Godzilla Turns 70

One of the most important films in cinema history just turned 70 and that film is Godzilla.

The film was directed by Ishiro Handa, who also co-written the screenplay with Takeo Murata, with Tomoyuki Tanaka as the producer, and studio Toho did the production and distribution of the film. The film was made with a 100 million Japanese Yen budget and earned 183 million Japanese Yen from the Japanese Box Office. The film was released in the US in 1956 under the name “Godzilla, King of the Monsters!” and was heavily re-edited which would go on to be known as the “Americanized” version of the film.

The film and Godzilla itself became an international pop culture icon and also established the template for the Tokusatsu media. In case you don’t know Tokusatsu is live action films or TV show that make heavy use of practical special effects, a very good example of this would the Kamen Rider series, the Ultraman series, and the Super Sentai series.

If Godzilla needs to give flowers to two people it would be actors Katsumi Tezuka and Haruo Nakajima, in case you don’t know who the actors are, simply put they were the actors who dressed up in the Godzilla suit and bring the king of the monsters to life. Nakajima is said to have lost 20 pounds during the production of the film and continued to work in the suit until his retirement in 1972. Tezuka would go on to dress up as other iconic monsters such as Anguirus and Varan until he retired in 1967.

Many people hail Godzilla as one of the greatest monster films of all time, it even has a Guinness World Record for being the longest-running film franchise in history with a total of 36 films and counting. If you want to know how big and important Godzilla is, The Hotel Gracery in Shinjuku has a Godzilla room and outside the window of the room, you can see a full-scale head of Godzilla looking like it’s going to attack your room.

You can watch Godzilla on almost any streaming service and all hail the king of the monsters!