{"id":11579211,"date":"2025-07-28T11:30:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/?p=11579211&preview=true&preview_id=11579211"},"modified":"2025-07-28T11:30:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:30:38","slug":"at-70-godzilla-keeps-on-smashing-expectations-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/2025\/07\/28\/at-70-godzilla-keeps-on-smashing-expectations-buildings\/","title":{"rendered":"At 70, Godzilla keeps on smashing expectations, buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Ryfle remembers scouring the TV Guide each week to find the monster movies and Universal horror films he loved.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou had to make an appointment with yourself to be by the TV, so it was really special,\u201d recalls Ryfle, an author and co-writer of the Emmy-winning documentary \u201cMiracle on 42nd Street\u201d (and, I\u2019ll note, a friend since our time as young journalists).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Japanese films always appealed to me the most. They were intriguing because they took place in a world that was unfamiliar, a culture that was unfamiliar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Godzilla, he says, was especially captivating to a dinosaur-loving kid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, when you\u2019re younger, you\u2019re into dinosaurs,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cGodzilla seemed like the greatest dinosaur I\u2019d ever seen, and it did all these crazy things, and I just loved it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

SEE ALSO<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0Like books? Get our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more<\/a><\/p>\n

But back then, beyond a few fanzines or horror magazines, it wasn\u2019t as easy as it is now to find information about less mainstream interests or connect with like-minded fans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere really wasn\u2019t anything to read about these films in any detail. And I remember as a child asking a bookstore clerk if there were books on Godzilla, and he actually laughed at me and asked why I would ever want to read anything like that,\u201d says Ryfle. \u201cThat stuck in my brain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"An
An image from the book “Godzilla: The First 70 Years” by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski. (Courtesy of Abrams)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Along with Ed Godziszewski, with whom he co-wrote 2017\u2019s \u201cIshiro Honda: A Life in Film,\u201d Ryfle is the co-author of the massive new book \u201cGodzilla: The First 70 Years,\u201d a 432-page, nearly 6-pound book filled with stories, interviews, breakout boxes, and more than 900 photos of one of cinema\u2019s most enduring figures. The writing duo will be appearing as part of <\/span>an overall Godzilla onslaught<\/span><\/a> at this year\u2019s San Diego Comic-Con.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book, which features introductions by \u201cHalloween\u201d and \u201cThe Thing\u201d directing legend John Carpenter<\/a> and recurring Godzilla actress Megumi Odaka, is the culmination of an effort by the publisher and Toho Studios to mark the anniversary with the ultimate English-language book examining the narrative and visual history of the films, says Ryfle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDating back to 1954, Godzilla has, of course, gone through all of these different iterations and evolutions and changes and its motivation and its personality and the way it\u2019s depicted on screen, and even the techniques that are used to bring it to life,\u201d says Ryfle, who points to the recent box office success and critical respect for 2023\u2019s \u201cGodzilla Minus One.\u201d \u201cI mean, who would have thought 70 years ago that a Godzilla movie made in Japan would win an Academy Award<\/a>? It would have been impossible, and yet here we are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real evolution from the time when these movies were sort of misunderstood and just relegated to the scrap heap of low-budget cinema they were assumed to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there are interesting stories to tell about these movies and the people who made them,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s really kind of a celebration of the people and the culture that they come from. The people who made these movies were proud of the work that they did, because they were basically, by and large, handmade films.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike other schlocky midcentury genre movies, the original Godzilla films reflected Japan\u2019s experience during and after World War II. The films were a response not only to the devastation caused by the U.S. detonating atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also to the firebombing of Tokyo in which nearly 300 U.S. planes dropped 1665 tons of napalm on the city, creating a firestorm and killing 100,000 people in what the Truman Library Institute called <\/span>\u201cthe most devastating aerial bombardment in history.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGodzilla, at its very heart from the very beginning, is a monster rooted in trauma,\u201d says Ryfle. \u201cIt\u2019s also really about that collective experience of the war and the struggle and the hardships that people went through \u2013 and also the collective experience of the post-war period when the economy was in shambles and there were food shortages and political unrest and unemployment and deprivation of extreme magnitude.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are images in the original film that directly correspond to wartime destruction, says Ryfle.<\/span>\u201cWhen I\u2019m giving talks about the first Godzilla film, I\u2019ll show stills of Tokyo on fire,\u201d says Ryfle, referring to actual photos taken during wartime bombing raids. \u201cI\u2019ll put up these two pictures side by side \u2026 it\u2019s almost like a mirror image.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As well as exploring the film\u2019s inspirations \u2013 such as the original \u201cKing Kong,\u201d which had been a huge success upon re-release just a few years before the initial Godzilla film \u2013 Ryfle and Godziszewski did interviews and scoured archives for fresh insights \u2013 and found things that surprised them despite having decades of experience writing about the films.