Eugene Lourie and Godzilla

It's worthwhile to point out that Gojira (1954) and the three Lourie films
(Beast from 20.000 Fathoms, Giant Behemoth, and Gorgo) are all essentially
the same film.

And it's a related group. Godzilla was styled as a Rhedosaur clone before
going with a spined T-rex design, and Gojira apes much of the basic plot of
BF20KF. Behemoth is a lower-budget British remake of Beast, with a slightly
more dangerous, but less interesting monster.

Gorgo is the interesting one. With Gorgo, the set comes full circle.

Beast took a dinosaur, woke him with an atom bomb, and had him attack a
major city.

Gojira took the same setup, made it larger, and mad eit overtly nuclear --
with a radioactive flame and radiation poisoning.

Behemoth borrowed the radioactive aspect of Godzilla and the rest from
Beast, and set it near London, but without major rampage.


Gorgo, the last of the set, is obviously modeled on Godzilla. In fact, if
Gorgo had flame breath and a nuclear origin, it could almost be a Godzilla
film (G vs MG picks up a good chunk of Gorgo's plot). But Gorgo has
dispensed with any sort of a nuclear involvement.


So, effectively, we've got:
Beast -- non-radioactive with bomb-related origin
Gojira -- radioactive with bomb-related origin
Behemoth -- radioactive without (overt) bomb-related origin
Gorgo -- non-radioactive without bomb-related origin

The four movies make a set, and are an interesting view into how monster
movies changed throughout that time period, with The Bomb both waxing and
waning in importance as the period progressed.


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