Steve Ryfle recalls searching the TV Guide every week for the Universal horror and monster movies he cherished.
It was extremely exceptional because you had to schedule a time to be by the TV, remembers Ryfle, co-writer and author of the Emmy-winning documentary Miracle on 42nd Street (and, I should mention, a friend since our days as young journalists).
I always found the Japanese movies to be the most appealing. The fact that they were set in an alien environment and society made them particularly fascinating.
He claims that a child who loved dinosaurs found Godzilla particularly fascinating.
“You’re into dinosaurs when you’re younger, of course,” he says.I thought Godzilla was the best dinosaur I had ever seen, and I adored the insane things it did.
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Finding information on less popular interests or connecting with other fans who share similar interests was more difficult back then than it is now, except from a few fanzines or horror magazines.
There wasn’t really anything in-depth to read about these movies. When I asked a bookshop clerk as a kid if there were any books about Godzilla, he literally burst out laughing and asked me why I would ever want to read anything like that, Ryfle recalls. That stayed with me.
Of course.
Ryfle is a co-author of the massive new book Godzilla: The First 70 Years, which is 432-page, nearly 6-pound, and packed with stories, interviews, breakout boxes, and over 900 photographs of one of cinema’s most enduring figures. He co-wrote Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film with Ed Godziszewski in 2017. This year’s San Diego Comic-Con will feature the writing team as part of a larger Godzilla assault.
According to Ryfle, the book is the result of an attempt by the publisher and Toho Studios to commemorate the anniversary with the definitive English-language book exploring the narrative and visual history of the movies. It includes introductions by legendary director John Carpenter of The Thing and recurring Godzilla actress Megumi Odaka.
According to Ryfle, who cites the recent box office success and critical acclaim for 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, Godzilla has, of course, undergone all of these various iterations, evolutions, and changes since 1954. He also discusses the character’s motivation, personality, and on-screen portrayal, as well as the methods used to bring it to life. Who would have guessed that a Japanese Godzilla film would take home an Academy Award seventy years ago? We are here even though it would never have been conceivable.
It’s a significant change from the days when these films were dismissed as low-budget trash and were thought to be somewhat misinterpreted.
He claims that there are undoubtedly fascinating tales to be told about these films and their creators. The people and their culture are being celebrated in a very special way. Since most of these films were homemade, the filmmakers were proud of the job they produced.
Japan’s experience during and after World War II was mirrored in the original Godzilla films, in contrast to other schlocky midcentury genre films. The films were a reaction to the firebombing of Tokyo, in which approximately 300 American planes dropped 1665 tons of napalm on the city, causing a firestorm and killing 100,000 people in what the Truman Library Institute referred to as the most devastating aerial bombardment in history, in addition to the destruction caused by the United States dropping atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
According to Ryfle, Godzilla has always been a traumatized creature at its core. It’s also primarily about the collective experience of the war, the hardships and struggles that people endured, as well as the collective experience of the post-war era, when the economy was in ruins, there were severe food shortages, political upheavals, deprivation, and unemployment.
According to Ryfle, there are scenes in the original movie that accurately depict the devastation caused by war.”I’ll show stills of Tokyo on fire when I’m giving talks about the first Godzilla film,” Ryfle says, referring to real photographs obtained during bombing raids during the war. I’ll display these two images side by side; they nearly resemble mirror images.
Ryfle and Godziszewski conducted interviews and searched archives for new information, and despite their decades of experience writing about the movies, they discovered things that shocked them in addition to examining the film’s inspirations, such as the original King Kong, which had been a huge hit when it was re-released a few years prior to the first Godzilla movie.
Ed and I have been collaborating on numerous projects and writing together for a number of years. As Ryfle praises his writing partner Godziszewski as a legend when it comes to understanding the subject and where to find information, he says, “We actually met 30 years ago at the very first Godzilla convention that they had in Chicago.”
According to Ryfle, they not only found the audio components of the well-known Godzilla roar—many of the monster cries were produced using various musical instruments—but they also discovered something unexpected about how Godzilla has changed over time.
The costume appears differently in practically every movie from 1954 to, say, 1975, and I always assumed that was intentional. Instead, they used the same mold to make the suits, at least for the first 15 years or so. According to Ryfle, they simply always came out differently. He gives respect to Haruo Nakajima, the actor wearing the outfit, for both his artistic ability and his extraordinary endurance. The original outfit was nearly useless. The man tried to walk in it and simply fell over since it was so heavy and the inside was nearly rigid.
“It was practically a death sentence to do this stuff,” Ryfle says, adding that Nakajima would perspire out dozens of pounds while filming. “If you were in there for more than a few minutes, it was impossible to be inside without suffocating.” Since the suit was merely a sauna, they would have to empty the perspiration each day and then dry the inside for the following day.
According to Ryfle, Nakajima’s work was crucial to the creature’s development and appeal, even though the man-in-the-suit element may occasionally be seen as humorous.
Ryfle praises the first film’s special effects wizard, director, and actor, adding, “I attribute a large part of the success of those movies to Haruo Nakajima, who played Godzilla for roughly the first 18 years of the first cycle of Godzilla films.” He passed away a few years ago, but he was a beautiful man. He was passionate about what he did, and he is primarily to blame for the personality that emerges.
According to Ryfle, he gradually transforms Godzilla from a walking nuclear weapon into a person.
As we were wrapping up the discussion, Ryfle summarized the project, even though we covered a wide range of subjects and the book contains much more.
I was asked, “What was your goal at the beginning of it?” He says. Our goal was to create the greatest Godzilla book for as many people as we could.
Since I first started meeting the filmmakers and seeing how passionate they were about their work, I’ve always thought that [the films] were unfairly mistreated and misunderstood and that perhaps I might help. I’ve also begun to realize how culturally particular these films are.
However, he also recognizes another factor contributing to Godzilla’s enduring dominance.
“People want to see the spectacle of Godzilla destroying things, regardless of what’s happening in the movie and how serious it is as a film,” Ryfle explains.
In addition to their Comic-Con appearance, the authors will read from Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster and sign books at Santa Ana’s Frida Cinema on July 28. On July 30, they will give a free talk (registration required) at the Japan Center Los Angeles, where they will also sell books from Chevalier’s Books.
