Honorable mention- Son of Kong (1933), King Kong Lives (1986), Gorilla at Large (1954) , Queen Kong (1976)
10. Konga (1961) Michael Gough stars as Dr. Charles Decker, a mad scientist who defies every law of nature by turning a tiny baby chimpanzee into a giant rampaging gorilla! This British answer to King Kong is bright and colorful, but the acting and special effects (standard guy in an ape suit) are so over-the-top that the movie collapses under its own massive weight about a third of the way along. At least its runtime is only an hour and a half. The best thing about this whole deal is that it allowed Charlton Comics to license their own giant gorilla for an excellent comic which was originally drawn by Steve (Spiderman, Dr. Strange) Ditko! Best giant gorilla comic ever, even if the movie is less than spectacular.
9. A*P*E (1976) The best of the South Korean giant gorilla movies (actually, the only one that I am aware of) is available world-wide on DVD. This is not one of those so-bad-that-it’s-entertaining movies. It’s just bad. Like The Mighty Peking Man, below, the timing makes one think they were ripping off King Kong (1976.) Poor production values, including toy tanks, sink this one fast. At least it doesn’t stick to ripping off better gorilla movies. It also rips off Jaws, via a giant shark fight scene that has to be seen to be believed.
8. Xing Xing Wang, or The Mighty Peking Man (1977) This is a movie made in Hong Kong that is inexplicably endorsed by Quentin Tarantino. It was made quickly to ride the coattails of the Dino de Laurentis King Kong movie. Not as bad as A*P*E, and charming if you are inebriated enough, but it relies heavily on the sex appeal of Evelyne Kraft as Ah Wei. There is a lot of action and gunplay in the movie as well, so it’s not as slow-moving as some of the other films in the lower half of the list.
7. King Kong (1976) Jessica Lange is entertaining, if hammy, as Dwan (who changed the name from Dawn to make it more memorable), but there is a lot not to like here. Rick Baker in the gorilla suit tries hard, but where are the dinosaurs for Kong to fight? In another departure from the original, the location of the Empire State Building is changed to the World Trade Center. At one point, Kong makes an improbable leap from one tower to the other! It drags at parts and Jeff Bridges is annoying as hippie, fuel-hating Jack Prescott. Charles Grodin is okay as Fred Wilson, but not as good as Jack Black or Robert Armstrong in similar roles. The cheap sets and lame gorilla suit mar what could have been a lot better, given the cast.
6. Kingu Kongu tai Gojira, or King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) The most successful Godzilla movie in terms of box office receipts, this is also one of the better “giant monster battle” movies of all time. Despite the cheesy Kong costume, the fast pace and frequent fighting make this one a perennial favorite. Although there is a long-running argument over the intended winner (and even an urban legend that the ending of the Japanese version is different than the American release,) Toho Studios has always maintained that King Kong, being so popular world-wide, was more sympathetic and was always intended to be the winner. This was the first movie featuring King Kong or Godzilla to be filmed in color. Kong had to be scaled up considerably to match Godzilla, who was said to be 200 feet tall. Less of a horror movie and more of a kiddie film, King Kong vs. Godzilla changed the direction of the Godzilla franchise. Toho has tried to remake this film, but been thwarted by Turner Broadcasting, which currently owns the rights to Kong. Note the recurring “octopus” theme in the movie. Kong fights a giant octopus (actually a combination of several real octopi and a plastic one) and one of the characters is named after an octopus. I have no idea why this is a theme of the movie. Any ideas?
5. Kingu Kongu no Gyskushu, or King Kong Escapes (1967) The Japanese have long had a love of giant monsters or kaiju (“strange beasts.”) One of the inspirations for the Gojira (Godzilla) films was the huge box office success of King Kong, the movie that saved RKO from bankruptcy. Nevertheless, this film is a tie-in to the animated television series King Kong, produced by Rankin/Bass, which was a hit in Japan, and not inspired by King Kong vs. Godzilla. The director of the early Godzilla films, Ishiro Honda, and the Godzilla special effects man, Eiji Tsuburaya, performed the same roles on this Toho production. Although the effects were weaker than King Kong, despite being filmed 35 years later, some of the film’s concepts, like the evil giant robot Mechani-Kong, were influential on later films. The villain of the film, Dr. Who (no relation to the British TV series) planned to conquer the world with “element X” after Mechani-Kong retrieves it from a glacial fissure. The film features many references to the American film, such as a battle between Kong and the giant dinosaur Gorosaurus and a finale on the Tokyo Tower. Campy, but better than Konga or A*P*E.
