Gigantis The Fire Monster was the American title to the 1955 Japanese sequel to Gojira, originally titled Gojira no gyakushû (aka Godzilla Raids Again. Made with surprising haste, and with a cast -- excluding Takashi Shimura, who repeated his role from the earlier movie -- not nearly as good, and special effects that were far less convincing than anything in the first movie, the movie was something of a disappointment (though still a success) in Japan; and it is interesting to note that Gojira -- or Godzilla -- disappeared from movies for the next six years, as Toho Studios turned toward other monsters (Rodan, Mothra) and science fiction stories to fill their production schedule. There are interesting elements to this movie, few of which are explored adequately in the rather slipshod screenplay -- the two heroes in this 1955 movies, for instance, are former military pilots who survived the Second World War and are now reduced to flying scout planes for a commercial fishing fleet; and they feel the consequences of their reduced station in life. Additionally, much of the drama here is focused on ordinary civilians, rather than anyone in the government who is dealing directly with the threat of Godzilla. And that makes for an interesting variation on the first movie -- the characters, badly drawn as many of them are, are simply ordinary people from all walks of life, trying to cope with the aftermath of catastrophe, and new tragedy unfolding around them. Unfortunately, we never get far enough inside of any of them to take advantage of the thematic material touched on by the script. And the poorer special effects, plus an indifferent music score, made the movie considerably less than its predecessor in the eyes of most viewers. And then there is the US version, Gigantis The Fire Monster, issued in 1959 in America. For reasons that seem beyond comprehension, the original American distributor appears never to have considered issuing this as an actual "Godzilla" movie in the United States, despite the success of the first film in America -- rather, he tried to sell Godzilla as a new monster, christened Gigantis, and then couldn't understand the relatively small return he got on his investment. Editor/director Hugo Grimaldi supervised the dubbing of the movie, somewhat ineptly, and the re-scoring of the movie -- which was no great loss, as the original music was rather lackluster -- with stock music of the period (lifted, in part, from Kronos). The American version has its defenders, few though they are, and both were issued together on DVD in America in the early 2000s.