an American by birth. When relations with America are bad he is pounding Tokyo to rubble, when they are good… Well he’s still pounding Tokyo but it’s kind of side effect while he takes out the really bad monster.
Consequently, it’s not a surprising that an American film company eventually tried to make one of their own. Japan was looked at as a location but I suspect Toho was able to block them. France and Australia were both considered but rejected. Finally, the UK was selected as the location for Gorgo.
I haven’t bothered to check, I already know the Albion Godzilla came into existence because MGM had money stuck there and they could only spend it on a production.
Regardless, Gorgo had the same director as the Beast From 20,000 Fathoms but did not have Ray Harryhausen, they went with a guy in a rubber suit, making this officially a Kaiju movie. Because I have no other standards for that.
Gorgo didn’t do badly at the box office but all of the strange hoops that Americans had to jump through to film in Britain killed any chance for a sequel. None the less, Gorgo did pretty well in its corner of pop culture. Unless you count some of the sillier episodes of Doctor Who, Gorgo remains the sole Kaiju of the Sceptered Isle.
It had a novelization, naturally enough. But it also had a long running comic book title by none other than Steve Ditko. Gorgo also deeply affected another legend who was waiting in the wings.
Bonus Trailer: Because I normally I don’t normally have a trailer to work with and if you’ve gotten this far you’re probably curious about the original.
GORGO – The 1960’s classic “big monster” movie Gorgo becomes a comic book with scripts by the prolific Joe Gill and wonderful art by Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko.
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