4. Mighty Joe Young (1998) This Disney remake, starring Charlize Theron and Bill Paxton, is surprisingly charming and the CGI graphic effects are very good. Although not as ground-breaking or heart-warming as the original, the movie is worth a rental. It’s environmental message is not as heavy-handed as the 1976 King Kong, and the characters are less annoying. Ray Harryhausen, who did most of the effects on the original film due to the general poor health of Willis O’Brien, makes a brief cameo, as does Terry Moore, who played Jill in the first version. Rick Baker worked on the visual effects of this movie, as well as the Dino de Laurentis King Kong.
3. Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) After the multiple Academy Award winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, the expectations were high for Peter Jackson’s dream project, a re-make of the greatest giant gorilla movie. Having been inspired to make films by the classic film, but wanting to bring it to modern audiences which tend to neglect movies in black and white, Jackson convinced Universal to back his $207,000,000 project. The cast and effects are phenomenal. Naomi Watts displays a talent for physically demanding shots, Jack Black is effective and restrained, and Adrien Brody turns in an all-round terrific performance. Jackson shows amazing respect for the original film; a great relief after the 1976 movie. He even including a new version of a scene known as the “Spider Pit” sequence, which was cut from the original because it so disturbed test audiences that producer Merian C. Cooper thought it stopped the film cold. Although it is a tad long at almost 200 minutes, there really aren’t any scenes that obviously should have been cut. In fact, RKO complained that the original King Kong was too long at just over 100 minutes! Of course, films in the 1930’s were shown with cartoons, short subjects, newsreels, and were often double features. Jackson even obtained the original script for the first film and usually followed it. Any additional material, such as the scenes in New York at the beginning, help evoke the historical setting. Fay Wray was going to have a cameo in the film, but sadly passed away during production. Highly recommended. Bonus points for inspiring the best videogame featuring a giant gorilla.
2. Mighty Joe Young (1949) Sort of a grandson of King Kong, this movie reunited the producer, director, screenwriter, and special effects artist from the original giant gorilla movie, King Kong. It also featured the debut of one of the pioneers and legends of stop-action animation, Ray Harryhausen, who was hired to assist Willis O’Brien but had to do most of the effects himself. The plot concerns a girl, Jill Young (Terry Moore), raised in Africa by her father who adopts a cute baby gorilla after trading with some local natives. As she grows in adulthood, the gorilla becomes her best friend and guardian. When a movie producer, played by veteran actor Robert Armstrong (Carl Denham in King Kong) arrives to shot some scenes for his latest picture, he convinces Jill to bring Joe to America as the star of a nightclub act. Joe, a gentle beast by nature, is unhappy in his new surroundings, and tragedy strikes when some drunks introduce Joe to liquor. The finale of the film is one of the most memorable and imitated Hollywood endings. It was originally tinted with red and orange color, which was later removed and only restored for the DVD release.
1. King Kong (1933) The number one greatest giant gorilla movie of all time is hardly a surprise. This classic film is one of the American Film Institute’s Top 100 films of all time. Great direction from Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper and an all-star cast is the icing on the cake of Willis O’Brien’s ground-breaking special effects. One of the most influential movies of all time due to the new technology created for the stop motion effects and the use of an original score by legendary composer Max Steiner, who later composed music for Gone with the Wind and Casablanca. Sometimes said to be the first original film score, it may have been the second original film score after Bird of Paradise, but it was the first memorable film score, nonetheless. (Another connection to film Bird of Paradise is the native huts in King Kong, which were left over from the earlier film.) This film was the fantasy release that America needed during the Depression and lifted spirits as well as inspiring future film-makers such as Ray Harryhausen and many others, like Patrick Mehlman, a gorilla researcher in Rwanda. There have been scholarly debates as to the themes of the movie and its portrayal of a dark-skinned slave brought to America from the tropics, but its creators were actual daredevils who primarily wanted to present an adventure story with exotic locations at a time when the unexplored reaches of the world were quickly shrinking. Instead of recapping the familiar story, I’ll just conclude by pointing out that if you’ve missed this one, you owe it to yourself to see it.
Sources
http://www.filmsite.org/kingk.html
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Gottesman, Ronald, and Geduld, Harry, eds. The Girl in the Hairy Paw, 1976
Goldner, Orville, and Turner, George, The Making of King Kong, 1976
Morton, Ray, The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson, 2005
