After the success of the first two Godzilla films, Ishiro Honda and Tomoyuki Tanaka would take on the ambitious task of creating a flying monster epic. The film, which would be later titled, “Sora no daikaiju Radon”, was initially penned by writer Ken Kuronuma who drew inspiration from a story he had translated for the Japanese version of Amazing Stories magazine about a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, who had crashed his plane while chasing a UFO. Kuronuma’s original story would be reworked by Takeshi Kimura and Takeo Murata who replaced the UFO with a pair of flying dinosaurs and added the smaller insect-like Maganuron, who were modeled after the giant ants from Warner Bros. hit 1954 film “Them!”.
The flying monster, Rodan, presented several technical problems for Eiji Tsuburaya and his special effects team. Elaborate rigging had to be created to support the 150 pound Rodan suite, and the actor inside it. The use of special cameras created excessive heat and prevented the crew from shooting studio scenes during the hot summer days. Tsuburaya’s team would end up dividing its time between twelve hour nights inside and long days outside shooting on miniature sets on Toho’s back lot.
Working inside the heavy and cumbersome Rodan costume was extremely difficult, and dangerous, for actor Haruo Nakajima. While filming a scene where, Rodan was to bust from the water, the support wires broke and Nakajima plummeted twenty feet. Luckily the water and the mass of the costumes wings cushioned the blow and the actor was only shaken and not seriously injured.
While filming the film’s climatic death scene, the wire broke on one of the miniature Rodan puppets. The puppeteer tried to desperately control the miniature to prevent it from falling into the simulated lava flow. Tsuburaya kept cameras rolling as the Puppeteer wrestled with the tiny Rodan prop. In the end, he kept the sequence, feeling the sudden upward movement looked as if the monster was making one last effort to save itself before being consumed by molten rock.
The film was released in Japan in 1956 and earned special effects genius, Tsuburaya, yet another Japan Film Technique Award. Surprisingly, however, was the response the film received when it was released in the United States in 1959. A rather large marketing campaign, lead to surprisingly large ticket sales. The film managed to gross a whopping $500,000, which by today’s standards doesn’t seem like much, but for its time, Rodan would reign as the highest grossing science fiction film in history. This success would be an eye opener for the American film industry. From that point forward, film distribution companies would compete vigorously to get Japanese monster films for US release.
" Rodan is a supersonic movie for the jet age!"
A mine cave-in would open a doorway to the prehistoric past. A search for trapped miners brought death to anyone who attempted it. Giant insects began to roam the caverns making rescue impossible. It would have been okay if the creatures would have stayed in the mine but, they began to raid the village as well.
Mysteriously about the same time two UFOs flying at high mach speeds began to be sighted over the Pacific. The Air Force with their jets could not catch these UFOs. This would be only the beginning of the strange events that were about to unfold.
One of the lost minors would be found wandering the hillsides...alive. It would take several days before he would come to and tell his amazing story. He was convinced that he had witnessed the hatching of a giant flying reptile. It would not be too long before the man’s story would be proven factual. The Air Force would engage the two UFOs and find them not to be alien spacecraft but, two enormous flying reptiles. Jets were no match for their speed and gigantic size. The two monsters would take out their rage on several cities in Japan. Their wingspan could create hurricane force winds that could blow a city out of existence. Was Japan doomed?
The military needed to act fast. It was determined, through recon, that the two Rodan had made a volcano near the mine their nest. It was determined that all the fire power the military could muster would be brought to bear on that location. The onslaught was awesome. The force of the blasts would bring the volcano to life. The twin Rodan were unable to escape the intense heat and rivers of molten lava. Oddly this scene would end in sadness, for the one Rodan would choose to kill itself after the other had perished.
Rodan Filming Locations
Source: Armand Vaquer
Images and Text Copyright 2008 by Armand Vaquer
Rodanis set for a deluxe DVD release September 9 (paired withWar of the Gargantuas) by Classic Media.
Rodanwas produced by Toho Co., Ltd. in 1956. It is a story about two flying repties (of the pteranodon family) revived (it is speculated in the movie by H-bomb tests) in a huge cavern that was penetrated by a coal mine on the island of Kyushu. The mine is located at or near the Mt. Aso volcano. Hideous creatures (meganeurons) attack miners and are a source of food for the baby Rodans.
