Actor George Zucco, as "The Ape Man", received third billing after Bela Lugosi and John Carradine.
But a sudden illness (or, perhaps, second thoughts) made him drop out before a single scene was completed.
It begins with two brief shots of Zucco on the table.
Then Zucco is replaced mid-scene by actor Frank Moran.
Read our review of the film HERE.
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
(Originally posted on 10/6/18)
Dave Allen was one of film's leading stop-motion animators.
His work can be seen in such films as "The Crater Lake Monster", "Equinox", and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids."
In 1972 Volkswagen hired him to recreate the classic King Kong for a TV commercial.
The woman is Fay Wray's daughter, Victoria Riskin.
The commercial was aired only once.
Volkswagen pulled it because viewers didn't remember the car...just Kong.
(I got to see it!)
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Just so I don't give you the wrong impression, I want to say up front that this is a favorable review. I had loads of fun watching THE BLOODY APE, writer-director Keith J. Crocker's affectionate homage to the drive-in trash of yesteryear, and will enthusiastically recommend it to people who come knocking at my door trying to sell me a satellite dish or invite me to their church.
Now that my disclaimer is out of the way and we can speak freely, I'll try to describe this surreal cinematic artifact to you. Imagine a cross between LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, BLOOD FEAST, and your dad's worst home movies. Whatever your mind comes up with, this is worse. Though filmed in 1997, it looks as though it were shot in 1967, buried, and then dug up by somebody's dog in 1997. It makes PINK FLAMINGOS look like it was directed by Terrence Malick. In fact, it makes almost literally every other movie ever made look good in comparison, unless, of course, Billy Crystal is in it.
All of this, however, is simply part of THE BLOODY APE's makeshift charm. Crocker, a devoted grindhouse film aficionado who for several years published the popular fanzine "Exploitation Journal" with his pal George Reis, eschewed the "shot-on-video" look of much of today's indy titles and went instead for the more traditional look of actual film. Super 8mm film, that is--exactly the same stuff that all of us pre-home-video auteurs used in order to make our own geeky home monster movies back in high school. Except here, Crocker managed to shoot a feature film and get it released, so you gotta admire him for that. It's this homespun ingenuity and love for moviemaking that help make THE BLOODY APE such a strangely fascinating experience.
The gleefully bizarre screenplay by Crocker and Reis is another factor. Loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue", it's the story of a carnival barker named Lampini (after George Zucco's character in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) and his beloved performing gorilla, Gordo. After being screwed over by an abusive garage mechanic and a crooked rabbi, and then rejected by his girlfriend Ginger while he's proposing to her, Lampini decides to use his ape as an instrument of revenge. Taking a cue from Bela Lugosi's diabolical aftershave murders in THE DEVIL BAT, Lampini mails Ginger some of his special homemade banana cream soap. This lures Gordo to Ginger's apartment, where he kills her roommates in a frenzy of fake blood and banana-scented soap suds.
In one scene, we get to see what would've happened in PSYCHO if Janet Leigh's shower had been interrupted by a crazed gorilla instead of Norman Bates. Then Gordo chases another naked roommate around the livingroom couch a few times before squeezing the life out of her as she looks into the camera and laughs. Rabbi Rabinowitz and Vic White, the incredibly racist garage mechanic, are next on the list, having been given bunches of bananas by Lampini beforehand. I don't want to spoil too much of the intricate plot, but this is where Gordo rapes Rabbi Rabinowitz' wife and then disembowels her. Although this sounds horrible, the fact that the victim is giggling through the whole ordeal tends to soften the heinousness a bit.
Gordo's reign of terror then goes on to include car theft--he drives around until stopped by a cop, whose head he pulls off--and the murder of an ill-mannered video store clerk, which is justifiable. Equally shocking is the scene in which a hippie is furtively taking a leak in some bushes when the confused ape mistakes part of his anatomy for a banana, and... During all of this, an incredibly racist police lieutenant named LoBianco (Reis, who also plays Gordo) is irrationally convinced that the whole killing spree is the work of an innocent black man named Duane Jones (after the lead actor in George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), which is a whole other subplot. With his ridiculous hair-helmet wig and fake goatee, Reis is as over-the-top hilarious as everything else about this movie. And as mechanic Vic White, Larry Koster is like a Jerky Boys character come to life. The early scene in which he browbeats the incredulous Duane (Chris Hoskins) out of the garage simply for wanting his car fixed sets the goofball tone for the rest of the film.
