I am a big Godzilla fan. Like genuinely. The original 1954 Japanese movie in unironically one of my favourite films and the whole reason I'm into monster movies in the first place. It wasn't the first, I'm sure there are giant monster Sci-Fi movies from the late 40's and early 50's that predate it (some of which I'll probably end up covering on here at some point!) but it was the launchpad for a genre that still generates films today and it's status in cinematic history is legendary. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered, only the other day, that there is actually a British "knock off" version of it! Gorgo, produced in 1961 by Frank & Maurice King and directed by French Director; Eugène Lourié. I use the phrase "knock off" probably a bit disingenuously, as despite being so obviously influenced by Godzilla and the Kaiju movies, the plot of the movie actually is a completely different story, subtracting the whole; monster destroys the city part, and is not a localized carbon copy. Some actual effort and energy went into the production of the movie, or... at least I'm lead to believe it did! There's only one way to find out really I guess!
After an undersea volcano erupts, damaging their salvage vessel; Captain Joe Ryan (Bill Travers) and First Mate Sam Slade (William Sylvester) make landfall at an Irish village on Nara Island and pay a visit to the Harbour Master's cottage where they befriend orphan; Sean (Vincent Winter) who is half way through showing them all the cool stuff they dredge up when Andrew McCartin (Christopher Rhodes) - the Harbour Master boots them out and tells them they have 24 hours to get out of bay. Suspicious that the Harbour Master might be trying to get rid of them, Joe and Sam decide to do some investigating and discover that x2 Irish Divers failed to return to the surface yesterday. After discovering the corpse of one Diver, his hand stuffed with gold, the pair decide to deep dive into the bay themselves hoping to plunder treasure and whilst poking around an old wreck, they watch in horror as a prehistoric creature swims right passed them. Scared half to death the pair surface and swear not to go back down there and are all set to depart the bay when they are summoned to McCartin's office. McCartin, suspicious of the pair, demands they set sail immediately but before that conversation can go any further, the giant creature from earlier in the day surfaces and attacks the harbour, destroying the fishing boats and ransacking the harbour, only driven back into the ocean by the Sailor's firey torches. The following morning after "convincing" (blackmailing) McCartin into sharing his plundered treasure in return for getting rid of the creature Joe and Sam ultimately decide to capture the beast alive instead and after Joe almost dies in the process, they manage to entangle it in nets and drag it onboard. As news of the Creature from Nara Island sweeps across the country, Joe and Sam ultimately decide to snub the offer from the University of Dublin to purchase the creature, instead deciding to sell it to Dorkin's Circus in London. Unbeknownst to the crew however orphan Sean had snuck onboard the vessel and tries to rescue the creature, believing from the beginning that it should be allowed to roam free, and despite being stopped by Joe and Sam, the creature still manages to kill one of the crewman whilst trying to wrestle free. Arriving in London the creature is christened Gorgo by the Circus, which Dorkin (Martin Benson) explains is adopted from the Gorgon of Greek Mythology, and whilst being lowered into it's compound, despite being heavily sedated, Gorgo is awoken by the flash of a Journalist's camera and proceeds to go on a rampage, wrecking the compound and killing a worker, and has to be shepherded into the enclosure by men with flamethrowers as fire seems to be the only means to control it. Gorgo becomes a national attraction whilst Joe, Sam and Sean, who I guess they have adopted now, take up residence at the Circus, however Sam begins to have reservations about the creature, worried that there will be more disaster and bloodshed to come (oooooh, foreshadowing!) but their conversation is interrupted by the Dublin Professors, asking them both to come see them immediately. Arriving at the University of Dublin, the Professors inform them that they believe Gorgo is only an infant and that there is likely a parent out there somewhere that would be nearly 3 times as large... meanwhile back on Nara Island, McCartin is just minding his own business when a giant Gorgo rampages through the bay crushing everything in it's path and destroying the island! After losing contact with Nara Island, the British Navy dispatches a reconnaissance fleet who spot the creature heading inland towards England. Summoning Joe and Sam to the Admiralty Headquarters, Admiral Brooks (Basil Dignam) asks the pair for any information they may have that would help stop the giant Gorgo but the pair are ultimately dismissed when attempts to stop the giant fail. Returning to the Circus, Sam almost sets the smaller Gorgo (who is still pretty big, really, to be fair) free but is stopped by Joe. Meanwhile despite the Navy, and later the Army's best attempts, both are unable to stop big Gorgo from making it's way down the River Thames and into Central London, smashing Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament along the way. Back at the Circus, little Gorgo burns out the electric fence around it's compound as it tries to thrash it's way loose but Sam and Joe decide that chasing after Sean, who hitches a ride away on an Army van, seems more important for some reason... The pair get separated when they run into a crowd of panicking Londoners trying to escape the scene, but Joe manages to catch up and save Sean as big Gorgo rampages through the streets, stomping on, and thrashing at every building in it's way! As big Gorgo demolishes Piccadilly Square and the Navy consider electrocuting the creature to death, Sam catches up with Joe and Sean but they can only watch on as attempts to electrify the creature fail and it easily smashes it's way into the circus, crushing the compound walls and setting it's child free, and as big Gorgo makes it's way back down the River Thames with it's child, Sean watches on smiling as they are finally free.
