Film Review | Gorgo | From The Couch

Released: 1961
Starring: Bill Travers, William Sylvester, Vincent Winter
Director: Eugène Lourié
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Rated: Unrated (UK – PG)

“Like nothing you’ve ever seen before!”

I have a soft spot for giant monster movies and while I have a favorite monster of my own (Gamera) I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy watching Gorgo. I feel it is a slightly different take on the classic large monster destroys city format by giving the monster a reason for knocking all those buildings down.

The film begins aboard a salvage ship as the captain is diving underwater off the coast of Ireland looking for items to retrieve for money. When an underwater volcano rises and erupts damaging his ship. While staying in port off Nara Island, the crew are shunned and warned to leave the island even though they are not seaworthy. While trying to find out why they are being chased away, they witness a large creature under the water and they are present when it comes ashore and is chased away by the locals. Offering (and succeeding) to capture the creature for a price, they then bring to London to display through a local circus and make a fortune, naming it Gorgo in the process. However, a discovery by scientists about Gorgo makes them fear what else is in the ocean. The creature they capture is only an infant and the mother is coming for her child.

Gorgo is a fun giant monster film that has some pretty high productions values for the time. The special effects were far better than many similar films of the time. However, modern audiences may actually be put off by many of the effects now. In particular, there is a lot of overlaying effects on the film. Fog rolling over crew while they are on a ship, debris falling onto bystanders and more seem to be accomplished by having one film over top another. All this really accomplishes is making the film dark and the colors dull. However, there are a few times where it works well.

The Gorgo and Ogra creatures are accomplished through suit acting and miniaturization of the environment. The suits are really well done. There is plenty of detail and you can’t really tell where the pieces of the suits connect. Gorgo’s and Ogra’s actor (Mick Dillon; Dr. Who and the Daleks) does really well with his movements as he walks through London, interacts with the buildings, and reacts to outside forces (explosions and such).

Speaking of creatures, there is a scene early in the film that has some large strange looking fish floating dead across the ocean. Captain Ryan comments that the volcano must have shaken up the ocean floor, but even after lifting one of the dead creatures out of the water, doesn’t comment about never seeing a fish like that before and it is never brought up again. Weird to place in a custom fish and only make a small comment about it.

The story is fairly engrossing for this type of film and contains a theme of the environment on man’s interaction with it. While the lead characters of Captain Joe Ryan (Bill Travers; The Seventh Sin, The Bridal Path) and Sam Slade (William Sylvester; 2001 A Space Odyssey, Devil Doll) are well acted, they don’t really have much development throughout the film. The child character of Sean (Vincent Winter; The Bridal Path, Almost Angels) is the one most audiences will probably connect to and was written that way. Sean seems to connect to Gorgo through his understanding of ancient mythology and constantly warns against capturing or hurting the creature. There is a bit of a story about sunken treasures off the coast of a small Irish island, but this is quickly forgotten once Gorgo is captured.

All the cast give top notch performances. Bill Travers is believable as a man who is hunting his fortune. William Sylvester gives a great performance when he begins to regret their decision to capture and cage Gorgo. Even young Vincent Winter does a solid job. There is little weakness in any of the actors’ performances.

Lots of uses of landmarks for the London setting. They even made a large replica of Gorgo tied down on a trailer and drove it through Piccadilly Circus. No miniaturization was used for this and it really shows the quality and care they wanted for the film. We also get to see some other landmarks including Big Ben and the Tower Bridge. We definitely know we are in London during this movie.

The monsters’ roaring is very unique and if I heard it in line with other film monsters, I would be able to easily pick it out. That is a great little thing that gives the creatures depth and character. The audio on the version I watch (VCI, 2014 release DVD) was pretty good. It was clear and strong. There were a few sync issues when actors lines seemed re-dubbed. Other than that, a good transfer and restoration.

Picture quality was ok. As I said before, there were issues when special effects were used. The screen would suddenly become dull, dark and sometimes even grainy. The night shots may have been a bit more on the dark side than I would’ve liked, but that may have been from the initial shooting versus the production of the DVD. You can still see plenty well enough to enjoy the film.

If you grab the VCI release of the DVD or Blu-Ray, you will get a good amount of special features including a making-of, a documentary of the film, trailers, stills, a movie comic, and a video showing the restoration of the film for the release. Where some films are happy giving you the movie, this one filled up the disc with a lot of goodies.

Gorgo is a unique film in a genre that is overflowing with sequels, copycats, and remakes. The production company took a formula from Godzilla and gave it their own spin. They put in extra work on production and acting and released this solid film for us to enjoy. You like classic Godzilla? Watch Gorgo. In fact, check the skyline for giant monsters, pop this movie into your player, sit back, enjoy, and save me some popcorn!