A Godzillaphile Takes on a Corporate Behemoth

The author remembers the day he came face to face with his muse.

It was Mother’s Day 1973, and Steve Ryfle’s mom took her boy to the Roxy cinema in Glendale to see “Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.” It was,” Ryfle recalls, “the biggest thrill” of his young life. Oh, he’d seen plenty of Godzilla movies on TV, but never on the big screen. “This was the biggest, meanest, coolest dinosaur in the world come to life.” The Godzilla who battled the Smog Monster, he says, was especially “cool” because he was like this “big Cookie-Monster Godzilla with these pingpong-ball eyes.”

I take Ryfle at his word, for he spent five years researching and writing a 369-page ode to the giant mutant. The book would have been in stores by now if not for some bigfooting by Toho Co. Ltd., holder of the Godzilla trademark.

In eagerness to hog licensing profits from TriStar’s new but not improved “Godzilla,” Toho threatened legal action, which prompted Dell last July to drop Ryfle’s compendium, then titled “Godzilla: The Unauthorized Biography.” At least one other writer had a book on the Godzilla movies waylaid by Toho’s lawyers.

The irony is that the 1998 “Godzilla,” which is more of a turkey than a T-Rex at the box office, could have used the extra hype. Audiences accustomed to spectacular special effects gave it poor word of mouth, and longtime Godzilla fans are particularly hostile.

Yes, perhaps the best thing about this flick isn’t in the flick at all. The best moment comes in that TV commercial when the Taco Bell chihuahua realizes he needs a bigger box.

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It’s hard not to root for Ryfle in his battle against Godzilla Inc. On one side is a writer indulging a labor of love, not dreaming of riches, while on the other is a corporate behemoth promoting works it has authorized, such as a novelization and coloring books, plus an “official” filmography. Matthew Flamm, writing in the online magazine Salon, suggests that consumers have been cheated, because “The Official Godzilla Compendium” from Random House “may make longtime fans run in fright.”

How is it, Flamm asks, that a Godzilla book that claims to be authoritative contain no synopsis of the 1954 “Gojira”? That was the Japanese film from which the Americanized “Godzilla” was made, with Raymond Burr spliced in as the journalist chronicling Tokyo’s destruction.

Godzilla--the true Godzilla that is, not TriStar’s--is an enduring source of fascination for many reasons. Ryfle, who now lives in New York but once worked as a freelancer on The Times’ Valley Edition, became interested in writing a book after the September 1993 cover of the Village Voice illustrated a tale about City Hall corruption with the image of Godzilla destroying New York. The Japanese monster that Ryfle loved as a child was, obviously, a staple of American culture--and when Ryfle looked for books to quench his curiosity about the big dude, he found nothing.

So Ryfle set out to learn all he could about Godzilla, traveling twice to Japan to interview the surviving principals who made the early films. His book is dedicated to the memory of Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya, respectively, the producer, director and special effects creator of the early Godzilla films.

As a cultural icon, Godzilla has been considered as a window into the Japanese psyche--especially as a metaphor for the unpredictable horrors of the nuclear age. Godzilla was conceived not long after the so-called Lucky Dragon Incident. The Lucky Dragon was a Japanese fishing vessel that in 1954 strayed into Pacific waters declared off-limits due to hydrogen bomb tests. The sickness and death of irradiated crew members revived fears in a nation that had experienced Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And as the Godzillaphiles may sense, the big lizard is truly a victim himself.

Ryfle quotes the first film’s star, Akira Takarada, concerning Godzilla’s demise: “At the studio screening, I couldn’t help crying when I watched Godzilla become a skeleton. I thought, ‘Why did mankind have to punish Godzilla like that? . . . Mankind seems like a bigger villain than Godzilla, and I felt sorry for him. I think sympathy for him still exists today. If Godzilla were truly evil, people wouldn’t have loved him so much. We were responsible for triggering Godzilla’s violence.”

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I loved Godzilla. My mother likes to tell how, as a child, I would sit and watch the big monster whenever he came on TV.

I would sit a few feet in front of the old black-and-white. The first appearance of Godzilla would scoot me back a few feet in fear, and soon I would be across the room, crouched behind a chair, sneaking peeks at Godzilla and hoping he wouldn’t see me.

Some time later, I would see “King Kong vs. Godzilla” on the big screen. Later Godzilla films became a campy pleasure in my teens, as Godzilla took on Ghidrah, Rodan, Mothra, Megalon and the rest. (Just because I have two big mutant lizards on a bookshelf in my living room poised to do battle, I am not a Godzilla geek.)

But Ryfle is right when he suggests that the 1998 digital Godzilla fails where the old puppet Godzillas succeeded because the modern filmmakers didn’t really understand their star. Even though humans kill his children, they made a Godzilla nobody could love.

“Basically all it is is a gigantic iguana, and the people can’t be fooled,” Ryfle says, disgust in his tone. “People know Godzilla doesn’t run away. I could hear kids groaning in the audience. There was a small child in my row, saying ‘Why is he running away?’ ”

Sour grapes? Ryfle says he would feel worse if the current “Godzilla” were a hit.

“If the thing was making all the money it was supposed to make, I’d be really missing out. But as it turns out, I’m not really missing much of anything.”

Ryfle has another publisher and they are expecting that Toho will soon provide permission to use photographs. “My book will come out and it won’t really be associated with that film. It will be more of a separate entity.”

The fact is, Ryfle suggests, it won’t require star-making hype for his book to find its true audience.

“There are many others who are similarly afflicted,” he says, laughing. “It’s pretty sick . . . I’ve got to get a new hobby, one that doesn’t keep me awake at night with federal lawsuits being threatened.”

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.