“It was a monster. We were sunk by a hairy green giant.”
A fishing boat is attacked and sunk. There is only one survivor. He keeps talking about a giant. A green giant. The man says that the giant ate the other men on the boat. Dr. Paul Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) is called in. Five years ago Paul and his assistant Dr. Akemi Togawa (Kumi Mizuno), once had a baby Frankenstein in their possession for study. The gargantua escaped and ran into the mountains. Paul insists that the baby gargantua was docile and friendly. He is certain that it would not eat people.
Another boat is attacked. Villagers have seen the creature. They say it is a green gargantua. At the same time footprints are found in the mountains. Paul’s colleague Dr. Yuzo Majida (Kenji Sahara) collects some samples of the green gargantua. Majida deduces that the creature is sensitive to light. The green monster makes a few random attacks eating people. It is driven into the mountains.
The military goes after the green gargantua but a brown gargantua shows up and saves the green one, taking it away. Majida gets some samples of the brown gargantua’s DNA. He figures out that they are related. The green gargantua developed in the sea. To distinguish between the two the military calls the green one Gaira and the brown one Sanda.
The brown gargantua takes care of the green one until he sees that the green one is still eating people. They have a heated disagreement. Gaira heads for Tokyo. No longer bothered by lights since he knows that lights means food. Sanda runs after him.
“War of the Gargantuas” was released in 1966 in Japan and 1970 in the US. It was directed by Ishiro Honda. It is the third collaboration between TOHO and Henry Saperstein’s United Productions of America. The film was intended to be a sequel to “Frankenstein vs Baragon”, however, references to Frankenstein were basically cut from the American version.
I don’t know how it could be a sequel anyway since none of the actors are the same. Even the good monster looks totally different. In the previous movie it was a guy in make-up. Now it’s a guy in a monster suit. And the stories just don’t gel. I prefer to think of it as a different movie all together. At least Universal’s Frankenstein looked basically the same from movie to movie even if the plots got stretched a little.
Director Honda and actor Tamblyn clashed during filming. Tamblyn hated the script and for the most part adlibbed his lines. This caused confusion for the Japanese translators. Tani was Honda’s chief assistant on set. He says that Tamblyn often did the opposite of Honda’s directions. Tani stated: "Honda-san had to hold back and bear so much during that one. [Russ Tamblyn] was such an asshole" It was co-producer Saperstein's choice to replace Nick Adams with Tamblyn, later stating, "Tamblyn was a royal pain in the ass" Russ Tamblyn hated working on the movie and hated the script. He has warmed up to the film decades later and now claims that he likes it. Apparently there’s nothing like a cult fan base to change your mind.
I liked “Frankenstein vs Baragon” better, but “War of the Gargantuas” did have a lot more stomping and fighting.
The opening scene features a giant octopus originally created for the never-used alternate ending that was shot for the American release of “Frankenstein vs Baragon” or “Frankenstein Conquers the World” 1965.
English dubbed
Japanese subtitled