Trivia for
Sora no daikaijû Radon (1956) More at IMDbPro »

• First Japanese monster movie filmed in color.
  
  
• The original Japanese film's climactic monster invasion was filmed around, and set in, Fukuoka, the largest city on Japan's southernmost island of Kyushu. However, the American version relocated the action in the dubbing to another city in Kyushu, Sasebo, perhaps concerned that their dubbing actors would sorely mispronounce the word "Fukuoka" at inappropriate moments.
  
  
• Among the people doing the voice over work for this film are Paul Frees, Keye Luke and a young George Takei.
  
  
• While shooting the scene in which Rodan flies over the bridge in Saikai Village in Kyushu, the pulley from which Haruo Nakajima was suspended broke. He fell from a height of twenty-five feet, but the wings and the water, which was about one and a half feet deep, absorbed much of the impact.
  
  
• This became the biggest success for the small U.S. distributor DCA. Later material sent to exhibitors for other releases would carry the slogan "From the company that brought you 'Rodan'."
  
  
• According to George Takei's autobiography, this was his first professional acting job, and all dialogue voices were provided by himself, Keye Luke, "another man" (Paul Frees), and one woman.
  
  
• Name of the monster in Japan was "Radon". However, because there was a soap by that name in the United States, when dubbed for the US market, they transposed letters and changed the monster's name to "Rodan".
  
  
• In the US version, the English dubbing changed the name of the destroyed city, which was actually Fukuoka, to Sasebo because the name of that city was more familiar to Americans since the US had major military facilities there.
  
  
• Rodan's original Japanese name, Radon, is actually short for the Japanese word for Pteranodon ("Puteranodon").
  
  
• Veteran writer Ken Kuronuma, who wrote the original story for this film, was inspired by an incident in Kentucky in 1948, when Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a pilot for the Kentucky Air National Guard, died in a crash while allegedly pursuing a UFO.
  
  
• The dubbing in the American version changes the name of the volcano from Mount Aso to Mount Toya.
  
  

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