May 13, 2019 • 31 mins
When Godzilla first hit the big screen, there was no intention that it would launch a film franchise that would run for decades. Director Ishiro Honda intended to make a film warning of the dangers of nuclear testing and man's relationship with nature.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson.
This is one of those shows where we have housekeeping
before we get to the actual talkie talk parts. Just
a little bit, not too much. Yeah. Um So, first,
(00:23):
I want to mention that we have a live show
coming up at Midwestern Roots. Were actually part of the
pre programming that kicks it off. That is happening on
July sevent in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can get more info
and a link to tickets by going to the live
shows tab on our website, which is missed in history
dot com. It's right there at the top of the menu.
It's easy to find, and soon there will hopefully be
(00:46):
uh some more live shows listed there. We're getting some
logistics worked out. Yeah, we have some things that are
definitely in the works that are planned for also in
the summer and then in the more tentative stages in
the fall. Yeah. Um Second, this episode is sponsored by
the upcoming film Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Uh So,
the folks behind that film came to us and asked
(01:08):
if we would be interested in doing an episode related
to the franchise. We said, yep, I love Godzilla, so
that was an easy one. UM. And then we worked
with them and kicked around some ideas for show topics,
and that kind of landed at Godzilla's history. UM and
I first met Godzilla on Saturday Afternoon TV, which I
think a lot of people my age did when I
(01:29):
saw the nineteen s movie Godzilla, King of the Monsters.
Very different film, uh, starring Raymond Burr, but really, let's
face it, the stars Godzilla and I loved that movie,
but I really did not realize until I was older
that that was a re edit of the film that
had originally been released in Japan. I think that's a
pretty common experience for most people, Like I said, around
(01:50):
my age, uh, that we saw that version and we
didn't know until much later that it was really a
different film that had been repackaged for the US. And
so as I started to research this episode and I
revisited both that Raymond Burr version and the original, I
really realized that the beginning of Godzilla's history is pretty
rich on its own. So that becomes the primary focus
(02:12):
of this episode. Um. And that is also in part
because the Godzilla franchise is massive. We could do a
dozen episodes on just that and never run out of material,
which a lot um And also we, in full disclosure,
have gotten to see the movie already, so I would
(02:32):
encourage everyone if you were into history and into Godzilla,
it's worth going back to those early films because you
realize how much this new film is very much a
love letter to them, and it's very rooted in the
origins of of Godzilla's story. Um, and it's very fun.
We had a lovely talk as well with the director,
Michael Doherty, and he is very into the history of
(02:53):
Godzilla and into Godzilla's place in a sort of alternate
world history and and how that plays out, which adds
a nice layer for our history loving friends out there
in the audience. UM. So today to let you know
what you're in for, we're going to talk first about
the events that led up to that first film, and
(03:13):
then what it took to turn it from an idea
into a reality, and then how that film made its
way across the Pacific to U S audiences and ultimately
became the massive juggernaut franchise that it is today. It's
a phenomenon. Indeed, Godzilla is of course the most famous
of all the kaiju, and the word Kaiju is usually
(03:35):
generally translated from Japanese into English along the lines of
strange beast. And we've talked before about giant monster movies
that aren't Japanese in their origin. Most recently when we
need our stop motion animation episode, we talked about how
Willis O'Brien brought the giant Guerrilla to life on screen
when he was effects supervisor on the N three King Kong,
(03:59):
and we also mentioned how Ray Harry howsm you stop
motion to create the monster in the nineteen fifty three
picture The Beast from twenty thousand Fathoms, and the nineteen
thirties three King Kong that we just referenced had also
been re released in Japan in nineteen fifty two to
great popularity, and it really stirred up fresh interest in
movie goers for big monsters on the big screen. And
(04:21):
then the following year that other movie we just referenced
from the US, also featuring a big monster, really captured
the attention of Japanese audiences. In the Beast from twenty
thousand fathoms, which was distributed by Warner Brothers in nineteen
fifty three. A dinosaur is awakened from its slumber under
the Arctic ice, and it's awakened by nuclear testing, and
(04:44):
this dinosaur, known as the Ritasaurus, moves south along the
east coast of the North American continent and eventually reeks
havoc on Manhattan. This film culminates in a battle between
the dinosaur and the US military at Coney Island, where
he finally defeated. Yeah, there's some great footage of you know,
this dinosaur in the midst of roller coasters and stuff,
(05:06):
which is a pretty fabulous visual. And Harry Housing's Beast
and the story of mayhem that unfolded around its awakening
from the ice got the attention of Japanese producer Tomoyuki Tanaka,
who had been working for the Toho Studios company since
nineteen forty. He did have a brief break in his
tenure with the company in the forties, and when Tanaka
saw the Beast from twenty thousand fathoms, the occupation of
(05:29):
post World War to Japan by US military, which lasted
from to nineteen fifty two, had only just ended, so
there was this new level of opportunity to tell stories
that would really not have been possible or not cool
to tell just the year before. During that occupation, In
addition to Kong's renewed popularity in Japan and the story
(05:51):
of Warner Brothers Rita Saus, another event took place that
impacted the mindset of the Japanese public and Godzilla's creators.
On March first, nineteen fifty four, a nuclear weapons test
was performed at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.
So nuclear testing at the Bikini at all was not
a new thing. That spot had been used by the
(06:12):
United States as a test site since nineteen and the
history of that testing and how the island population was
treated UH could and hopefully will be its own episode eventually.
It's not a super fun story, but it's important. UM.
But on that morning in nineteen fifty four, a Japanese
fishing boat its name translates to Lucky Dragon number five
(06:34):
was close enough to the test that the boat and
its entire crew of twenty three men were contaminated by
nuclear fallout. UH. There are additional details around that which
also would be great in another episode about why they
were close and some um inaccurate estimates of how powerful
that test was going to be. UM but when the
(06:56):
men were examined, it was determined that they all had
acute radiations syndrome and their catch they were fishermen, after all,
which had already been sent to market by the time
the severity of the situation was realized was recalled, though
it is believed that some of those fish were sold
and presumably were eaten. Yeah. I think we talked some
about this incident in our our episodes about the thousand
(07:19):
Cranes for our thousandth episode. Yes, the Lucky Dragon incident
was a reminder that almost a decade after the war,
nuclear weaponry was still a very real threat, even in
times of peace. That reminder really resonated with producer Tamoyuki Tanaka,
and he pitched a film to his boss at Toho
inspired by the incident and borrowing from Harry Housen's dinosaur feature.
