Konga

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Konga

Director: John Lemont
Released: 1961
Starring: Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon, Austin Trevor, Jack Watson, George Pastell, Vanda Godsell, Stanley Morgan

Plot: After his plane crashes in the African jungles, a year later after being presumed to be dead British botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Gough) suddenly comes back, while also having found a way of growing plants and animals to enormous size. Accompanied him aswell is his pet chimp “Konga” who is soon playing an important part in the doctors plans for revenge.

Review: For most people Michael Gough will always be associated with playing Batman’s butler Alfred and true it’s easy to understand why as he did truly own the iconic role. At the same time there are those who view Gough as an under the radar horror icon with his appearances in “Horrors of the Black Museum” and “Satan’s Slave” and it was during this horror period that he also made this film, which set out to give Britain its own version of “King Kong” which interestingly would also be the same year that we got our own version of “Godzilla” with the enjoyably daft “Gorgo”.

Unsurprisingly producer Herman Cohen while seemingly being inspired by “King Kong” it would be more precisely the idea of making a giant ape movie in colour that inspired him the most when it came to making this film, while developing the film under the working title of “I Was a Teenage Gorilla” a nod to his earlier success “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” regardless of how nonsensical the title would seem against the finished film. So paying RKO Pictures $25,000 for the rights to the name Kong with a focus purely on making an exploitation film, the end results are decidedly strange to say the least.

Right from the start it is clear that Dr. Decker is up to something as he is shown breeding man-eating Venus flytraps in his greenhouse lab as part of his tests of his serum which soon sees him testing it on his pet chimp Konga, turning him from a playful chimp to a man in a questionable Gorilla costume. Yes I know gorillas and chimpanzees are completely different breeds, so either Dr. Decker’s Serum changes an animal’s breed as well as causing monstrous growth or more likely Director Lemont just felt that the audience wouldn’t notice the difference. Still this is not any old gorilla suit, as it also belonged to legendry ape actor George Barrows who amongst his many ape roles also played the memorably unique looking Ro-Man The Monster in the trash classic “Robot Monster”. However Lemont only hired his gorilla suit rather than Barrows himself, only to return the costume in less than perfect condition, much to the distain of Barrows while only raising more questions as to what Lemont had been doing with the suit during the shoot?

Having grown so used to Gough in his Alfred persona, it was quite a thrill seeing him playing such a devious role, more so perhaps because of seeing him as this loveable old man and faithful butler to now see him scheming and sending his killer ape off to kill his enemies and it's a role he plays well, especially the more he gets caught up in his scheme especially as he frequently hams it up clearly knowing the standard of film being made,  hardly masking his evil genius as we are barely ten minutes into the film before he start dropping hints as he potters around his home laboratory while also finding time to letch over one of his pretty students Sandra (Gordon) who soon unwittingly become central to Dr. Deckers plans, especially when he is sending Konga off to kill her boyfriend.

The idea of Dr. Decker using his killer ape for murder through the power of hypnosis might be a slight disappointment for a film essentially sold as a giant ape on the rampage movie, though it does still provide a fair amount of unintentionally amusing moments such as Konga hiding in the bushes and generally looking like he should be wearing a trench coat and trilby hat, especially when he has such a shifty expression on his face. Still giant ape fans should fear not as the finale finally gives us our giant ape, as Konga gets a super-sized dose of serum causing him to grow to a monstrous size before heading off on a mini rampage while Dr. Decker also receives the Fay Wray treatment before they soon encounter possibly the most well prepared group of soldiers to ever be featured in a monster movie and all without the need of a giant map or lengthy discussion between Generals while they push small models around the map. So surprisingly prepared for the threat of a giant ape I half expected someone to pipe up with “This is what we prepared for boys!” especially considering how quickly they stop the giant ape threat and disappointingly before he has had chance to cause much carnage, but then seeng how the film is seemingly set in a quaint little village there is only so much damage he could really cause, while the film ultimately as a result misses a trick by not being set in London, which could have seen Konga climbing Big Ben or even Nelson’s Column swiping at Spitfire’s.

While the film moves at a quick place to set Dr. Decker and his schemes in motion, with everything pretty much in place by the first twenty minutes, it does however drag in other places, as we are forced to endure mind numbing conversations between minor characters such a Sandra’s boyfriend and his parents, which had me eager to see him taken out as quickly as possible, so I didn’t have to ensure anymore of his yammering. Meanwhile for a man so focused on revenge Dr. Decker’s targets are actually pretty minimal and more to do with personal snubs or threats on his research than any real form of planned revenge.

