The 1960s and 70s brought us kids some sweet horror model kits to stimulate imaginations and inspire young minds. Also to separate our parents money from their wallets…. Polar Lights made some amazing monster diorama kits. Here is a King Kong one. Sure, its for the original RKO picture, but who cares, its cool anyhoo!
There is even a glow in the dark variant, though I am not sure I would like that, a Kong that is not black.
Holy Cow! King Kong on View Master!?!?
Yeah, ashamed to say I never knew this was a thing but my friend showed me her set of King Kong reels for the View-Master. Unfortunately she does not have the package or the booklet, but whatever. The package looked like this when it came out:
He looks like he has a hangover…
The Reels are a bit fades but it is super cool to see Kong in 3D!
quite faded, unfortunately!
I recently found this awesome King Kong 1976 book about the making of the movie. I’ll probably never find the time to read it, but it is awesome to have. Lots of pictures of the production, unfortunately small images in black and white. Would really love a large book with full color photos, but I’m not holding my breath.
A thrilling story indeed!
I love finding things like this book, but I really love finding a “bonus”, like when you buy a coat at a thrift store for 10 bucks and find a Jackson in the pocket! This one had a movie ticket as a book mark!
$3.50 for a movie? Damn, I hope it was worth it!
One of the images in the book had this rad t-shirt for the crew. I wish I could find a higher resolution of this shirt. It needs to be remade!
So if you read my blog at all, you may have seen my posts about all the King Kong knock offs that happened in the late 70s. Some of them good, some bad. But now you get to see my idea of the worst. Queen Kong was produced in the United Kingdom to capitalize on the De Laurentiis King Kong of 1976. It is very clearly a spoof, and it is horrible to watch.
I purchased this film on DVD sometime in the early 2000s, mostly because I knew it was banned from being shown in the UK (due to legal action by De Laurentiis). I do not know if it was shown here in the US. I loved the DVD cover tagline: “She’s in one of her moods again!”.
The movie is a silly, stupid gender reversal film where the main antagonist is a female gorilla on a rampage in love with a male, in London, spoofing not only Kong movies but Jaws too:
Jaws? Where are your teeth lady? Looks more like Gums to me…
Now I know some of you out there really enjoy bad movies, and I count myself to be one of them, but seriously this one just sucks so bad. I’d avoid it. Special effects are far from special, and the script….well lets just say a monkey could write something much better.
Looks convincing to me….
Yet another film about a giant gorilla terrorizing a city. And another one capitalizing off the De Laurentiis King Kong of ‘76. This one was produced by the Shaw Brothers, a Hong Kong Studio famous for making the greatest Kung Fu movies of all time! This is one of the more entertaining knock offs that happened in the late 70s. Roger Ebert even gave it 3 out of 4 stars in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times! Pretty good for a cheap monkey movie.
I got the opportunity to watch this at Portland’s Hollywood Theatre some years ago and really enjoyed it, though there were some really ridiculous things going on. The special effects were pretty doggone bad, a lot of matte masking to show the size of the “giant” ape in relation to humans. Still this was pretty entertaining, and fun to watch.
One of the big differences to the other ape movies is that the girl was friends with the ape instead of being terrorized by him. Samantha, an orphaned girl who has grown to a woman of the jungle is friends with all the animals. She plays with all the beasts of the jungle while dressing in a very sheik jungle outfit (which she wears throughout the entire flick).
Dancing with this leopard without him mauling you? This leopard deserves an Oscar for his performance!
Sooner or later the ape ends up in Hong Kong and all hell breaks loose. The ape climbs the tallest building he can find dies in the end. Original ending, huh?
you talking to me?
So there have been a few new films produced by Warner Brothers based on King Kong, and Godzilla that my friends are telling me are actually pretty good. I have not seen them. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a film snob or anything like that, it’s just that when it comes to a movie about a giant monster stamping out a city, I’m really into the olde skool special effects. It’s probably linked to my childhood and the wonder I had when I watched those movies. As a child, they looked so real, but I knew they could not be. I actually had this fantasy that Godzilla was a giant mechanical machine driven by a stuntman as he stomped out a real city. Well, when I saw these films when I was older, and reminded of my old ideas, I was quite embarrassed for myself. Still I love these guys in sweat filled suits stomping on toys and ignoring the strings on the copters and jets, and pretending that they are not swishing around in an indoor pool when there is a water scene.
This brings me to my favorite Kong movie of all. The 1976 Dino De Laurentiis King Kong remake. I do not know when I first saw this, but I did see it in the theater. It was not first run, but I do remember that when I was a kid here in Portland, in the late 70s there was a deal my parents got, where my little sister and I could see one movie a week in the summer and saw some awesome movies. This was when it was just fine to send your 2 under 10 year old kids to the movies for the day and not bat an eye.
This is a badass movie poster!
Anyways, on with the flick. This movie has it all. Jeff Bridges, The Dude himself, and Jessica Lang In her first acting job, creenplay by Lorenzo Semple, Jr. of the Batman TV show fame (another favorite), and a ferocious Kong. The third act in the city where kong goes on his rampage is classic. The audience is directed to feel empathy for the ape and what he is going through. Several views of him zoom in on his eyes, as if the viewers are invited to see Kongs actual vision. The scene at the end where he climbs the twin towers of the World Trade Center, is a classic reimagining of the original where Kong climbs the Empire State Building. Special effects are sub-par by todays standards but for the 1970s they were pretty epic. There was even a 40 foot tall mechanical Kong, though it was used sparingly (it really looked bad).
I wanted to show this film to my 6 year old, but decided to watch it first. Good thing too. The part where Kong kills a giant snake is very gory, as well as when the Hueys shoot Kong off the buildings-very bloody and graphic. I guess she will need to keep watching the Toyo movies at least for now. More Kong to come!
Anyone who knows me knows I love gorillas. I have a collection of rubber gorilla toys from the 70s on. I own a gorilla suit (2 actually). I especially love gorilla movies, and since 1933s King Kong there have been plenty of remakes and knock offs. Some great, some bad, but since they have a gorilla in them, I cannot resist.
And since we have been in this global pandemic, one of the best ways to pass the time in isolation has been to watch B-Movies and experience them with friends over the phone-which in lieu of a face-to-face meeting has been very fun!
Recently I watched a Kong knock off called: A*P*E. I have seen posters and artwork from this Korean-American film from 1976, rushed into production to compete with what I think is an excellent Kong movie, the Dino De Laurentis remake from that same year. I have always wanted to see this film, but it never really had the opportunity, that is, until now.
See A*P*E. Actully, don’t bother!
Now I have seen some good Kong knock offs and some very very bad ones. This one falls in the latter category. The Ape is clearly a guy in a suit, even has cuffs on the arms where the fur shirt meets the gloves. Even my crappiest gorilla suit looks better than this thing. And the fights, oh man, these are really bad. He fights a “giant snake” and you can tell its just a normal sized snake. They also have the Ape fight a shark, but it just looks like a guy doing his laundry at night in a river. The effects are super cheap.
A*P*E is not the worst Kongish movie out there, but its probably the second worst. Filmed in 3D this movie has some obvious 3D shot setups but viewing it streaming you never see the “cool factor”. I don’t mind when I see strings on special effects, but The end of the clip above, APE flips off the helicopter, or was it, in reality, the audience?
Doesn’t this look exciting? Sorry, it’s not.