I View The 1977 Italian Version Of Godzilla

Before I discuss this bizarre oddity, the copy of this I saw online was NOT the piss-poor print on YouTube; rather, it was on another popular site, said to be restored by a random person. That at least looked pretty good in terms of quality. Now, for those unfamiliar: infamous Italian filmmaker Luigi Cozzi wanted to cash in on the popularity of the 1976 King Kong so he ended up at Toho and acquired Godzilla... only it was the 1956 American version where Raymond Burr was spliced in. The Italian distributor did not want to release something black and white, necessitating it being colorized. The way it was done has garnered the whole enterprise a reputation for being psychedelic. A gel process was used; it was not consistent, meaning that scenes would hardly have any color at all, while some bits looked more traditional, but a lot of it can be best described as “splotches of color laid on the frame”... it comes across as very peculiar and trippy.

The product commonly referred to as Cozzilla is not just a colorized version of Godzilla, King of the Monsters! Additional moments were also added... this includes clips from The Train (yes, the Frankenheimer movie), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, an effects shot from Godzilla Raids Again for some reason, and some others. Unfortunately, real life footage of the aftermath of Hiroshima is also there-seeing buildings leveled is fine. It can be said that the message of the movie was obvious already without that being stressed. Yet Cozzi demonstrated that he'll always be an exploitation filmmaker as also included was... actual corpses left behind from the atomic bomb being dropped. That was just gross and not needed whatsoever.

If this wasn't already peculiar enough, there's also some 70's Italian synth movie present, obviously inspired by Moroder. Otherwise, it's the original score. Everything about this creation is just odd, resulting in an incomparable viewing experience. Some of the scenes actually looked awesome with the coloring process (I am referring to Gojira's attack on Tokyo; there is plenty of red and orange from the fire, along with other pigments), yet the trashy aspects left a sour note. Thus, I'll rate it the same as I do Godzilla, King of the Monsters! One last note: Fangoria fans will be delighted to hear that the image of Godzilla which appears on the cover of its debut issue is taken from the poster of this release.