The original version of Rodan, considered by many to be the best, first appeared in the 1956 film “Rodan”. This film, which was created out of a dream that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka had, was actually Toho’s first color kaiju film ever as well as Japan’s first color kaiju film. It even came close to being the first in the world, but was beat out by only a few months by “The Beast of Hollow Mountain”. Looking much like its dinosaur inspiration, the Rodan suit came equipped with several interesting, bird-like features. Including two devil horns on his head, beady black eyes, a tooth-lined beak, talons on his hands/feet, a spiked chest plate, reddish-brown colored skin, a tail, and a beautiful wingspan. However, this was not how Rodan was originally going to look. Early concept sketches show Rodan looking more like an Archaeopteryx instead of a Pteranodon. In fact, a maquette was even built of this version and it also showed up in a few publicity photos and movie posters. Now when it came to wearing the 100-pound plus suit, Toho could think on only one man for the job: Haruo Nakajima. Mr. Nakajima studied the motions of birds, including takeoffs and landings, to prepare for his role as he had done with Godzilla. However, it turned out that Mr. Nakajima was not able to do much acting in the suit other than move his head or legs because off-screen technicians worked the wings, making them flap as they pulled on long piano wires. This job was not without its difficulties for Mr. Nakajima tough. In one scene, during a takeoff, a support wire broke and sent him crashing to the concrete floor below, but everything turned out for the best as we all know and Rodan looked beautiful on screen.