(07:42):
This proposed film would be called The Beast from twenty
Thousand Miles under the Sea. The giant monster genre was
still seen as really the domain of United States cinema,
but Tanaka was given the green light to move ahead
with this idea. Yeah, that was apparently a very tentative
green light, like I don't know, but okay a um.
And as an aside, we should mention before we get
(08:04):
into Toho's giant and now famous Lizard, that there was
also a Japanese silent film that had been made that
was inspired by King Kong and that came out in
Night titled King Kong Appears in Edo so Gojira that
we're about to talk about was not the first time
Japanese filmmakers were inspired by American monster cinema to create
(08:24):
their own version, but in the case of the Japanese Kong,
that film is lost and there's still some questions about it.
Film historians will sometimes point to this two part film
as the beginning of Japan's giant monster film genre, but
there is ongoing debate about exactly how giant this monster
was uh and the size of the guerrilla involved. There
(08:46):
are some people who believe he was actually a giant
monster in terms of scale in the film, but others
suggest that it was actually kind of just a regular
guerrilla that was largish in size. It would not really
qualify as a kaiju of any kind. It's a little
early for a sponsor break, but we are going to
stick one here so that we can keep the next
chunk of the story together. It all goes into lots
(09:07):
of detail about how to hoose big monster film was made.
You want to keep all that stuff in the same segment.
Once Tanaka had his monster movie project approved, he put
together the team that would develop it and get it
to the big screen. And Tanaka had already produced a
(09:29):
film with director issue to Honda in nineteen fifty two,
called The Man Who Came to Port and he turned
to Honda again for his Monster film. Honda had directed
dramas and war films for Toho already, including n Eagle
of the Pacific, which was a box office success and
that featured the first collaboration between Honda and special effects
director A. G. Subaraya, who was also brought onto Tanaka's
(09:52):
Monster film. By the time Honda joined the project, the
story had already been written by a writer named Shigeru Kayama.
Kayama's script was handed over to Honda and to screenwriter
to Kayo Marata to be finessed into an actual shooting script.
Honda not only co wrote the film, he was also
heavily involved in almost every aspect of it, and he
(10:13):
was also a trusting collaborator. At the same time, when
it came to super EA as effects, the special effects
director was allowed to do his work without having to
have Honda's supervision. Yeah, that would have been kind of
unusual for an effects director to just kind of have
his own free reign. But that was in part because Subarayah,
who was a decade older than Honda, could be very willful.
(10:34):
He kind of had a reputation for being a little
bit hard to work with. He didn't like when his
shots were edited when he had worked with other directors,
and he had very very strong and clear ideas about
how he wanted things done. But between him and a
Shooto Honda, a very balanced professional relationship really blossomed. They
trusted one another and as a consequence, each man really
(10:56):
did his best work. They would visit each other's sets,
but that more to see how logistics were playing out,
so that when they each shot their own segments they
would blend together as seamlessly as possible. It wasn't so
much like I'm coming to supervise you as I'm coming
to make sure our collaboration works. It's worth noting that
making this film was considered very risky for a director
(11:16):
like a shiro Honda. He was on track to build
a serious career as a director, so to take on
a film in a new genre, one that had the
potential to turn out very silly when it was meant
to be serious, was really putting his reputation on the line.
I think this still happens today sometimes when somebody has
a reputation as us very serious director, then they take
(11:37):
on a project that might look kind of goofy. They
committed to it entirely, though, and he expected everyone working
on the film to have the same level of dedication.
In an interview with his wife, Kimi, she described the
first day of the shoot. Quote he told them, on
the very first day, read the script. If you were
not convinced, please let me know immediately and leave the project.
(11:58):
I remember him saying the spear a firmly. He only
wanted those who had the absolute confidence to work with
him on this film. Both producer Tanaka and effects director
super Yah were of the same mind. All three Ben
had agreed that this film would only work if they
took it on as a serious project, and initially Superya
had some ideas that did not, in fact make its reproduction.
(12:20):
He originally thought that the film's creature star should actually
be a massive octopus, but producer Tanaka put his foot
down on the idea that it had to be more
like a dinosaur, and the effects director also initially pitched
stop motion to bring that monster to life, but with
only six months to make the film from pre production
to completion, that was not going to work. We talked
(12:42):
in our stop motion episode that like even today, with
the most advanced technology and people who really really know
what they're doing, you only get a few seconds a day.
So for people that were learning it, it was never
gonna happen in any kind of realistic timeline, and that's
how what came to be known as suit Nation was born.
Suberia hired Tiso Toshimatsu and his team to create a
(13:06):
full body rubber suit based on designs by Akira Wantonabe,
who was the film's production designer. Cloth, wire, and Latex
were all part of this beast that borrowed design elements
from an iguadadan, a stegasaurus, a tyrannosaurus, and an alligator
into a form that a human man could wiggle into
Sabrinko Jira to life, and that human man was stunt actor.
(13:29):
How to own Nakajima, who would go on to play
Godzilla for almost two decades, And that was no small feat.
This suit weighed an estimated that's two hundred pounds, and
he could only walk limited distances in it at any
given time because it was so taxing on his body.
He passed out on several occasions while working in the suit.
(13:49):
He nearly drowned while filming one of the water scenes.
Uh this was not an easy task, and since the
creature would make use of a human in a suit,
that also meant that many recreate sations of locations around
Japan had to be created for the sets since the
monster was supposed to tower over them. While working on
this film, Superiah was completely protective of the monster's image.
(14:11):
Even cast members weren't allowed to see the Coajia costume.
The concern was that if they saw the costume on
its own without all the movie magic involved, they might
think it was silly, and then that would sour the
whole production, and Nakajima was basically creating a whole new
style of performance. No one knew what to tell him
in terms of direction, because using a suit like the
(14:32):
one in film had really never been done before. He
studied animal movements and prepared for the strength and endurance
that being in this suit required, but ultimately the suit
and its limitations governed the performance and how he moved.
He didn't have full range of motions. It's like you
can prepare all you want, but when you get in
the suit, maybe your arm only moves a little. When
(14:54):
we spoke with the director of the new film, he
mentioned that he had gotten to try on the top
half off of one of the newer suits that have
been made by Toho, and even that in the more
modern era was excruciating. So imagining this two hundred pound
suit and wearing it around seems like um an active
athleticism that's hard to comprehend for us mere mortals. One
(15:17):
element of production that has remained something of a history
mystery is exactly where the name Gojira came from. And
there is one tale which has absolutely no substantiation, that
the name originated as a nickname for one of the
Toho Studios employees who was portly, and that it was
a portmanteau of the Japanese words for Guerrilla and Whale,
(15:37):
but again, there is no evidence that anyone has found
to back that up. Even people who worked on the
production are like, I don't I don't know what's time about.