COR BLIMEY! This was alright, actually, it was very much a product of it's time; an era before computerised special effects were really a thing, but despite that, and taking into account it's a 60 year old movie by this point, it was still pretty enjoyable. The plot borrowed heavily from King Kong and Godzilla, to a degree, but still managed to have an original twist to it; casting the creature as a prehistoric monster and having it set in England / Republic of Ireland and having it be a creature of Irish lore. They borrowed very liberally from the stock footage archive, but it did enough of it's own to make up for it and whilst, production wise, it wasn't the most polished movie ever, that in of itself almost gave it it's charm and fashioned itself as the movies aesthetic.
Let's focus first on the special effects. As aforementioned; being from a time before computer SFX, there was a heavy reliance on the traditional methods which gave Gorgo (err... both of them...) a very stiff, rigid movement, but despite knowing that it was so obviously a man in a suit sometimes, it was a pretty convincing looking monster and did enough to at least resemble some kind of dinosaur-looking ocean dwelling creature. There was consistency amongst the set design, when it wasn't a man in a suit, to help keep that illusion going and broadbrushly speaking they did a good job with the creature. The scenes of it rampaging through Central London were genuinely good and it was obvious a lot of effort went into re-creating key London landmarks for Gorgo to crush, and they absolutely looked pretty real, for the most part anyway. Some of the camera trickery employed here to make it all happen was at the peak of it's time.
The cinematography also had some really clever, really creative shots, that really helped to push the boundaries of the movie beyond being just another Sci-Fi monster movie. There was plenty of very nice, very clear shots of Gorgo as he flapped his jaw, but there was also pretty good shots of the 3 central characters throughout the movie, it was obvious some real creativity went into making the movie look interesting. By today's standards (and keeping in mind I watched a HD remaster) there were moments when it was painfully obvious a character was standing in front of a green screen and moments when everything seems to go a bit wacky and wild contrast and saturation-wise but that mostly just added to aesthetic of it being a really old film and therefore, part of the experience, and I actually found that more enjoyable than it being a hinderance.
Whilst there wasn't huge amounts of acting a dialogue, there was enough to put the story together and for the most part both Bill Travers and William Sylvester as the leads, and even a very young Vincent Winter as Sean did a pretty decent job. All three characters were convincing enough in their roles and Sean had moments where he genuinely looked distressed as Gorgo was being attacked, cementing the empathy he felt for the creature, and he portrayed it really well. Most of everything else got a bit generic and very stereotypically British but that was more the style at the time than a poor reflection on the movie.
As aforementioned though, the movie was far from a polished experience. There was some very heavy peppering of stock footage, especially in the last quarter as the Brits battled Gorgo, but it was sprinkled with original filmed content to contextualize it in the movies defence, however there was a distinct clash where stock footage was utilized against the movie footage, for example fighter jets shown flying and shooting missiles in obvious broad daylight, were attacking Gorgo in obvious night time... I guess they had to strike a balance between deployment of the footage to build the movies immersiveness or not include the footage and risk cheapening the production values. There was also a good handful of scenes that seemed to be hastily cropped or transitioned quite jerkily but this was likely down to pacing to get the movie run time down. None of this I felt really spoiled the movie though, and despite the aforementioned it generally flowed quite nicely.
I mean, I'm obviously slightly biased as I 1) love Sci-fi movies 2) love monster movies, 3) am British and 4) like old movies, so this ticked alot of my boxes, but I could genuinely feel that this movie was made with love and with care and attention. It's certainly more than the sum of it's parts on paper: let's make a Godzilla movie knock off, and it does feel disingenuous to just label it as that because it is more than just that. Gorgo is never going to step outside of Godzilla's shadow, but if you are a fan of Kaiju movies, you could certainly do worse, much, much worse, than this one. 3 out of 5.
