Plot
Fisherman discover
a giant monster off the Irish coast and take it to London where it is to be put on display
in a circus. However what no one realises is that the monster is in fact an
infant and it's mother, who is almost ten times bigger, soon comes looking
for it, leaving a trail of
destruction wherever it goes.
Review
In the pantheon of cinematic giant
monsters there are some iconic figures. The Americans had King Kong.
The Japanese had Godzilla. The British seem to have pulled the short
straw with Gorgo. Actually maybe Denmark did with Reptilicus
but these two are hardly top-of-the-range monsters. Coined after the
popularity of the giant monster phase of the late 50s, Gorgo at least
some decent pedigree. Director Eugène Lourié was no stranger to the giant
monster genre, having helmed the successful The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
a few years earlier and then the lesser-known The Giant Behemoth. But
even the novelty of seeing London take a beating from a giant monster for a
change can't really disguise the fact that Gorgo is middling entertainment,
good for a laugh and chuckle at how things were back in the day.
Looking back on it after a second viewing,
Gorgo wasn't that bad and it could have been a lot worse. The monster
scenes are alright but the story seems to lack any sort of urgency. It's
pretty flat, dull and rather un-involving where the human characters aren't
interesting in the slightest and everything goes at a leisurely pace, even
Gorgo when she's wading through London. You could say it's typically British
and I could imagine one of the some stiff upper-lipped character calming
saying something like "Dear me, there's a giant monster destroying London.
Whatever should we do, chaps?" Perhaps Gorgo tries a bit too hard to
challenge the likes of Godzilla and copies from it a little too much
at times. Interestingly the title creature isn't just a by-product of atomic
testing but simply something which has never been discovered before. Having
Gorgo trash London in the search for her baby is a little more touching and
heart-rendering than simply having Godzilla smash up Japan because he can.
This adds a little humanity to the monsters here which is a nice touch.
My pet hate about
Gorgo and something which really spoils the film is the awful editing and continuity
which hampered many of the Japanese kaiju films and is something I wouldn't
have expected as much from a British production from the 60s. When
the camera shows the monster, it's trashing London at night. But when it
switches to the stock footage of the planes flying to attack, it's day time.
Did anyone ever hear of continuity? Plenty of model cars and miniature buildings get wasted and a lot
of people run around screaming. You know the drill with big monster films.
Instead of Tokyo, it's London getting wasted this time so it makes a change
seeing famous English landmarks being laid waste to as opposed to the Tokyo
Tower being destroyed for the tenth time! Gorgo sticks to the drill
and doesn't do anything different in the slightest. The monster suit doesn't
look too bad but it's so obvious that these are miniature cities getting
wasted and no one seemed to try and even make them look remotely realistic.
Apparently Lourié tried to recruit Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen to
provide stop motion special effects but had to settle for the man-in-a-suit
route instead.
Verdict
Gorgo isn't anything special
and is more for
kids than Godzilla or King Kong were but at least London
finally got a stomping after New York and Tokyo have been smashed for so
long. A Saturday afternoon timewaster if there ever was one.