Uh So it remains an element of film more people
like to tell the story, but there's there's no uh
no evidence for him. It is also possible that story
writer Shigeru Kayama came up with the name pretty early on.
(15:58):
There have been some hints that he actually mentions that
name in his diary, but that is also not entirely clear.
The bottom line is we don't know the origination of
the name. Really. A groundbreaking aspect of Honda's film is
the use of actors and scenes where they couldn't see
what they were acting against. Today, it's commonplace for actors
to have this challenge of working within digital effects and
(16:19):
meaning to emote and react as a character to things
they just can't see, But for the Japanese actors on
Honda's set, this was a totally new concept. Actor Akira
Takata later described the experience from the performer's point of
view as being like children needing to constantly ask what
they were doing. Honda was always patient and kind and
explained everything to them, especially the younger, more inexperienced actors.
(16:43):
He knew that the performances had to be as serious
and real as possible to carry this film. As with
any film in the sound era, the music and sound
design play a vital role in bringing Godja to life.
For one, studio heads were concerned that the film and
its monster still looked too silly despite all of the
camera and effects work, until they saw it with a
(17:05):
Kida if Ukube score. It's a score that he wrote
actually without benefit of seeing the film initially, although he
did at the very end get to kind of tighten
it up and make some adjustments to make it match.
And if Akube is also credited with creating some of
the most important things that you hear in the film
and that you can probably conjure in your mind, uh
the monster's unique screech and its footfalls. The vocalizations of
(17:29):
Honda's star creature, which are now iconic, were created by
dragging a leather glove across the strings of a purposely
detuned contrabass, and the footsteps, which are almost a character
on their own, were the results of the composer thumping
an amplifier. While the production had a timeline of six months,
only two of them were spent actually shooting, and a
(17:51):
schedule that would seem unthinkable by today's film standards. The
script was finished on June tenth. The design and other
pre production started immediately after that. Photography started in August
of that was finished in October, and then the film
was released in theaters on November three. That blows my
mind every time I think through and I'm like, Holy Moses.
(18:14):
The location shoots that they had to do were incredibly challenging.
They were filming in the summer heat, and that meant
that actors were often running from the monster in already
grueling temperatures. Adding all that physical exertion caused a lot
of heat exhaustion on set. It almost became an issue
where like they had to manage potential heat exhaustion as
(18:35):
much as any other aspect of production. Coming up, we
will talk about the film's life once it was released
into cinemas, but first we will pause and take a
quick sponsor break. Once the film was released, it was
a huge hit with audiences. There were critics, however, who
(18:58):
felt that using the very real tragedies in Japan's recent
history to drive a monster movie was in poor taste,
even if the message of that movie was ultimately uh
one of being careful about how we tamper with nature.
But despite those concerns raised in some reviews, the movie
was an undeniable blockbuster. It was Japan's highest grossing film
(19:18):
of nine Soho had been really smart about marketing for
the film, knowing that warming the audience up to what
could be taken as an absurd premise was going to
be vital to its acceptance. Throughout the shoot, press had
been invited to visit the sets where Honda was shooting,
though all the creature work that Superiah was shooting at
the same time was not open to the journalists. Promotional
(19:41):
photos were released to the press that the public could
see what Toho was cooking up in this new film.
There was a lead up radio play that unfolded in
eleven episodes. It actually started running before principal photography began,
and all of this made the idea of a serious
film starring a fifty foot tall creature an event that
was being greeted with a lot of anticipation. In some ways,
(20:03):
the audience was won over way before any projected image
hit a screen in a public movie theater. Obviously, this
is similar to how movie marketing works today. Yeah, that's
how everyone does it. Many people have their minds made
up a lot of times before they get into the
theater because they've seen all of these stills and heard
(20:23):
stories leading up to it. Yeah, it's fascinating when you
think about, like how Entertainment Weekly like they will have
a big splash cover article about like an upcoming film
and talking all about it. I'm like, this is all
kind of rooted back and the things they were doing
for Godzilla. So when we think of old school giant
monster movies today, probably a lot of people think of
(20:44):
them as sort of campy or silly, and that reputation
does have a very real basis. In film history, there
have been a lot of films made, both in the
US and Japan and in other countries over time that
featured monsters that look funny or they behaviorally comedically. But
for Gaujira is a much more sober film. It is
quite obviously rooted in the nuclear tragedies that Japan experienced
(21:08):
in the years leading up to its production, and one
scene early on testimony is being given about the unthinkable
possibility that a giant creature has suddenly emerged from the
sea and poses a danger to human life. The character
doctor Yamene says, quote it was probably hidden away in
a deep sea cave, providing for its own survival and
(21:28):
perhaps for others like it. However, repeated underwater h bomb
tests have completely destroyed its natural habitat. To put it simply,
hydrogen bomb testing has driven it from its sanctuary. And
later in that same scene, there is a very heated
debate about whether to go public with the information that
Gujita is a threat, and one of the issues that
(21:48):
cited for withholding that information is the chaos that could
be done politically, including damaging very delicate foreign relations. There
is a very clear parallel being drawn to Japan's act
ual relationship with its foreign colleagues outside the world of
the film that was going on post World War Two.
And in a scene immediately following, as the news is breaking,
(22:10):
there's a young woman who's riding a street car and
she remarks to another passenger, I barely escaped the atomic
bomb in Nagasaki. And now this incidentally, all these quotes
that we are reading are from the subtitles of the
Criterion Collection edition of the film. Yeah, just in case
anyone's wondering. Since it is in Japanese, uh Gajita is
(22:31):
grim throughout. It does not pull any punches regarding the
danger of nuclear testing. So after the creature attacks the
city and his atomic breath covers entire city blocks, children
are shown being tested for radiation and coming up positive.
