Ok, I was warned...
Imagine my delight several months ago when I learned that the legendary 1954 Toho Kabushiki-kaisha (東宝株式会社, a.k.a. Toho Studios) film, GOJIRA (ゴジラ, a.k.a. "Godzilla"), the seminal film of my life, would be released in the U.S. in a high-definition transfer on Blu-ray disc on the Classic Media label. I have already seen a number of HD transfers of black and white films and many have been spectacular, including Sir Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949), Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) and others. With the prior deluxe two-disc DVD release by Classic Media of the subtitled 1954 Japanese original -- the first time it appeared on a commercial U.S. DVD -- along side of the famed 1956 U.S. version (not only dubbed into English but re-cut and featuring new scenes with the late Raymond Burr), one would have assumed that this Blu-ray issue would be quite fine. (This, even considering the fact that they were not using -- according to several reports -- one of the near-mint condition/digitally cleaned and restored, Toho master prints.)
