What happened to the original Godzilla suit?

[Gojizilla]

Between Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again it just disappeared. What happened to it?

[Geno]

Probably decomposed in a warehouse.

[lhb412]

Yeah, those pics of the Showa suits rotting in what was, I suppose, a barn on the Toho lot? How heartbreaking. Still, I don't recall any '50s props in those images, just stuff from the '60s and '70s. Perhaps they'd already rotted away/been disposed of by that time.

[tbeasley]

You know, I have a question kind of related to this.

We all know the 54 Godzilla had 4 toes, as seen here. This is the first suit made that was too stiff, so they sawed it in half and used the bottom part for close-ups.


But in a lot of the funny behind the scenes and promo shots you can find out there, the second main suit clearly has 3.





So was this a later alteration after shooting or did the two suits have different feet? I know the 55 suit had 4 toes before 3 took over for the remainder of the original series. I wonder if 3 made it any easier to walk in the suit.

[lhb412]

Wha?! Never noticed that. I have to go to work, so I can't fire up G '54 to watch and investigate whether we ever see the full body costume's feet.

[canofhumdingers]

That's quite interesting. I feel like I've noticed that in some of those silly promo pics and just never payed it much thought. But now I'm curious, what happened to the fourth toe? I scoured google images a bit and while I found a few behind the scene pics of the suit during filming that show its feet, but none clearly enough to confirm or number of toes. There are definately shots in the film that show the full suit's feet but I haven't had time check to see if you can actually count the toes.

Crazy how a film, even one popular with obsessive nerds like us, can still hold little interesting tidbits that no ones noticed over 60 years later.

[lhb412]

Just watched every monster scene from Godzilla '54, and I'm thinkin' the suit only had three toes.

On my Criterion Blu-Ray, at about 1:04:24 you get the clearest shot of the suit's feet. It's pretty dark, but if you adjust the brightness it seems he lacks that forth toe jutting out of the side of his foot. Most of the shots where the feet are in clear view on the full suit are in profile, thus useless for our purposes, and even those are rare: most of the time his feet are obscured by various debris or buildings or water or just shadow, and, of course, all the really tight closeups of the feet are the half suit (with four toes, natch).

[canofhumdingers]

I thought about contacting one of the highly knowledgeable scholars like August Ragone or Ed Godzizewski(sp?) to see if they had some insight, or maybe a rare photo(s) that might shed more light on this fourth toe conundrum. But I don't really know how to go about contacting anyone like that... I tried August's blog but it doesn't have any contact info that I could find and I feel a pm here would go unnoticed since he hasn't logged in since 2013. :-/

[The Great MM]

[August]

[lhb412]

[canofhumdingers]

Yep, what lhb said. Promotional pictures indicate the 1954 full body suit (not the first one that got cut in half) only had three toes. Is this true? Was the fourth toe chopped off at some point? Or did it never have the fourth toe to begin with?

And thanks for coming back August.

[tbeasley]

Another!

[tbeasley]

The 3 toes saga continues...

[lhb412]

THREE F***ING TOES!

[GFan]

Wow, so every G'54 toy has the wrong feet?!

[tbeasley]

I'm thinking the half-suit had the 4 toes (official) while the whole one only had 3 and they shot around it. Or it DID have 4 and they modified it for some reason for those goofy promo shots.

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio...

[canofhumdingers]

Possibly the best evidence I’ve seen that the suit always had three toes. Haruo Nakajima climbing into the suit on set. It’s not definitive since you could maybe argue the fourth toes are just obscured, but it seems pretty convincing to me...

[lhb412]

^That certainly looks like three toes to me! May be as conclusive and answer as we're likely to get.

Notice how the fourth toe is jutting out on the half suit - might've made it difficult to walk in and this the full body suit (with the understanding that its feet would be hidden) is tailored more for the suit actor's convenience.

[klen7]

I took these snaps the other day from the thick new hardcover Godzilla 54 (a must have - best photo book by far on the subject) - i will have to revisit them when i get home from work and see if there were any captions to explain. There are more shots of feet but these all clearly show a suit with 4 toes. You can also see the half suit in the background of the repair shot at the bottom

[canofhumdingers]

Dang, that's crazy! So what the heck happened to the fourth toes? Because some of those old promo shots with the actors are incontrovertibly 3 toes!

Edit:
Well, at least I don't have to take an exacto to all my G'54 figures to make them "screen accurate"

Edit edit:
Klen, mind posting the cover of that book so I can add it to my "things to get some day" list? Sounds like a great book.

[lhb412]

New theory: the fourth toe was cut off at some time during production to make the suit easier to walk in and they didn't remember (or care) to reattach it for those famous promo pictures of Godzilla hanging out with the actors.

[klen7]

I'll get a write up for the book this weekend. I could easily see there being 3 (2 1/2) suits based on the differences in the suit throughout shooting. 4 toes at Diet building, 3 toes at the electric wires

[canofhumdingers]

Is it definitely 3 toes at the electric wires? I’ve tried and tried and can just never tell.

[Dai]