New Book on the History and Legacy of the Original "Godzilla" (1954) Now Available!

And order placed.

WANT

Approach this book with caution. I've read through some of it, but paid particular special attention to the sections covering Ifukube and the score. Mr. Brothers' biographical information about Ifukube is often quite incorrect, even at times shockingly so. Also, his descriptions of the various musical cues are inaccurate and strange. He tries to identify, for example, the different musical instruments in the various cues and is often dead wrong. I don't mean to rain on Mr. Brothers' parade...it's obvious that he has a real love for this movie and I'm sure it took a lot of energy to try something this ambitious...but you cannot do sloppy, shoddy research...at least as far as Ifukube and the score are concerned...and then try to pass it off as fact in a book. It's a little too easy to give yourself the moniker of "author" or "expert" these days. So again, reader beware.

^Thanks for the heads up Tapkaara.
Are there other specific things we should look out for? If there are aspects about Ifukube that are incorrect, there's likely to be others.

Always excited for any books on Godzilla and glad to see that the character continues to appear in any medium. 

GMAN2887, there are several issues that can be considered problems in relation to the Ifukube biographical information in this book. Too many to list here. One example that comes to mind immediately is that the author says that Ifukube wrote the score for Kurosawa's Drunken Angel in 1948. Any IMDB or Wikipedia search would tell you that he wrote the score for A Quiet Duel in 1949, not Drunken Angel. Again, this is merely one of many.

Regarding the musical descriptions, Mr. Brothers is again at a disatvantage. He makes rather uneducated guesses when describing the instrumentation of the various cues in the Godzilla score. This is unfortunate, as he spends a great deal of time "describing" the music in the 1954 film. There is no other way to put it...he is often way off. How do I know this? I should disclose that I am the creator and webmaster of AKIRAIFUKUBE.ORG, the OFFICIAL English language website about Maestro Ifukube. I recently wrote an accurate and authentic piece about the 1954 Godzilla score; I had access to the original musical manuscript for this film as well as a bunch of other information from reliable sources; again, Mr. Brothers is way off when describing these pieces in "such detail." Instead of basing his text on actual research, it is based on uneducated guesses, and, therefore, it lacks authenticity.

It pains me to write this. As a researcher myself, it is not a good feeling to dump on the work of someone else, someone who is undoubtedly a great fan of this film and of this genre. However, I have taken great care in my research; I would never put my name on something that wasn't thoroughly worked on and wasn't authentic. Mr. Brothers, it seems, is much too eagar to invent a narrative and slap his name on it in order to make a name for himself. He can advertise his book all he wants as being "groundbreaking," and I suppose he will, but he'll do so at  the expense of being sloppy and haphazard. As far as I am concerned, that is irresponsible at best and dishonest at worst.

Again, approach with caution.

Tapkaara,
Thanks for the heads up and pointing us at akiraifukube.org for more accurate information about the maestro. Oddly I look forward to cross referencing the book with your site to spot the innacuracies. I hope you'll be in and out enough to alert us of misinformation on the topic should more questions arise.

Thanks again.

Certainly, GMAN2887.

Mind you, my area of knowledge really is in Ifukube. While I have a good knowledge of the production of G '54, there are other writers better suited to pick through the "non-musical" details of the film. Ed Godziszewski is a name that comes to mind immediately; he'd be better situated to comment on the accuracy of the book in general. In fact, Mr. Brothers references Ed's own writing on this film quite extensively.

I own the book and it's a good book but what Tapkaara has stated is true. It's worth getting but it is a rip off of what Ed Godziszewski would say and would inform about.

Ed already wrote the definitive account of the making of this film in English in Japanese Giants number 10 some 11 years ago. Brothers simply rehashes much of that writing. He does often credit Ed, at least. I'd  rather read directly from the source and from someone whose credentials and capabilities as a researcher are established and solid, thus I'd put my faith in Ed G.

I suppose what Brothers has done differently is give an extended section to the music, but it's worthless as it's all either half-true or completely wrong.

There is a lengthy section in which he provides a multitude of translated reviews from Japanese newspapers that cover the then new film. These are often interesting to read and there are a lot of them. I cannot feel assured, though, about the accuracy of the translations but, perhaps, they are translated well. I'll give the benefit of the doubt here. This is the only real "new" material in the book, and it does provide insight into the Japanese reactions to this movie.

There is an excruciatingly lengthy section that gives descriptions of not only every single shot in Gojira but also KOTM. This is boring and ultimately useless; it's better just to watch the films. Either Mr. Brothers grossly over estimates his readers' interest in such material or it's just fluff to make the book longer. Meticulous? Yes. Worth anyone's time? Absolutely not.