Go-dzi-la

[Subdeacon Joe]

Akihiko Hirata had an unusual background for an actor: his formal education began in a kindergarten founded by the wartime-era Japanese Imperial Army, and continued in a military academy which was Tokyo's answer to West Point. Upon graduating from Tokyo University (Japan's most prestigious), Hirata confounded many family expectations of him by pursuing a career in acting. His first roles in "Even the Mighty Shed Tears" (1953) and "The Last Embrace" (1953) brought him to the attention of director Ishirô Honda, who promptly cast Hirata first in his WW2 romance "Farewell Rabaul Saraba Rabauru" (1954) and then, later that year, in the role that would come to define Hirata's career: the tormented, one-eyed scientist Daisuke Serizawa, who alone has figured out a way to destroy the monster "Gojira" (1954). That movie made stars out of many of the actors who were fortunate enough to star in it, though Hirata tended more towards second leads and character parts. He was often called the best-known of all actors to appear in Gojira movies (he would turn up in six of the sequels), but this was due as much to his popularity with directors as with his exposure through the monster movies.

 

There was a common misconception that the name "Godzilla" was Americanized by its US distributors from Gojira. The name Godzilla was actually the idea of Tôhô and its international sales division. "Godzilla" or "Go-dzi-la" is the proper pronunciation of "Gojira" in its native Japanese and Godzilla was described by Tôhô as "Godzilla" in their 1955 English language sales catalog, a full year before finding an American distributor. The film even played briefly in Japanese-American owned theaters in Los Angeles and New York that year under the title of "Godzilla", before being picked up by Transworld and released in an Americanized version featuring Raymond Burr that following year as "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" Tôhô has since been the sole owners of the name Godzilla.

 

The movie's scenes of destruction and human panic effectively replicate the appearance and feel of real life news-film scenes of war time devastation that would have been painfully familiar to audiences in the 1950s and 1960s, providing these scenes with a resonance and verisimilitude that modern viewers will not experience. The best way to experience that replication is to watch actual news-reel films of World War II devastation in Europe and Japan before watching the film. During the creature's rampage through downtown Tokyo, one of the buildings he destroys is the Toho Theater. In fact, some fans who were watching the film in that theater actually thought the theater was being attacked and tried to run out of the theater. (IMDb)

 

Happy Birthday, Akihiko Hirata!

 

 

[Alpo]

 

Y'all didn't know Godzilla smoked, did you?

 

 

[Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L]

22 minutes ago, Alpo said:

Y'all didn't know Godzilla smoked, did you?

 

Sort of.

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 minute ago, Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L said:

 

Sort of.

 

 

That's garlic breath!   

 

[Tex Jones, SASS 2263]

I read somewhere that the parts of the movie with Raymond Burr were filmed independently from the rest of the film, and spliced in to the original.