V Movies

Valley of Gwangi, The

It took nearly thirty years for The Valley of Gwangi to be made, and it's probably a better film for the wait. Although Willis O'Brien (the special effects pioneer best known for the classic King Kong) had the idea for a movie featuring cowboys and dinosaurs way back in 1942, the film wasn't actually produced until 1969. By then, the color film technology and stop-motion animation techniques so desperately needed to bring this wild fantasy to life were more easily accessible, thanks to special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen.

The plot is pretty simple: cowboys discover the Valley where dinosaurs still live and bring back an Allosaurus to use as a circus attraction. This, as you might guess, turns out to be a Very Bad Idea. James Franciscus spends the rest of the movie trying to pick up the pieces. A few pieces of anatomical inaccuracy may make dino-purists cringe (are those bat wings on that pteranadon?), but for most folks it's just good dinosaur fun.

Varan the Unbelievable

You know what's really unbelievable? That this B&W snore fest was made by Toho four years after Godzilla, and two years after Rodan. It's a real step backwards for the Japanese monster movie.

A village in a remote part of Japan worships a god named Varan, and forbids people to approach a certain mountain. Scientists from the outside arrive in the area, ridicule the villagers, approach the mountain, and then almost immediately get trampled by a giant lizard. The lizard then flies to Tokyo Bay (this scene was cut from the American version of the film, which actually reduced the level of unbelievableness) and hangs out while the humans have interminable conversations about how large a shell will have to be to pierce Varan's hide. Then it's discovered that Varan will eat a flare if he sees one, so they put a bomb on a flare and before you can say "Taco Bell," Varan is dead from a really bad case of gas.

The special effects aren't much of an improvement over Godzilla, let alone Rodan. There is no human interest in the story, unless discussions about artillery interest you greatly. Varan is a neat design, though he looks pretty skinny when he stands up. Maybe that's to sell us a bit more on the 400-ton lizard gliding around. But the movie fails to interest, and that's why Varan only appeared in Destroy All Monsters after this.

Voyage into Space

This TV feature was edited together from episodes of the Japanese series Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. Young Johnny controls a giant robot, which he must use to defeat monsters sent by alien Emperor Guillotine.