Children see their parents die. Even the scientist who invents
the means by which humans can defeat their giant ancient foe,
(22:54):
is conflicted about introducing such a serious weapon into the world,
and the message of nuclear test, saying being a dangerous thing,
is reiterated right to the end, even after they have
defeated the creature. Good Zero was shipped to the United
States and very limited distribution, and that's how producer Edmund
Goldman saw it. He bought the distribution rights from Toho
(23:16):
after this and then flipped them to Jewel Enterprises. The
executives at Jewel, like Goldman, saw the potential of this film,
but they felt that it needed some doctoring to truly
capture American audiences, and it was at this stage that
Gojira kind of morphed. At the suggestion of the Tohoe
marketing department into Godzilla to make it easier for English
(23:37):
speakers to approximate the name, and the film underwent a
number of revisions to repackage it for US screens for
a much wider distribution. About fifteen minutes of the film
were cut to minimize concepts that would be difficult for
US culture to grasp, like an arranged marriage that's part
of the original film. There's also uh scenes that would
(23:59):
have been uncomfortab bowl, like the villany of nuclear weapons
which the US had recently used against Japan. And of course,
the whole premise is based on nuclear testing as the
catalyst for the movie's central conflict, so it could not
be removed completely, but a lot of the very grim
scenes which give Honda's original version so much gravity, were removed.
(24:19):
There were also scenes that were added to the film
in the US version, which starred Raymond Burr as a
journalist named Steve Martin. Burr's segments were used to give
a different perspective to the film and to tell the
story as seen through the eyes of Burr's character, and
the film, Burr was sent to report on incidents in Japan.
This newly cut film was titled Godzilla King of the
(24:41):
Monsters and released in US cinemas on April six, and,
just as was the case in Japan, critics did not
fall in love with the film, but that did not
matter because audience is sure did. Godzilla was again an
instant hit, and that recut version of the film ended
up being distributed internationally, gaining new audiences wherever it opened.
(25:02):
By the time Godzilla King of the Monsters had made
its US debut, Japanese audiences were already watching the sequel
to the original, which was called Godzilla Raids Again. That
was directed by Moto Yoshi Oda, with A. G. Subariyah
once again serving as the effects director. And that was
just the beginning. In the almost sixty five years since
Gja first appeared in Japanese cinemas, almost three dozen films
(25:26):
have been made featuring Godzilla, and in the Guinness Book
of World Records named it the longest continually running film franchise.
UH this film that's about to come out is the
thirty five. They're already slated to work on follow ups
to it, so it will hit three dozen very quickly,
and the films have taken on some wildly different tones
over the years, as Toho, which has continued to make
(25:49):
all but three of the movies in the franchise's history,
has shifted in its tone for the series and made
a number of reboots over time and through different eras
of production. Additional Kaiju have been added to the Godzilla lineup,
and a lot of them started out in their own films,
including Mathra and Rodent. There have been TV series, video games, toys,
(26:09):
all kinds of merchandise picturing Godzilla as well. In two
thousand four, which was the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese
version gujira uh, it was restored digitally by rialto pictures
and released in theaters and on home video, And this
was for a lot of fans the first time that
they had ready access to the movie that started at
all there. That was also sort of revelatory in um
(26:32):
film circles because I think people had not realized how
much had been cut from the original to make it
more comfortable and palatable for American audiences. UM So it
kind of that moment is really quite pivotal in film
history where people realized, like, oh, you really did do
some serious changing to this. The film Yeah, well, and
(26:52):
I like certainly knew that the preponderance of big monster
movies in the fifties was all out of ways a
response to the nuclear tax on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
the threat of nuclear warfare and this idea of radiation
causing giant creatures to exist and do terrible things. But
I didn't really know until reading your outline how much
(27:16):
the original Japanese Gajia was really like an anti war
movie and it wasn't just about radiation made this thing
it kind of an abstract level. Yeah, we talked about
you know how. It kind of was inspired also by
the American movie The Beast from twenty fathoms. One thing
that's really interesting is that even though that Beast was
awakened by nuclear testing like Ga was in the first one, Uh,
(27:41):
it stayed. It just was awakened. It wasn't morphed, It
did not take on any atomic powers the way Godzilla does.
And it really kind of shifts the gear to be
a little bit more of a film about not messing
with nature, right, um, which I'm only lay thing because
it it's it's always so strongly been that, and I'm
(28:04):
realizing that it had its roots in some films from
the US that didn't really take that part of it
into account. Was kind of interesting. There was also am
an interesting commentary that I read in one of the
sources I was using for this one, where they made
the point that the films, the creature films that came
out of Japan often have that that much more um
(28:28):
ecologically minded ideology, where they actually, even though they recognize
they have to battle the creature to save humanity, there
is a certain level of empathy for the creature and
like understanding that we did this, whereas if you look
at most of the US made films with creatures, none
of that is in there. It's just like, there's a threat,
we gotta kill it, and they don't really have that
(28:48):
same that same level of sensitivity to like cause an
effect in it, which is pretty interesting. I would want
to do a bigger survey of of creature films from
the era to really see how that plays out. But
it made me think for her. Um. So yeah, and
again thanks to uh to the new Godzilla, King of
the Monsters into Michael Doherty for talking to us about it.
He's so passionate about it, and like we said, he
(29:10):
really knows a lot of Godzilla history on his own
and can speak extemporaneously at length about it. UM. So
it's cool that he is getting to uh to be
a big part of this universe now and uh yeah,
hopefully everyone will see and enjoy it. I had to say,
that's the most beautiful Mathra has ever looked in my opinion. Yeah,
it's just spectacularly beautiful. The film is absolutely beautiful, um
(29:34):
in terms of just like cinematography and composition, it's really
spectacular and in fact, as I mentioned at the top,
hearkens back a lot to this original film UM, which
is kind of a lovely homage in a way that
still feels very new and fresh. I have completely unrelated
listener mail because I came into the office today to
(29:55):
find a very strange and delightful gift on my desk.
It is tiny, but the full um it is from
our listeners Sean, and he writes, Hello, Holly. Enclosed is
a path tag for you. Path tags are small coins
created by Geo Cashier's to leave in cash is as
a sort of calling card. I had a bunch of
these made up a few years ago. Thanks to you
and Tracy for all of the podcasts. But what makes
(30:17):
this very very cool is he has this teeny tiny
coin that is made with my Hana mansioned boyfriend the
hat Box Ghost on it, and it glows in the
dark and there's a hidden mickey when it glows in
the dark. I have not been able to get it
into a dark room because I just opened it this
morning and then we had to run into the studio.
(30:37):
But it's adorable and I love it and I kind
of want to make a necklace charm out of it.
So thank you so much, Sean. What a cool thing,
and it's really beautifully designed and I love it, so
that is a deep treasure for me. If you would
like to write to us, you can do so at
History Podcast at how stofworks dot com. You can also
find us across the spectrum of social media as Missed
in History, and you can visit us and our online
(30:59):
home them which is Missed in History dot com, where
you can find every episode that's ever existed since the
show began and we were not even associated with it.
