Varan the Unbelievable (1962) American version
In a joint venture between the United States and Japan, Commander James Bradley (Myron Healey) USN is assigned to Kunashiroshima Island in Japan. He is charged with conducting a series of experiments using chemicals to desalinate water. They are looking for a cheaper way to do it. The experiments are being done on a lake on a remote island. Bradley’s wife Anna (Tsuruko Kobayashi) is assisting him.
Since the experiments are going to contaminate the lake Bradley has given an order to have the natives in a nearby village evacuated. The villagers do not want to leave. Bradley’s wife pleads their case for them. Bradley decides that the villagers can stay and destruction of their food supply will be replaced by the US government.
The experiments proceed on schedule. The chemicals kill the fish in the lake and disturb a giant monster, the native’s call Obaki, The monster rises up from the lake and destroys the village. It then heads out into the ocean to see what other havoc can be wrought.
“Varan The Unbelievable” was release in the US in 1962 and was directed (for the most part) by Ishiro Honda with additional footage by Jerry Baerwitz. Production of the movie began under the title “Odoroku” in 1960. Baerwitz’s film is radically different from the original TOHO version. Parts of the movie are in Japanese, but the new footage is in English with an English narrative running through it. Pieces have no language at all. Probably in order to fit the original bits and pieces in with the new plot.
The original movie was written by Ken Kuronuma and Shin‘ichi Sekizawa. The new story was written by Sid Harris. Harris constructed an entirely new story with new characters but with a patchwork of old and new footage weaved around the monster footage. Varan does not fly in the American version. That is just about the only monster footage not used. There is however, an additional little snippet of footage added of the monster’s claw replacing a scene in the Japanese version. The movie is basically a cut and paste of the original. Pieces of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again are also in this movie as stock footage. Some of the sequences of the original movie were also changed to fit the new narrative.
A lot of people didn’t like the original movie and felt that all the changes made it even worse. The American version was a little disjointed. When you watch them side by side you can see that the American version didn’t exact gel. You still got a monster stomping around so I’m not sure if the story really matters that much. I liked the look of Varan and I would have liked to see more stomping but as to which one is better, watch them both and decide for yourself.
For some strange reason the creature is called Obaki, but the name of the movie is still Varan. Nowhere is there given a reason for the creatures name being different.
At the end of the movie, Commander Bradley mentions continuing his testing in a salt water lake in Southern California. He is referring to the Salton Sea which was used by the military for many different tests from 1942 until 1987.
The American scenes were shot in Bronson Canyon just outside of Los Angeles. Myron Healey was under the impression he was going to shoot his scenes in Japan like Raymond Burr supposedly had for Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956). When Healey made a guest appearance on an episode of Perry Mason (1957) he talked to Burr about it and found out that Burr filmed all his scenes on a soundstage in Hollywood.