Godzilla returns to the big screen in South West Silents’ autumn season

OK, so you’ve spotted the error: Toho studio’s franchise-launching 1954 monster movie isn’t actually a silent film. But it’s always a pleasure to see the original Godzilla back on the big screen. More sombre than the silly sequels that followed, this has the eponymous gigantic dinosaur reawakened by atomic testing to stomp around and breathe radioactive halitosis on screaming Tokyo folks.

For US and European consumption, Godzilla was cut by 15 minutes, with new scenes featuring Raymond Burr as a reporter spliced in to the dubbed dino mayhem. Gone was the original film’s explicit plea for peace and an end to nuclear testing. Thankfully the august British Film Institute has now released the original fifties film in its full uncut glory.

You can see it at the Arnolfini on Saturday 30 October, with an introduction by Aardman archivist Tom Vincent, who’s billed as Bristol’s premier Godzilla fan. This is part of South West Silents‘ contribution to the BFI’s nationwide BFI Japan 2021: 100 Years of Japanese Cinema film season.

Godzilla takes a radical approach to urban planning

The day-long event includes two other intriguing early Japanese classics. Dragnet Girl, Yasujirō Ozu’s idiosyncratic 1933 take on the style and influence of Hollywood gangster genre, is the tale of a mild-mannered typist who transforms into a fun-loving gangster’s moll at sunset.

A Page of Madness

Believed lost for decades, Kinugasa Teinosuke’s experimental, avant-garde 1924 film A Page of Madness uses pioneering techniques to immerse its audience in the story of a retired sailor (Masao Inoue) who becomes a custodian at a mental hospital to be closer to his estranged wife (Yoshie Nakagawa), one of the patients at the facility. Both screenings feature live piano accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

South West Silents’ autumn residency at the Arnolfini also brings us four films in Bristol Ideas‘ #BristolFilm2021 Paris Season. First up on October 28 is René Clair’s scene-setting nostalgic 1947 romcom Le Silence est d’or (aka Man About Town), whose love triangle shenanigans are set against the backdrop of a Paris film studio, circa 1906. This one will be introduced by BFI curator Bryony Dixon.

There’s more René Clair on October 29 in the form of the splendid 1924 comic fantasy Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge. Based on a novel by Walter Schlee, it’s the tale of a chap who agrees to be hypnotised by a performer at the Moulin Rouge nightclub. His freed spirit (the Phantom) then goes on a mischievous romp around the city. But his fun comes to an end when he has to return to his comatose body to save the mesmerist from being charged with his murder. This screening includes musical accompaniment from pianist Stephen Horne and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry – the world’s only silent movie harpist.

Next up on November 4 is the five-act romantic drama Dans les mansardes de Paris (1926): the story of a poor and sick young girl living in Montmartre who dreams of the King of the Mansards, the defender of the oppressed, and falls in love with her neighbour, Lucien. This one has live piano accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

Finally, on November 5 there’s a screening of Crainquibille (1922), which offers a rare insight into the lives of the poor in early 20th century Paris through the tale of a vegetable peddler who gets caught in the cogs of a corrupt legal system after resisting attempts by a policeman to move him on from his pitch of 40 years in Les Halles.

Go here for the full programme.

Main pic: Godzilla. All images supplied by the BFI.