The Lizard King Rules The World

Above, Haruo Nakajima climbing into the 1954 Godzilla suit. The Wako Dept.
Store miniature is in the background at right. Photo courtesy of Sonoe Nakajima

The gearing-up to Japan's opening of Godzilla Friday in Japanese theaters is continuing.

Metropolis Magazine's website posted a new article on Godzilla, "The Lizard King" with a sub-heading of "At 60, Godzilla still rules the world." It is a good article with some tidbits of trivia on the making of the original 1954 movie (stuff that hardcore Godzilla fans are familiar with).

Here's a snippet:

One of the Western misconceptions of Godzilla is that the franchise started with a quickie B-movie aimed at children, but it was a big affair that attracted top-tier talent. Takashi Shimura, who plays the scientist who testifies that H-bomb testing awoke the monster, was one of the country’s most respected actors, already known for Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru. Director Ishiro Honda was given a budget of nearly USD$1 million, the same as the year’s Best Picture winner On the Waterfront and three times the average in Japan, making it the most expensive film made in the country at the time. Although Kurosawa created a timeless classic with Japan’s other seminal film of 1954, it was Honda who won at the box office, smashing the record for opening-day ticket sales set by the Seven Samurai, which also starred Shimura. 

It’s true, though, that Gojira was filmed quickly. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka had to fill a slot in Toho Studios’ fall roster after a diplomatic wrangle with Indonesia quashed plans for an international coproduction. Inspired by the 1952 re-release of King Kong and Ray Harryhausen’s work on The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, in which an atomic dinosaur destroys New York, Tanaka called in Eiji Tsuburaya, known as tokusatsu no kamisama (“the god of special effects”). A mechanical genius who built cameras and projectors as a child, Tsuburaya was confident he could create a creature through stop motion, provided he had seven years. The schedule allowed only four months from start of production to release, so Tsuburaya simply asked stuntman Haruo Nakajima to step into a rubber suit.

It is worth a read by fans and non-fans alike.

Above, the Wako Dept. Store today. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

To read the full article, go here.