GODZILLA: King Of The (Rubber Suit) Monsters

It's the spring of 1954, and movie producer Tomoyuki Tanaka is the one with the problem. For the past while he has been spearheading a project to make "Beyond The Glory", a big budget epic which he planned to film in Indonesia.  Unfortunately for him, the country had blocked the film from being made. In World War 2, Japan was (shall we say) unpleasant to the countries it tried to invade (including Indonesia). There is still a lot of animosity now, nearly 70 years after the end of WWII, so you can imagine what it was like only nine years since. 

So Toho Studios (Tanaka's employer) was stuck without an big budget event film for the year. He needed a good idea, and he needed it fast. In Stephen King's book "On Writing", he talks about how new ideas are created when two separate ideas smash together. Tanaka knew that one of the most successful movies from last year was "The Beast From 20000 Fathoms", an action packed film about a dinosaur revived by a bomb test that goes on a rampage in New York City and dies at an amusement park. 

Radiation and monsters...

It goes without saying that Japan was, and is, the only country where atomic bombs were used offensively on it. In Japan, radiation wasn't science fiction but real serious issue. He also knew about a recent tragedy where a fishing boat wandered too close to an US atomic bomb test and got dosed with radiation.

Tragedy...

As Mr. King might put it, "POW!"

What about a serious drama about a bomb test that unleashes a creature that goes on a rampage? The creature as metaphor for... whatever you want it to. The effects of unrestrained technology. The creature becoming a personification of the bomb itself. And how do you defeat such a creature? What are the ethical issues in creating worse and worse weapons? The story potential was limitless.

Tanaka knew he had his new event movie.

He also must have known henow had an unusual new problem: how to make it.

At this point in the history of film, "giant monster" movies of any kind were pretty rare. You could count all the ones made in America on the fingers on one hand, and the Japanese ones on the fingers on one foot. And so, like the old man in The Seven Samurai (which also came out in 1954), he needed to assemble his team.

First he needed a director. A serious director.

A Serious Director:

Ishirō Honda, was a director of serious dramas about serious issues. In addition, he also directed several movies about WWII. These movies required complicated special effects shots at a time where other Japanese directors considered special effects shots to be "cheating". And he had seen the aftermath of the bombing in Hiroshima first hand. A perfect fit.

But a giant monster movie without a giant monster isn't much of a movie (unless you count Cloverfield). Tanaka would need a veritable movie wizard to make this film happen.

The Wizard of F/X

Enter Eiji Tsuburaya, possibly the only special effects artist in the world to be condemned as a war criminal (albeit incorrectly). During the war, the Japanese film industry was pumping out propaganda film just as the US film industry was. For one of these films, Tsuburaya recreated the attack on Pearl Harbor using miniature special effects. When the war was over and the Americans were occupying Japan, they found the film. The effects were so good that they assumed that the movie was genuine war footage. And if this Tsuburaya guy who "created" them must have really got them through some secret evil means from the government itself. Perhaps he was even a spy of some kind? He wasn't, of course. What he was, was crazy about special effects. He had already made 30 special effects movies in his career before Godzilla came along. He also had a print of King Kong in his personal collection. 

With the visual side of the film in place, Tanaka now needed somebody to take care of the audio side. 

The Music Man

Akira Ifukube was the other member of the triumvirate that Tanaka put together. An award winning classical composer, he drifted into movie compositions and would eventually work on over 250 movies over his career. And in Ifukube, Tanaka got an unexpected bonus to the sound effects department. When nobody could figure out how to make an epic roar for Godzilla, he solved the problem with leather glove rubbing against the strings of a contrabass. Incidentally, May 31 of this year (2014) would have been his 100th birthday.

With his core team set they could now begin making the movie. And since that story is so long that whole books could be written about it (and have), so I'm going to skip to the end. How did they do?

Godzilla's Legacy

First, this group kept making Godzilla movies (as well as other science fiction films) for Toho for the next 20 years. Eventually, between 1954 and 2004, 28 Godzilla films will be made. (I've listed them below).

It has also lead to an army of toys and model kits.

From Amazon.com: The Godzilla Cake!

There's also the song from Blue Oyster Cult:

And of course theres the mountain of Godzilla clones from Gamera to Pacific Rim.

And the new film that kicked off this article in the first place

How can I bring some Godzilla into my life?

As the heroic scientist in Godzilla 2000 says, "there's a little godzilla in all of us." But if you want to own the movies, nearly every one has been relased on DVD or Blu-Ray (some with new editions to capitalize on the new film) If you want a really good deal on Godzilla, pick up "The Godzilla Collection" at amazon for $21. It includes

• Godzilla (1954) (both the Japanese and American versions),
• Godzilla Raids Again (1955),
• Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964),
• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964),
• Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965),
• All Monsters Attack (1969), and
• Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975).

Each film has a commentary track from a noted Godzilla expert, as well as mini documentaries on various elements of the making of the films.

And if you like those, you might want to pick up the japanese giant monster double feature "Rodan / War Of The Gargantuas". It also includes the fantastic documentary "Bringing Godzilla down to size". During the 2012 Oscars, this nobody had some nice things to say about the Gargantuas movie when he talked about his first movie memory:

So, here's a list of the Godzillas, along with how much you can expect to pay for them on Amazon.

And, uh, yeah. Apparently there was some sort of American movie that came out in 1998 that was calling itself Godzilla. It's better known to the fans as GINO (Godzilla In Name Only).

BREAKING GODZILLA NEWS!

August Ragone is reporting on his website, a pile of the Sony Godzilla films will be released in May on Blu-Ray as double features. 

• GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH (1991) & GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (1992)
• GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA II (1993) & GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA (1994)
• GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH (1995) & GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS (2000)
• GODZILLA: TOKYO SOS (2003) & GODZILLA FINAL WARS (2004)

There's no word on what special features (if any) there will be on the disks, or whether they will be in English or the original Japanese.