If you would like to subscribe to the podcast, that
sounds great, you can do that on the I Heart
Radio app at Apple Podcasts or anywhere else that you
listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
(31:22):
a production of I heart Radios How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson.
This is one of those shows where we have housekeeping
before we get to the actual talkie talk parts. Just
a little bit, not too much. Yeah. Um So, first,
(00:23):
I want to mention that we have a live show
coming up at Midwestern Roots. Were actually part of the
pre programming that kicks it off. That is happening on
July sevent in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can get more info
and a link to tickets by going to the live
shows tab on our website, which is missed in history
dot com. It's right there at the top of the menu.
It's easy to find, and soon there will hopefully be
(00:46):
uh some more live shows listed there. We're getting some
logistics worked out. Yeah, we have some things that are
definitely in the works that are planned for also in
the summer and then in the more tentative stages in
the fall. Yeah. Um Second, this episode is sponsored by
the upcoming film Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Uh So,
the folks behind that film came to us and asked
(01:08):
if we would be interested in doing an episode related
to the franchise. We said, yep, I love Godzilla, so
that was an easy one. UM. And then we worked
with them and kicked around some ideas for show topics,
and that kind of landed at Godzilla's history. UM and
I first met Godzilla on Saturday Afternoon TV, which I
think a lot of people my age did when I
(01:29):
saw the nineteen s movie Godzilla, King of the Monsters.
Very different film, uh, starring Raymond Burr, but really, let's
face it, the stars Godzilla and I loved that movie,
but I really did not realize until I was older
that that was a re edit of the film that
had originally been released in Japan. I think that's a
pretty common experience for most people, Like I said, around
(01:50):
my age, uh, that we saw that version and we
didn't know until much later that it was really a
different film that had been repackaged for the US. And
so as I started to research this episode and I
revisited both that Raymond Burr version and the original, I
really realized that the beginning of Godzilla's history is pretty
rich on its own. So that becomes the primary focus
(02:12):
of this episode. Um. And that is also in part
because the Godzilla franchise is massive. We could do a
dozen episodes on just that and never run out of material,
which a lot um And also we, in full disclosure,
have gotten to see the movie already, so I would
(02:32):
encourage everyone if you were into history and into Godzilla,
it's worth going back to those early films because you
realize how much this new film is very much a
love letter to them, and it's very rooted in the
origins of of Godzilla's story. Um, and it's very fun.
We had a lovely talk as well with the director,
Michael Doherty, and he is very into the history of
(02:53):
Godzilla and into Godzilla's place in a sort of alternate
world history and and how that plays out, which adds
a nice layer for our history loving friends out there
in the audience. UM. So today to let you know
what you're in for, we're going to talk first about
the events that led up to that first film, and
(03:13):
then what it took to turn it from an idea
into a reality, and then how that film made its
way across the Pacific to U S audiences and ultimately
became the massive juggernaut franchise that it is today. It's
a phenomenon. Indeed, Godzilla is of course the most famous
of all the kaiju, and the word Kaiju is usually
(03:35):
generally translated from Japanese into English along the lines of
strange beast. And we've talked before about giant monster movies
that aren't Japanese in their origin. Most recently when we
need our stop motion animation episode, we talked about how
Willis O'Brien brought the giant Guerrilla to life on screen
when he was effects supervisor on the N three King Kong,
(03:59):
and we also mentioned how Ray Harry howsm you stop
motion to create the monster in the nineteen fifty three
picture The Beast from twenty thousand Fathoms, and the nineteen
thirties three King Kong that we just referenced had also
been re released in Japan in nineteen fifty two to
great popularity, and it really stirred up fresh interest in
movie goers for big monsters on the big screen. And
(04:21):
then the following year that other movie we just referenced
from the US, also featuring a big monster, really captured
the attention of Japanese audiences. In the Beast from twenty
thousand fathoms, which was distributed by Warner Brothers in nineteen
fifty three. A dinosaur is awakened from its slumber under
the Arctic ice, and it's awakened by nuclear testing, and
(04:44):
this dinosaur, known as the Ritasaurus, moves south along the
east coast of the North American continent and eventually reeks
havoc on Manhattan. This film culminates in a battle between
the dinosaur and the US military at Coney Island, where
he finally defeated. Yeah, there's some great footage of you know,
this dinosaur in the midst of roller coasters and stuff,
(05:06):
which is a pretty fabulous visual. And Harry Housing's Beast
and the story of mayhem that unfolded around its awakening
from the ice got the attention of Japanese producer Tomoyuki Tanaka,
who had been working for the Toho Studios company since
nineteen forty. He did have a brief break in his
tenure with the company in the forties, and when Tanaka
saw the Beast from twenty thousand fathoms, the occupation of
(05:29):
post World War to Japan by US military, which lasted
from to nineteen fifty two, had only just ended, so
there was this new level of opportunity to tell stories
that would really not have been possible or not cool
to tell just the year before. During that occupation, In
addition to Kong's renewed popularity in Japan and the story
(05:51):
of Warner Brothers Rita Saus, another event took place that
impacted the mindset of the Japanese public and Godzilla's creators.
On March first, nineteen fifty four, a nuclear weapons test
was performed at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.
So nuclear testing at the Bikini at all was not
a new thing. That spot had been used by the
(06:12):
United States as a test site since nineteen and the
history of that testing and how the island population was
treated UH could and hopefully will be its own episode eventually.
It's not a super fun story, but it's important. UM.
But on that morning in nineteen fifty four, a Japanese
fishing boat its name translates to Lucky Dragon number five
(06:34):
was close enough to the test that the boat and
its entire crew of twenty three men were contaminated by
nuclear fallout. UH. There are additional details around that which
also would be great in another episode about why they
were close and some um inaccurate estimates of how powerful
that test was going to be. UM but when the
(06:56):
men were examined, it was determined that they all had
acute radiations syndrome and their catch they were fishermen, after all,
which had already been sent to market by the time
the severity of the situation was realized was recalled, though
it is believed that some of those fish were sold
and presumably were eaten. Yeah. I think we talked some
about this incident in our our episodes about the thousand
(07:19):
Cranes for our thousandth episode. Yes, the Lucky Dragon incident
was a reminder that almost a decade after the war,
nuclear weaponry was still a very real threat, even in
times of peace. That reminder really resonated with producer Tamoyuki Tanaka,
and he pitched a film to his boss at Toho
inspired by the incident and borrowing from Harry Housen's dinosaur feature.
(07:42):
This proposed film would be called The Beast from twenty
Thousand Miles under the Sea. The giant monster genre was
still seen as really the domain of United States cinema,
but Tanaka was given the green light to move ahead
with this idea. Yeah, that was apparently a very tentative
green light, like I don't know, but okay a um.