Ultimately the film never seems to know what it want to be as it skips from one B-movie genre to the next as Gough hams it up with his mad scientist antics, before it switches to being a killer ape movie, before finally giving us the long awaited giant ape on the rampage which the poster promises us. Still when you in the mood for a man in a hokey monkey costume this is one of the better ones and certainly more entertaining than my previous attempt at finding one of these film with the ho-hum “Bride of The Gorilla”. Still if you want to see us Brit's rip off someone else's monster movie personally I would stick with "Gorgo" or maybe just watch the originals.

Bride of the Gorilla

Title: Bride of the Gorilla
Director: Curt Siodmak

Released: 1951

Staring: Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr., Barbara Payton, Paul Cavanagh, Tom Conway

Rating: 2 / 5

Plot: After killing his elderly employer, plantation manager Barney Chavez (Burr) steals his former employer’s wife Dina (Payton). However the murder was witness by the elderly housekeeper, who curses Barney turning him into a Gorilla as soon as night falls.

Review: I should really start by saying how disappointed I was with this latest jaunt into obsure film randomness, especially as I thought this film would provide me with some camp old school hijinks, especially with the prospect of seeing a man in a ropey looking gorilla suit on the rampage, which really is pretty much the exact opposite of what I found here, which might have usually been followed by feeling of pleasant surprise…... But alas it was not to be.

Released back in 1951, it’s original working title was “The Face in the Water” which would have been more of a suitable title and perhaps lead to slightly less disappointment for myself, but being made in the 1950’s and how producers back then loved to hype their movies, it went for the slightly more dramatic title. Intrestingly though Siodmak was also be responsible for writing the screenplay for the classic Universal Monster “The Wolfman” (1941), which has recently been remade with Benicio Del Toro getting the furry treatment.

“Bride of the Gorilla” is certainly at the least a throwback to more innocent film making times, especially when you consider that the jungle shots are nothing more than a plant heavy soundstage and a whole heap of B-roll animal footage, though the budget does stretch to one snake which supposedly is to blame for the death of the Klass Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh), even though the snake basically just stares at him, before slithering away, so unless there is a species of snake which can do this that I don’t know about, it’s a pretty ropey cause of death for the doctor (Conway) to claim, as I’m sure that punch shaped bruise is nothing to do with his death and certainly brings into question what sort of medical training he has had if any! I know we are in the jungles of South America but is he really the best they could find? This also makes it all the more of a wonder how Klass managed to stay so healthy with him as his personal doctor. Still thanks to questionable post mortem Barney is free to marry Dina, who also doesn’t seem overly bothered by the recent death of her elderly husband, even if she was cheating on him with Barney, she never really seems to question what happened to him, making her either a really dumb blonde or just one with questionable morals.

So with Barney now cursed by the one person, who knows what has happened, the elderly housekeeper, whose strange loyalty to Klass is never really explained and it’s from here that the film starts to rapidly go downhill as it seems that the curse not only turns Barney into a Gorilla by night, but also apparently turns him into a moody and angst ridden arsehole, obsessed with the jungle and escaping to it whenever he is given an opportunity. Rather than adding to any tension in the film, it sadly has the opposite effect here, dragging the film down and making the character of Barney all the more unlikable, which when you consider that none of the characters are particularly likable, certainly makes it all the harder to sit through the film, which even with it’s brief running time, it still feels strangely bloated and lacking in the quick pace that many of it’s fellow B-movies process, which could also be down to the constant feeling of Déjà vu, as we are forced to sit through scenes which seem all to familiar to ones which we have already seen and as the prospect of seeing that ropey Gorilla suits grows all the more distant, it is hard not to despair slightly, after all that was kind of the main draw, instead we only get a few scattered glimpses of furry arms and one full length shot of the horrible gorilla suit, which sadly is the only time we get to see it in it’s entirety, even though you will be assuming that Siodmak is showing us only these brief glimpses, before the dramatic final reveal which never happens. Due to this it feels almost as if Siodmak was going for more of a Psychological thriller than a monster movie, despite having all the pieces to make a great monster film, with superstitious locals all claiming that Barney’s gorilla form is some supernatural creature, but still Siodmak ignores all of this and continues with his attempts to make it a thriller, which doesn’t work out and only makes for a tedious viewing experience.

While it’s true Siodmak will be best remembered for “The Wolf Man”, “Bride of the Gorilla” remains a mark on his career in much the same way that “Piranha 2: The Spawning” is on James Cameron’s, as it fails to be fun even at the most campy base levels and certainly not worth seeking out, despite being ready available to watch online, with the film being in the public domain, but unless your really struggling for something to watch, you’d be best looking to get your B-Movie thrills elsewhere.