Acting honors, however, must go to Paul Richichi as Lampini. With his dopey porkpie hat, cane, and Dracula cape, the ever-cheerful Lampini is a delightfully absurd character brimming with memorable quotes, as during his romantic dinner with Ginger: "The sky has never been bluer, the grass has never been greener, and Japanese sports cars have never been smaller, ever since I laid my head between your breasts," he gushes over a plate of Spaghetti-O's. "My love for you is as deep and as wide as the expanses of your vaginal cavity." To which the nonplussed Ginger responds: "What's the matter with you tonight? You're acting like a crackpot--like one of those self-proclaimed medicine men from the days of yore." Later, regretting his callous treatment of Gordo, he laments that he has become "so overwhelmed with repugnance for my enemies, that my love for my ape completely disappeared."
Now, this is where I usually mention stuff like image and sound quality, but we'll skip that part and go on to the bonus features. The audio commentary is an entertaining gabfest with Crocker, Reis, Richichi, and Wild Eye DVD's Rob Hauschild, who directed the informative "making of" featurette, "Grindhouse Gorilla." Next is a Crocker short film, "One Grave Too Many", which boasts a crude sort of creepiness. Lots of other miscellaneous stuff is included: a gallery of covers from the "Exploitation Journal" 'zine, trailers for THE BLOODY APE and BLITZKRIEG: ESCAPE FROM STALAG 69, a pressbook, original VHS cover art, lobby cards, stills, and other related art.
If you've read this far, you already know whether or not you should watch THE BLOODY APE as soon as possible or avoid it like the plague. It's loaded with exploitation goodies--nudity, violence, badly-done gore, bizarre situations, extreme characters, weird comedy--and done in such an unabashedly crude way that it radiates its own strange kind of fascination. As a Poe adaptation, George Reis accurately comments: "If you're running down the films based on Edgar Allan Poe, it's--one of them." As a study in miscommunication, as Crocker describes it, you couldn't find characters that are more miscommunicative. As cinema, it's like some kind of Super 8mm folk art whose worth can only be measured by each individual who watches it. As for me, I found it to be one of the funniest and most entertaining comedy-horror films that I watched yesterday.
(NOTE: This review was written upon the DVD's initial release in 2005.)
Before CGI, before summer blockbuster films like JAWS, before "giant-monster-on-the-loose" movies of any kind, there was...KING KONG. Depression audiences who barely had two coins to scrape together jammed theaters in 1933 to witness this thrilling pinnacle of pure escapism and marvel at the sight of a giant gorilla battling dinosaurs, wrestling elevated trains, and swatting biplanes from his lofty perch atop the towering Empire State Building. Up to that time, KING KONG was the most spectacular, jaw-dropping adventure film ever made, and few films since, if any, have even come close to topping it.
The first forty minutes or so consist of careful, methodical build-up as flamboyant movie producer Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) sets sail for Skull Island with the crew of a merchant ship called The Venture. He's heard stories of a giant monster called Kong who lives on the island, and plans to capture the beast on film. Along for the ride are the beautiful Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) to provide the "love interest" for his movie, and first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) to provide the love interest for Ann.
When they arrive, they witness a tribe of natives preparing to sacrifice a young girl to Kong. But one look at Ann, whom they call "the golden woman", convinces them that she would make a much more unique bride for the beast. ("Well, blondes are scarce around here," Denham notes.) They steal onto the ship that night and kidnap Ann, then open the massive doors of the huge protective wall that separates them from the rest of the island and bind her to an altar. As the crew of The Venture discover Ann's absence and race to the rescue, the natives wait atop the wall in awed silence for the arrival of the fearsome Kong. Suddenly there are loud, echoing footsteps...the trees are torn aside...and there stands King Kong, the greatest of all movie monsters.
