Mr. Sahara meets The H-Man

August Ragone, Kenji Sahara, Brett, and Danny Tokarz enjoy a happy moment in Mr. Sahara's hotel room at G-FEST. Photo by totorom.

One of the most interesting aspects of G-FEST for me was that, not only did we American fans learn a lot about Mr. Sahara's career, but that Mr. Sahara himself learned a few things about it! For instance, Mr. Sahara never realized, until G-FEST, that he appears in the Japanese trailer for Mothra (1961).

Much more amusing, however, was Mr. Sahara's reaction to learning the American title to his 1958 SFX film Bijo to Ekitai Ningen, which as many of you know is The H-Man. Well, it turns out that the letter "H" has a much different connotation in Japan, a -- shall we say -- fairly risque connotation. Thus, the idea of an H-Man to Mr. Sahara brings to mind something entirely different from what Columbia Pictures, the American distributor of The H-Man, originally intended!

I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Sahara Sunday night in his hotel room with totorom. When the time came to ask him about the 1958 film in question, I began, "My next question would be about Bijo to Ekitai Ningen, otherwise known as ... H-Man!"

We all laughed.