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEd and I\u2019ve been writing together for a number of years and working on a lot of different projects. We actually met 30 years ago at the very first Godzilla convention that they had in Chicago,\u201d says Ryfle, praising his writing partner Godziszewski as \u201ca legend\u201d when it comes to knowing the topic and where to dig up information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only did they discover the audio elements of the iconic Godzilla roar \u2013 many of the monster cries were made with different musical instruments, says Ryfle \u2013 but they also learned something surprising about the changing face of Godzilla over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 1954 to, say, 1975, the suit looks different pretty much in almost every film, and I always thought that that was on purpose. But no, they actually made the suits, at least for about the first 15 years, from the same mold. They just came out differently every time,\u201d says Ryfle, who credits the actor inside the suit, Haruo Nakajima, both for his artistry and his superhuman stamina. \u201cThe very first suit was almost unusable. It weighed so much and the interior of it was almost inflexible \u2026 the guy tried to walk in it and just tipped over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was impossible to be inside without suffocating if you were in it for more than a few minutes \u2026 it was almost a death sentence to do this stuff,\u201d says Ryfle, adding that Nakajima would sweat out dozens of pounds during filming. \u201cThey would have to pour the sweat out of the suit every day, and then dry out the interior for the next day, because it was just a sauna in there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the \u201cman-in-the-suit\u201d aspect could sometimes be viewed as comical, Ryfle says Nakajima\u2019s work was instrumental in the creature\u2019s evolution and popularity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d says Ryfle, while also praising the original film\u2019s special effects wizard, director and cast. \u201cHe was just a wonderful man who died a couple of years ago. He loved his work, and he\u2019s largely responsible for the personality that starts to come through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe turns Godzilla from a walking nuclear bomb into a character over a period of time,\u201d says Ryfle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"An
An image from the book “Godzilla: The First 70 Years” by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski. (Courtesy of Abrams)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While we discussed a range of topics and there\u2019s much more in the book, Ryfle summed up the project as we were concluding the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone asked me, like, what was your goal at the start of it?\u201d he says. \u201cWe wanted to make the best Godzilla book for the widest possible audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always felt from the beginning that [the films] were unfairly maligned and misunderstood, and that maybe I could help, especially after I started meeting the creators and realizing what passion they had for their work,and starting to understand how culturally specific these films are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But he also understands another reason for Godzilla\u2019s lasting power.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn a gut level, no matter what\u2019s going on in the film and how quote-unquote \u2018serious\u2019 it is as a movie,\u201d says Ryfle, \u201cpeople really want to see the spectacle of Godzilla destroying things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with the Comic-Con appearance, the authors will be appearing at Santa Ana\u2019s Frida Cinema on July 28<\/a> for a book signing and screening of \u201cGhidorah, The Three-Headed Monster!\u201d and at the Japan Center Los Angeles on July 30 for a free talk\u00a0(registration required)<\/a> with books for sale from Chevalier\u2019s Books<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Ryfle, co-author with Ed Godziszewski of ‘Godzilla: The First 70 Years,’ discusses the monster and its movies over the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":11579212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-07-28T15:30:37Z","apple_news_api_id":"c9411973-7666-4b22-aa73-6243ec416fed","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-07-28T15:30:38Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AyUEZc3ZmSyKqc2JD7EFv7Q","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"subheadline":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24256,120,113],"tags":[],"feature":[],"location":[],"type-of-work":[],"coauthors":[24572],"class_list":["post-11579211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-movies","category-things-to-do"],"post_status":"","edit_last":0,"edit_lock":0,"highlights":"","original_byline":"","original_canonical":"","original_category":"","original_email":"","original_id":0,"original_pubdate":"","original_source":"","primary_section":"24256","primary_tag":0,"print_workflow_body":"","print_workflow_exported_ts":"","print_workflow_exported_username":"","print_workflow_shapes":"","print_workflow_side":"","really_short_title":"","short_title":"","syndication_source":{"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/07\/28\/at-70-godzilla-keeps-on-smashing-expectations-buildings","id":"cG9zdDoyMTcyOTk0","siteName":"Sharing Dash","syndicationSourceStack":[{"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/07\/28\/at-70-godzilla-keeps-on-smashing-expectations-buildings","id":"cG9zdDoyMTcyOTk0","siteName":"Sharing Dash","sourceUrl":"https:\/\/sharingdash.medianewsgroup.com"}],"source_url":"https:\/\/sharingdash.medianewsgroup.com"},"market_neutral_title":"","social_title":"","dfm_hub_post_id":0,"paywall_level":"metered","featured_media_content":{"content_type":"image","content":{"id":11579212,"title":"OCR-L-BOOK-GODZILLA-2-0727_1","filename":"OCR-L-BOOK-GODZILLA-2-0727_1.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-BOOK-GODZILLA-2-0727_1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/2025\/07\/28\/at-70-godzilla-keeps-on-smashing-expectations-buildings\/ocr-l-book-godzilla-2-0727_1\/","alt":"","author":"13","description":"","caption":"An image from the book “Godzilla: The First 70 Years” by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski. 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