All necessary exposition is laid out for us so that when Kong makes his appearance at this point, the rest of the film is a non-stop rollercoaster ride of action. Kong takes Ann in hand and disappears into the dense jungle, with Denham, Driscoll, and most of the Venture crew in hot pursuit. But it doesn't take long for these hunters to become the hunted, when they suddenly find themselves on the run from an array of ill-tempered prehistoric beasts ("from the dinosaur family!", Denham informs us). In one horrific scene, the sailors are trapped on a log over a deep chasm as the enraged Kong shakes them off into the pit below. Having dispatched his pursuers, Kong takes Ann to his lair at the top of Skull Mountain, engaging in awesome battles with various other giant creatures along the way.
But Driscoll, who managed to avoid plunging into the pit, rescues Ann and returns her to the native village. An angry Kong arrives moments later, pounds his way through the door of the great wall, and goes on a rampage in which he chews and stomps several unfortunate villagers. Denham, however, is prepared for such an eventuality, and hurls a gas bomb which knocks Kong unconscious. Realizing that the giant ape himself is worth more than any motion picture, Denham arranges to have a giant raft built to transport Kong back to New York, where he will be put on display for paying customers. "We're millionaires, boys!" he cries to the surviving sailors. "I'll share it with all of you!"
We all know, of course, that once Kong is taken to the Big Apple, he escapes and goes on a rampage of destruction that climaxes at the top of the Empire State Building, where he must fight off attacking biplanes amidst a hail of machine gun bullets -- one of the most enduring images in movie history and popular culture.
KING KONG continues to astound all but the most jaded viewers even today, which is a tribute to the imagination and ingenuity of its makers. Special effects wizard Willis O'Brien laid the groundwork for all future effects-laden "event" movies as he created ways of bringing the most outrageous visions to the screen, many of which are still used today. His meticulous frame-by-frame stop-motion animation of Kong and the various dinosaurs never fails to impress, especially in the spectacular battle between Kong and the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Murray Spivack's sound design was an amazing feat considering that sound itself had only existed in movies for a few years before KING KONG. And the musical score by Max Steiner, with its beautiful descriptive passages and themes for various characters, is a masterpiece that showed all film composers to come how it should be done.
Upon its re-release in 1938, several of the more violent scenes were censored, including Kong popping various Skull Islanders and New Yorkers into his mouth and chewing on them, or stomping them underfoot. And the scene in which Kong curiously peels off bits of Fay Wray's clothing and sniffs them was deemed inappropriate as well, and out it went. The film was also darkened considerably to disguise much of the blood that flows during the battle scenes. For many years, this was the only version of the film available, until finally the excised scenes were rediscovered and restored in the early 70s.
Now, with Warner Brothers' current release of KING KONG on DVD, the film is restored, uncensored, and better-looking than ever before, with special features that will delight fans of the film. There is a commentary featuring stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen (SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS) and special-effects veteran Ken Ralston that is fun to listen to since the men are such devoted Kong fans.
A documentary on the life of Kong producer Merian C. Cooper (upon whom the character of Carl Denham is based) is a fascinating look at a man whose exploits rival those of Indiana Jones. And the seven-part documentary "RKO Production 601:The Making Of Kong, Eighth Wonder Of The World" is packed with fascinating details about the film and comments from well-known filmmakers who have been influenced by it.
LORD OF THE RINGS director Peter Jackson, whose KONG remake hits theaters in December 2005, went to great lengths to help make this DVD a special event, including assembling his special-effects artists to recreate the legendary lost "Spider Pit Sequence" which was originally removed from the film due to its intensity ("It stopped the show!", as Merian C. Cooper put it). Jackson also created a new Kong scene using the same equipment and methods employed by Willis O'Brien, simply to give us an idea of how the effects for KONG were done since there is so little behind-the-scenes documentation of the original work.
Also included are scenes from Willis O'Brien's aborted dinosaur project CREATION, which are so well-restored that they look as though they might have been filmed yesterday. And rounding out the special features on the disc are trailers from KING KONG, SON OF KONG, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (Willis O'Brien's three great "Giant Ape" movies), and other Cooper productions.
If you're a fan of KING KONG, or you just want to see what all the fuss is about, there's never been a better time to watch this film in all its glory. The passage of time, and the advancement of special-effects technology, have not dimmed its power. It is still one of the greatest -- perhaps the greatest -- adventure films ever made.
Read our review of the 2005 Peter Jackson remake
Read our review of SON OF KONG
Originally posted on 10/25/15
(Caution: the last couple of paragraphs contain spoilers.)