And as an aside, we should mention before we get
(08:04):
into Toho's giant and now famous Lizard, that there was
also a Japanese silent film that had been made that
was inspired by King Kong and that came out in
Night titled King Kong Appears in Edo so Gojira that
we're about to talk about was not the first time
Japanese filmmakers were inspired by American monster cinema to create
(08:24):
their own version, but in the case of the Japanese Kong,
that film is lost and there's still some questions about it.
Film historians will sometimes point to this two part film
as the beginning of Japan's giant monster film genre, but
there is ongoing debate about exactly how giant this monster
was uh and the size of the guerrilla involved. There
(08:46):
are some people who believe he was actually a giant
monster in terms of scale in the film, but others
suggest that it was actually kind of just a regular
guerrilla that was largish in size. It would not really
qualify as a kaiju of any kind. It's a little
early for a sponsor break, but we are going to
stick one here so that we can keep the next
chunk of the story together. It all goes into lots
(09:07):
of detail about how to hoose big monster film was made.
You want to keep all that stuff in the same segment.
Once Tanaka had his monster movie project approved, he put
together the team that would develop it and get it
to the big screen. And Tanaka had already produced a
(09:29):
film with director issue to Honda in nineteen fifty two,
called The Man Who Came to Port and he turned
to Honda again for his Monster film. Honda had directed
dramas and war films for Toho already, including n Eagle
of the Pacific, which was a box office success and
that featured the first collaboration between Honda and special effects
director A. G. Subaraya, who was also brought onto Tanaka's
(09:52):
Monster film. By the time Honda joined the project, the
story had already been written by a writer named Shigeru Kayama.
Kayama's script was handed over to Honda and to screenwriter
to Kayo Marata to be finessed into an actual shooting script.
Honda not only co wrote the film, he was also
heavily involved in almost every aspect of it, and he
(10:13):
was also a trusting collaborator. At the same time, when
it came to super EA as effects, the special effects
director was allowed to do his work without having to
have Honda's supervision. Yeah, that would have been kind of
unusual for an effects director to just kind of have
his own free reign. But that was in part because Subarayah,
who was a decade older than Honda, could be very willful.
(10:34):
He kind of had a reputation for being a little
bit hard to work with. He didn't like when his
shots were edited when he had worked with other directors,
and he had very very strong and clear ideas about
how he wanted things done. But between him and a
Shooto Honda, a very balanced professional relationship really blossomed. They
trusted one another and as a consequence, each man really
(10:56):
did his best work. They would visit each other's sets,
but that more to see how logistics were playing out,
so that when they each shot their own segments they
would blend together as seamlessly as possible. It wasn't so
much like I'm coming to supervise you as I'm coming
to make sure our collaboration works. It's worth noting that
making this film was considered very risky for a director
(11:16):
like a shiro Honda. He was on track to build
a serious career as a director, so to take on
a film in a new genre, one that had the
potential to turn out very silly when it was meant
to be serious, was really putting his reputation on the line.
I think this still happens today sometimes when somebody has
a reputation as us very serious director, then they take
(11:37):
on a project that might look kind of goofy. They
committed to it entirely, though, and he expected everyone working
on the film to have the same level of dedication.
In an interview with his wife, Kimi, she described the
first day of the shoot. Quote he told them, on
the very first day, read the script. If you were
not convinced, please let me know immediately and leave the project.
(11:58):
I remember him saying the spear a firmly. He only
wanted those who had the absolute confidence to work with
him on this film. Both producer Tanaka and effects director
super Yah were of the same mind. All three Ben
had agreed that this film would only work if they
took it on as a serious project, and initially Superya
had some ideas that did not, in fact make its reproduction.
(12:20):
He originally thought that the film's creature star should actually
be a massive octopus, but producer Tanaka put his foot
down on the idea that it had to be more
like a dinosaur, and the effects director also initially pitched
stop motion to bring that monster to life, but with
only six months to make the film from pre production
to completion, that was not going to work. We talked
(12:42):
in our stop motion episode that like even today, with
the most advanced technology and people who really really know
what they're doing, you only get a few seconds a day.
So for people that were learning it, it was never
gonna happen in any kind of realistic timeline, and that's
how what came to be known as suit Nation was born.
Suberia hired Tiso Toshimatsu and his team to create a
(13:06):
full body rubber suit based on designs by Akira Wantonabe,
who was the film's production designer. Cloth, wire, and Latex
were all part of this beast that borrowed design elements
from an iguadadan, a stegasaurus, a tyrannosaurus, and an alligator
into a form that a human man could wiggle into
Sabrinko Jira to life, and that human man was stunt actor.
(13:29):
How to own Nakajima, who would go on to play
Godzilla for almost two decades, And that was no small feat.
This suit weighed an estimated that's two hundred pounds, and
he could only walk limited distances in it at any
given time because it was so taxing on his body.
He passed out on several occasions while working in the suit.
(13:49):
He nearly drowned while filming one of the water scenes.
Uh this was not an easy task, and since the
creature would make use of a human in a suit,
that also meant that many recreate sations of locations around
Japan had to be created for the sets since the
monster was supposed to tower over them. While working on
this film, Superiah was completely protective of the monster's image.
(14:11):
Even cast members weren't allowed to see the Coajia costume.
The concern was that if they saw the costume on
its own without all the movie magic involved, they might
think it was silly, and then that would sour the
whole production, and Nakajima was basically creating a whole new
style of performance. No one knew what to tell him
in terms of direction, because using a suit like the
(14:32):
one in film had really never been done before. He
studied animal movements and prepared for the strength and endurance
that being in this suit required, but ultimately the suit
and its limitations governed the performance and how he moved.
He didn't have full range of motions. It's like you
can prepare all you want, but when you get in
the suit, maybe your arm only moves a little. When
(14:54):
we spoke with the director of the new film, he
mentioned that he had gotten to try on the top
half off of one of the newer suits that have
been made by Toho, and even that in the more
modern era was excruciating. So imagining this two hundred pound
suit and wearing it around seems like um an active
athleticism that's hard to comprehend for us mere mortals. One
(15:17):
element of production that has remained something of a history
mystery is exactly where the name Gojira came from. And
there is one tale which has absolutely no substantiation, that
the name originated as a nickname for one of the
Toho Studios employees who was portly, and that it was
a portmanteau of the Japanese words for Guerrilla and Whale,
(15:37):
but again, there is no evidence that anyone has found
to back that up. Even people who worked on the
production are like, I don't I don't know what's time about.
