大怪獣バラン (1958)

Curiosidades

Varan the Unbelievable is a 1958 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it stars Kōzō Nomura, Ayumi Sonoda, and Koreya Senda, with Haruo Nakajima as Varan. In the film, a reporter's investigation into two mysterious deaths in Japan's mountains leads to the discovery of a giant lake monster, wrecking its way towards civilization.

Production

Personnel taken from A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series.

In 1957, AB-PT Pictures approached Toho to co-produce a new kaiju film for television. At AB-PT's request, Toho planned for Varan the Unbelievable to be filmed in three parts, 30 minutes each, and with fade ins/outs for commercial breaks. Tanaka purposely gave the film a low budget and low production values to ensure a profit from the ABC sale.

Kuronuma was approached by Tanaka to write a new kaiju film, stating, "Rodan had arrived in the US, and a request for another came from [America] to Toho. Tanaka approached me, asking me to come up with something, anything." Sekizawa was tasked with writing the screenplay and was told to keep it "basic and simple."

Sekizawa's early drafts used the subtitle "Monster of the East." A scene that Sekizawa wrote featured children pretending to be Varan but was cut from the film.

Filming began in July 1958 in black-and-white and in 1.33:1 aspect ratio. However, after AB-PT shut down, Toho changed the film's status in the middle of production from a television project into a theatrical feature. Honda noted that they couldn't start over and had to resort to "blowing up" the film to widescreen format, a method that was used for the Japanese release of Godzilla, King of the Monsters! Toho proceeded to market the film as a 2.3…

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