While the ants were annoying Los Angeles, a more majestic trouble-maker rose from Tokyo Bay: Gojira, a Japanese portmanteau word meaning killer whale. In fact, the creature is a 200-ft.-tall dinosaur awakened from a hundred-million-year snooze by, what else, A-bomb tests. He snacks on fishermen from remote islands, then comes to the big city to be a star, and carrying all the modern star’s baggage: nasty disposition, need to demolish things, insatiable appetite for mischief. The original Japanese film, directed by Ishiro Honda, was Americanized as Godzilla (an inspiration coinage, by the way: God + gorilla), with Perry Mason star Raymond Burr inserted into a few scenes. Both versions were big hits; the Japanese followed up with 27 more Godzilla films and many others with such oversize predators as Rodan and Gamera. They’re still making these pictures today.