Uh So it remains an element of film more people
like to tell the story, but there's there's no uh
no evidence for him. It is also possible that story
writer Shigeru Kayama came up with the name pretty early on.
(15:58):
There have been some hints that he actually mentions that
name in his diary, but that is also not entirely clear.
The bottom line is we don't know the origination of
the name. Really. A groundbreaking aspect of Honda's film is
the use of actors and scenes where they couldn't see
what they were acting against. Today, it's commonplace for actors
to have this challenge of working within digital effects and
(16:19):
meaning to emote and react as a character to things
they just can't see, But for the Japanese actors on
Honda's set, this was a totally new concept. Actor Akira
Takata later described the experience from the performer's point of
view as being like children needing to constantly ask what
they were doing. Honda was always patient and kind and
explained everything to them, especially the younger, more inexperienced actors.
(16:43):
He knew that the performances had to be as serious
and real as possible to carry this film. As with
any film in the sound era, the music and sound
design play a vital role in bringing Godja to life.
For one, studio heads were concerned that the film and
its monster still looked too silly despite all of the
camera and effects work, until they saw it with a
(17:05):
Kida if Ukube score. It's a score that he wrote
actually without benefit of seeing the film initially, although he
did at the very end get to kind of tighten
it up and make some adjustments to make it match.
And if Akube is also credited with creating some of
the most important things that you hear in the film
and that you can probably conjure in your mind, uh
the monster's unique screech and its footfalls. The vocalizations of
(17:29):
Honda's star creature, which are now iconic, were created by
dragging a leather glove across the strings of a purposely
detuned contrabass, and the footsteps, which are almost a character
on their own, were the results of the composer thumping
an amplifier. While the production had a timeline of six months,
only two of them were spent actually shooting, and a
(17:51):
schedule that would seem unthinkable by today's film standards. The
script was finished on June tenth. The design and other
pre production started immediately after that. Photography started in August
of that was finished in October, and then the film
was released in theaters on November three. That blows my
mind every time I think through and I'm like, Holy Moses.
(18:14):
The location shoots that they had to do were incredibly challenging.
They were filming in the summer heat, and that meant
that actors were often running from the monster in already
grueling temperatures. Adding all that physical exertion caused a lot
of heat exhaustion on set. It almost became an issue
where like they had to manage potential heat exhaustion as
(18:35):
much as any other aspect of production. Coming up, we
will talk about the film's life once it was released
into cinemas, but first we will pause and take a
quick sponsor break. Once the film was released, it was
a huge hit with audiences. There were critics, however, who
(18:58):
felt that using the very real tragedies in Japan's recent
history to drive a monster movie was in poor taste,
even if the message of that movie was ultimately uh
one of being careful about how we tamper with nature.
But despite those concerns raised in some reviews, the movie
was an undeniable blockbuster. It was Japan's highest grossing film
(19:18):
of nine Soho had been really smart about marketing for
the film, knowing that warming the audience up to what
could be taken as an absurd premise was going to
be vital to its acceptance. Throughout the shoot, press had
been invited to visit the sets where Honda was shooting,
though all the creature work that Superiah was shooting at
the same time was not open to the journalists. Promotional
(19:41):
photos were released to the press that the public could
see what Toho was cooking up in this new film.
There was a lead up radio play that unfolded in
eleven episodes. It actually started running before principal photography began,
and all of this made the idea of a serious
film starring a fifty foot tall creature an event that
was being greeted with a lot of anticipation. In some ways,
(20:03):
the audience was won over way before any projected image
hit a screen in a public movie theater. Obviously, this
is similar to how movie marketing works today. Yeah, that's
how everyone does it. Many people have their minds made
up a lot of times before they get into the
theater because they've seen all of these stills and heard
(20:23):
stories leading up to it. Yeah, it's fascinating when you
think about, like how Entertainment Weekly like they will have
a big splash cover article about like an upcoming film
and talking all about it. I'm like, this is all
kind of rooted back and the things they were doing
for Godzilla. So when we think of old school giant
monster movies today, probably a lot of people think of
(20:44):
them as sort of campy or silly, and that reputation
does have a very real basis. In film history, there
have been a lot of films made, both in the
US and Japan and in other countries over time that
featured monsters that look funny or they behaviorally comedically. But
for Gaujira is a much more sober film. It is
quite obviously rooted in the nuclear tragedies that Japan experienced
(21:08):
in the years leading up to its production, and one
scene early on testimony is being given about the unthinkable
possibility that a giant creature has suddenly emerged from the
sea and poses a danger to human life. The character
doctor Yamene says, quote it was probably hidden away in
a deep sea cave, providing for its own survival and
(21:28):
perhaps for others like it. However, repeated underwater h bomb
tests have completely destroyed its natural habitat. To put it simply,
hydrogen bomb testing has driven it from its sanctuary. And
later in that same scene, there is a very heated
debate about whether to go public with the information that
Gujita is a threat, and one of the issues that
(21:48):
cited for withholding that information is the chaos that could
be done politically, including damaging very delicate foreign relations. There
is a very clear parallel being drawn to Japan's act
ual relationship with its foreign colleagues outside the world of
the film that was going on post World War Two.
And in a scene immediately following, as the news is breaking,
(22:10):
there's a young woman who's riding a street car and
she remarks to another passenger, I barely escaped the atomic
bomb in Nagasaki. And now this incidentally, all these quotes
that we are reading are from the subtitles of the
Criterion Collection edition of the film. Yeah, just in case
anyone's wondering. Since it is in Japanese, uh Gajita is
(22:31):
grim throughout. It does not pull any punches regarding the
danger of nuclear testing. So after the creature attacks the
city and his atomic breath covers entire city blocks, children
are shown being tested for radiation and coming up positive.
Children see their parents die. Even the scientist who invents
the means by which humans can defeat their giant ancient foe,
(22:54):
is conflicted about introducing such a serious weapon into the world,
and the message of nuclear test, saying being a dangerous thing,
is reiterated right to the end, even after they have
defeated the creature. Good Zero was shipped to the United
States and very limited distribution, and that's how producer Edmund
Goldman saw it. He bought the distribution rights from Toho
(23:16):
after this and then flipped them to Jewel Enterprises. The
executives at Jewel, like Goldman, saw the potential of this film,
but they felt that it needed some doctoring to truly
capture American audiences, and it was at this stage that
Gojira kind of morphed. At the suggestion of the Tohoe
marketing department into Godzilla to make it easier for English
(23:37):
speakers to approximate the name, and the film underwent a
number of revisions to repackage it for US screens for
a much wider distribution. About fifteen minutes of the film
were cut to minimize concepts that would be difficult for
US culture to grasp, like an arranged marriage that's part
of the original film. There's also uh scenes that would
(23:59):
have been uncomfortab bowl, like the villany of nuclear weapons
which the US had recently used against Japan. And of course,
the whole premise is based on nuclear testing as the
catalyst for the movie's central conflict, so it could not
be removed completely, but a lot of the very grim
scenes which give Honda's original version so much gravity, were removed.