I watched SON OF KONG (1933) again last night, and this toned-down sequel affected me just the same as ever. Most of the ingredients of KING KONG are there, but mixed together in such a different way as to explore whole new areas of cinematic enchantment.
The opening titles are reminiscent of KONG at first, but then they go into a cast montage and the music shifts dramatically to the jaunty but melancholy "Runaway Blues", and darned if that alone doesn't make me start to get misty-eyed.
The stop-motion creatures are great as usual (although with little participation from special effects wizard Willis O'Brien, who was disillusioned with the project), and there's an exciting climax which anyone who saw this as a kid should vividly recall.
Originally posted on 7/11/21
Originally posted on 6/10/12
Back when Saturday morning was just about the only time a kid could watch hours of wall-to-wall cartoons--along with live-action stuff like "Shazam!", "Banana Splits", and even "The Roy Rogers Show"--one of my favorite series was the simian spy spoof "Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp." Now, Film Chest has collected all 17 episodes plus some nice extras in the 3-disc set LANCELOT LINK: SECRET CHIMP (1970), which the faithful and the simply curious alike should find both interesting and more than a little bizarre.
A takeoff of popular shows of the era such as "Get Smart" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", with a little 007 thrown in, "Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp" boasted an all-chimp cast performing on scaled-down sets with all the appropriate costumes and props, and practical effects which allowed them to drive cars, motorcycles, speedboats, etc. (In a couple of western-themed segments they even ride Shetland ponies.)
Dayton Allen provides the voice for Lance, who's sort of a cross between Humphrey Bogart and George Burns, while Joan Gerber channels Olive Oyl as the voice of Lance's partner and love interest, Mata Hairi. The two agents work for a secret spy organization known as A.P.E. (Agency to Prevent Evil) and are forever foiling the evil schemes of C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan). A.P.E.'s leader is Commander Darwin ("What's your theory, Darwin?" Lance often asks), a character based on Leo G. Carroll's "Mr. Waverly" from "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
Join the Hunt for Bigfoot in "APE CANYON" April 16
A Cryptozoological Dramedy Follows Two Siblings on the Trail of Sasquatch
A Quarter-Life Crisis Leads them Deep in the Woods to Find a Legend and Each Other
Available Nationwide on Cable VOD and Digital HD
Los Angeles, CA -- When your life is at an impasse, head to the woods and look for Bigfoot. Joshua Land's Ape Canyon follows Cal Piker, a commercial artist on the verge of an implosion. He won’t say why, but he needs to find Ape Canyon, and he needs his big sister Samantha to save him from the increasingly reckless things he will do to get there.
Jackson Trent (Bad Witch) and Anna Fagan (I Like Me) headline the zoological cryptid dramedy as two siblings who join a motley crew on an expedition to find one of the hairiest myths. Indie Rights will release Ape Canyon April 16 on a number of digital and cable platforms.
WATCH THE TRAILER:
Ape Canyon premiered at Reading Film Fest, and went on to screen at a number of festivals, including the Roswell Film Festival, Orlando International Film Festival, Up Next Film Film Festival and the Fort Worth Indie Film Showcase, where the filmmakers took home the award for Best Non-Texas Feature Film.
Cal Piker hasn’t seen his sister Samantha since their mother’s funeral. So she’s more than a little surprised when he interrupts her English lecture one morning with a bag of tacos and a proposal: a week out in the woods of Oregon, a week of looking for Bigfoot. And he already bought her ticket with her credit card.
So Samantha reluctantly joins Cal on an adventure he won’t fully explain, headed to Ape Canyon for no other reason than that “that’s where they are". But it’s a dangerous thing to be led around by Cal, the irresponsible, frustratingly likable kid brother, the one running always so hard and so far in the wrong direction.
For Cal’s part, he’s enthusiastic to the point of irrationalitydra to make his way to Ape Canyon and find Bigfoot for himself. He joins with a small group of adventurers and their guide from the Bigfoot Investigation Organization, and whatever obstacles they face—beginning, disconcertingly, with the guide absconding with money and valuables and leaving the group in the woods to die—he will not be turned away.
For whatever reason, for Cal, this is not a matter of legend. This is not just some adventure. If Samantha doesn’t stop him, Cal will either find Bigfoot or die trying.
Ape Canyon: 73 minutes / USA / English