The movie was released in the United States in 1957 in an edited and dubbed form.
In 2007, I visited Mt. Aso Volcano National park while on vacation in Japan. I could not see much as the park was in the midst of a blizzard. However, the trip wasn't wasted as the visitor center has interesting displays, some interactive, for visitors to see. They also have live camera views of the volcano's caldera.
Also, I visited three other locations from Rodan :Saikai Bridge, the Hario Wireless Towers and Sasebo Catholic Church. The bridge and towers are located at the Hario Seto Straits, noted for its swift currents and whirlpools.
Saikai Bridge (above) is a fixed-brace arch bridge 244 meters in length and 1,927 meters tall. The bridge was completed in 1955 and now has a companion bridge that was completed in 2006. The first, or Rodan's Saikai Bridge, spans the Hario Seto Straits. At the time of its completion, it was the longest arch-type bridge in the world. The scene when the waters of the Ohmura Bay flow out through this narrow strait at ebb tide is very dramatic.
Nearby, the three Hario Wireless Towers (below), which transmitted the coded message that launched the attack on Pearl Harbor and triggered the Pacific War on December 7, 1941 can still be seen. These towers also could be seen in Rodan, with one of the Rodans flying in the distance.
A couple of blocks from the JR Sasebo Station is the Sasebo Catholic Church, which was also seen in Rodan. The main street in which the church stands has been built-up over the years with buildings towering over the chuch.
Sasebo City is situated between Nagasaki and Fukuoka and is easily accessible by JR Kyushu Railways. It is a pleasant ride to get to Sasebo from Nagasaki as the train skirts along seaside towns with views of offshore islands. Sasebo is well worth a visit by Rodan fans.
RODAN - Did You Know?
Trivia Compiled By: Ken Hulsey
Sources: IMDB / Wikipedia
Here is some trivia about one of my all-time favorite monster movies "Rodan":
The original Japanese film's climactic monster invasion was filmed around, and set in, Fukuoka, the largest city on Japan's southernmost island of Kyushu. However, the American version relocated the action in the dubbing to another city in Kyushu, Sasebo, perhaps concerned that their dubbing actors would sorely mispronounce the word "Fukuoka" at inappropriate moments.
Name of the monster in Japan was "Radon". However, because there was a soap by that name in the United States, when dubbed for the US market, they transposed letters and changed the monster's name to "Rodan".
Veteran writer Ken Kuronuma, who wrote the original story for this film, was inspired by an incident in Kentucky in 1948, when Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a pilot for the Kentucky Air National Guard, died in a crash while allegedly pursuing a UFO. (If you want to know more about that read "Classic UFO Case - UFO Shoots Down Air Force Fighter Over Kentucky?")
When Shigeru and Kashiwagi are in the helicopter searching for Rodan, Kashiwagi is wearing a tie and his head isn't bandaged, but when they go to see the planes bombard Rodan's lair Kashiwagi is no longer wearing a tie and the bandage mysteriously reappears. However, the scene of Kashiwagi and Shigeru in the helicopter was actually from later in the picture and was rearranged by the producers of the American version so that it would make it look as if they were starting the search.
In one scene in the control tower at the Japanese AF Base, background footage of planes on the ground can be seen to pause, then run in reverse.
Among the people doing the voice over work for this film are Paul Frees, Keye Luke and a young George Takei.
While shooting the scene in which Rodan flies over the bridge in Saikai Village in Kyushu, the pulley from which Haruo Nakajima (who played the monster) was suspended broke. He fell from a height of twenty-five feet, but the wings and the water, which was about one and a half feet deep, absorbed much of the impact.
Rodan's original Japanese name, Radon, is actually short for the Japanese word for Pteranodon ("Puteranodon").
The King Brothers' theatrical release of Rodan was quite successful in its first run in the United States. It was the first Japanese movie to receive general release on the West Coast to make a strong showing at the box-office. It later received the biggest TV advertising campaign given to a film to that date on New York's NBC flagship station WRCA-TV, where a series of commercials running 10 to 60 seconds were shown for a week before the film's opening.
It grossed an estimated $450,000 to $500,000 during its opening weekend at 79 theaters in the New York City metropolitan area. Several theatrical circuits, including RKO, announced that Rodan broke the records for a science-fiction film.
And now you know!
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