(24:19):
There were also scenes that were added to the film
in the US version, which starred Raymond Burr as a
journalist named Steve Martin. Burr's segments were used to give
a different perspective to the film and to tell the
story as seen through the eyes of Burr's character, and
the film, Burr was sent to report on incidents in Japan.
This newly cut film was titled Godzilla King of the
(24:41):
Monsters and released in US cinemas on April six, and,
just as was the case in Japan, critics did not
fall in love with the film, but that did not
matter because audience is sure did. Godzilla was again an
instant hit, and that recut version of the film ended
up being distributed internationally, gaining new audiences wherever it opened.
(25:02):
By the time Godzilla King of the Monsters had made
its US debut, Japanese audiences were already watching the sequel
to the original, which was called Godzilla Raids Again. That
was directed by Moto Yoshi Oda, with A. G. Subariyah
once again serving as the effects director. And that was
just the beginning. In the almost sixty five years since
Gja first appeared in Japanese cinemas, almost three dozen films
(25:26):
have been made featuring Godzilla, and in the Guinness Book
of World Records named it the longest continually running film franchise.
UH this film that's about to come out is the
thirty five. They're already slated to work on follow ups
to it, so it will hit three dozen very quickly,
and the films have taken on some wildly different tones
over the years, as Toho, which has continued to make
(25:49):
all but three of the movies in the franchise's history,
has shifted in its tone for the series and made
a number of reboots over time and through different eras
of production. Additional Kaiju have been added to the Godzilla lineup,
and a lot of them started out in their own films,
including Mathra and Rodent. There have been TV series, video games, toys,
(26:09):
all kinds of merchandise picturing Godzilla as well. In two
thousand four, which was the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese
version gujira uh, it was restored digitally by rialto pictures
and released in theaters and on home video, And this
was for a lot of fans the first time that
they had ready access to the movie that started at
all there. That was also sort of revelatory in um
(26:32):
film circles because I think people had not realized how
much had been cut from the original to make it
more comfortable and palatable for American audiences. UM So it
kind of that moment is really quite pivotal in film
history where people realized, like, oh, you really did do
some serious changing to this. The film Yeah, well, and
(26:52):
I like certainly knew that the preponderance of big monster
movies in the fifties was all out of ways a
response to the nuclear tax on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
the threat of nuclear warfare and this idea of radiation
causing giant creatures to exist and do terrible things. But
I didn't really know until reading your outline how much
(27:16):
the original Japanese Gajia was really like an anti war
movie and it wasn't just about radiation made this thing
it kind of an abstract level. Yeah, we talked about
you know how. It kind of was inspired also by
the American movie The Beast from twenty fathoms. One thing
that's really interesting is that even though that Beast was
awakened by nuclear testing like Ga was in the first one, Uh,
(27:41):
it stayed. It just was awakened. It wasn't morphed, It
did not take on any atomic powers the way Godzilla does.
And it really kind of shifts the gear to be
a little bit more of a film about not messing
with nature, right, um, which I'm only lay thing because
it it's it's always so strongly been that, and I'm
(28:04):
realizing that it had its roots in some films from
the US that didn't really take that part of it
into account. Was kind of interesting. There was also am
an interesting commentary that I read in one of the
sources I was using for this one, where they made
the point that the films, the creature films that came
out of Japan often have that that much more um
(28:28):
ecologically minded ideology, where they actually, even though they recognize
they have to battle the creature to save humanity, there
is a certain level of empathy for the creature and
like understanding that we did this, whereas if you look
at most of the US made films with creatures, none
of that is in there. It's just like, there's a threat,
we gotta kill it, and they don't really have that
(28:48):
same that same level of sensitivity to like cause an
effect in it, which is pretty interesting. I would want
to do a bigger survey of of creature films from
the era to really see how that plays out. But
it made me think for her. Um. So yeah, and
again thanks to uh to the new Godzilla, King of
the Monsters into Michael Doherty for talking to us about it.
He's so passionate about it, and like we said, he
(29:10):
really knows a lot of Godzilla history on his own
and can speak extemporaneously at length about it. UM. So
it's cool that he is getting to uh to be
a big part of this universe now and uh yeah,
hopefully everyone will see and enjoy it. I had to say,
that's the most beautiful Mathra has ever looked in my opinion. Yeah,
it's just spectacularly beautiful. The film is absolutely beautiful, um
(29:34):
in terms of just like cinematography and composition, it's really
spectacular and in fact, as I mentioned at the top,
hearkens back a lot to this original film UM, which
is kind of a lovely homage in a way that
still feels very new and fresh. I have completely unrelated
listener mail because I came into the office today to
(29:55):
find a very strange and delightful gift on my desk.
It is tiny, but the full um it is from
our listeners Sean, and he writes, Hello, Holly. Enclosed is
a path tag for you. Path tags are small coins
created by Geo Cashier's to leave in cash is as
a sort of calling card. I had a bunch of
these made up a few years ago. Thanks to you
and Tracy for all of the podcasts. But what makes
(30:17):
this very very cool is he has this teeny tiny
coin that is made with my Hana mansioned boyfriend the
hat Box Ghost on it, and it glows in the
dark and there's a hidden mickey when it glows in
the dark. I have not been able to get it
into a dark room because I just opened it this
morning and then we had to run into the studio.
(30:37):
But it's adorable and I love it and I kind
of want to make a necklace charm out of it.
So thank you so much, Sean. What a cool thing,
and it's really beautifully designed and I love it, so
that is a deep treasure for me. If you would
like to write to us, you can do so at
History Podcast at how stofworks dot com. You can also
find us across the spectrum of social media as Missed
in History, and you can visit us and our online
(30:59):
home them which is Missed in History dot com, where
you can find every episode that's ever existed since the
show began and we were not even associated with it.
If you would like to subscribe to the podcast, that
sounds great, you can do that on the I Heart
Radio app at Apple Podcasts or anywhere else that you
listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
(31:22):
a production of I heart Radios How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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