Gorilla at Large

Just saw the new print of this maligned fun house of a production. First of all if you can't see this in real projected 3-D, I suggest skipping it. The color 3-D photography is excellent and the crew only pulls off the typical stick-it-in-the-camera 3-D hijinks a few times. The opening sequence of Raymond Burr walking through the carnival is some of the most effective 3-D photography I have ever seen.

The story...yipes! It's campy and weird in an Ed Wood sort of way but it seems that the entire cast and crew were in on the joke. Lee Marvin and Lee J. Cobb both time their performances in a very strange but funny way. Anne Bancroft vamps up a storm in some scenes and Raymond Burr plods thru his role. The gorilla suit is funny too. Good movie? No! Fun? Yes!

The second half drags at points and the 3-D photography loses a little steam here. I wouldn't want to sit through this movie in 2-D at this point.

Who knows if this is ever going to be projected again, but if it is and you enjoy 50's kitsch make it a priority. The screening I was at, during the intermission, projected 1950's era 3-D nudie slides by...HAROLD LLOYD, the silent film comedian! Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever happen again.

I've seen this film being bashed before within other circles and forums and I'm always somewhat puzzled by it. We're talking 1950's era, 3-D, monster hokum here folks. Fun, lighthearted with none of it meant to be taken all that seriously. It's sort of like trying to critique, ' Plan 9 From Outer Space ' ; it's all a little beyond that, isn't it ? Let's all go to the Saturday matinée for some laughs and a good time ! Visually enjoyable in wonderful color, great nostalgia value centering around the old amusement park with the fun house, room of mirrors, dodgems, trapeze act and all the rest. Including cotton candy ! The impressive, high profile cast, ( see the credits for yourself ) must of been having a grand old time with it all. The unoriginality of the ' gorilla ' is usually the main focus point for the films negative comments. Sure, you keep an eye on him to stay up to speed with the story but Anne Bancroft is, of course, the main attraction. At twenty - something and gorgeous, she spends the majority of her on screen time in Capri swim suits and black, fishnet tights; often contorted or strategically placed into unconventional physical positions. Yessiree. So who was paying attention to the big monkey ? MONTER ON THE MIDWAY !! Recommended.

I had heard about "Gorilla at Large" for years, but avoided watching it because of the campy title and brief clips I had seen, usually of the gorilla swinging on a vine. Recently, this movie was broadcast on Fox Movie Channel. On a whim, I recorded it with my PVR and watched it the next day. To my surprise, I found "Gorilla at Large" to be an entertaining movie. It's not a monster film at all, or even a jungle themed movie. Rather, it's a crime/detective story that keeps you guessing. "Gorilla" has a very good cast and interesting story. A young Lee Marvin has an amusing role as a policeman. The sexy Anne Bancroft is the main star....although some might claim it is the gorilla.

"Gorilla At Large" is a very good example of a 1950's 3-D film. If you only see it in 2-D, you are literally seeing only half the picture. Why do you think the bars are in the foreground, the gorilla jumps at the screen, the girl is trapped in a house of mirrors, or the rockets are shot at the gorilla? Because it is supposed to be seen in 3-D. That's why.

Having said that, 23 year old Anne Bancroft gives an interesting sex-pot performance. She spends most of the time either in her trapeze costume or in lingerie. Raymond Burr, known as a bad guy at this time, gives a very offbeat performance. And a very young Lee Marvin is extremely funny as a cop who doesn't have a clue.

The 1950's saw a great many 3-D films that are no longer available in that format. It is really too bad we can't see "Gorilla At Large", "House Of Wax" and "Dial M For Murder" the way they were meant to be seen.

I had originally watched this one a long time ago during my childhood days on a now-defunct Sicilian TV channel; in hindsight, it can now best be considered as a guilty pleasure and, besides, the fact that it isn’t really a bona-fide horror film (given that the murders are not actually committed by the titular beast but rather by somebody conveniently donning a simian costume) might perhaps endear it to those film buffs who normally shun the genre.

The terrific cast is also a definite attraction here: Lee J. Cobb and Lee Marvin are particularly fun to watch as, respectively, the cigar-chomping Police Detective heading the murder investigations under the Big Top and a loudmouth but sleepy-eyed cop left to guard the caged gorilla but, inevitably, ending behind its bars himself! Cameron Mitchell, Raymond Burr and Anne Bancroft – who, arguably, never looked lovelier on screen than she does here as the star trapeze artist of husband Burr’s circus – all have good roles and gleefully enter into the fun spirit of the thing. Interestingly enough, both Cobb and Burr were about to embark on their signature screen roles that same year in, respectively, ON THE WATERFRONT and REAR WINDOW! The gorilla keeper (Peter Whitney) is also a noteworthy and malevolent presence, particularly when trapping a victim into his self-designed mirror maze and when offering to teach Mitchell how to raise ex-wife Bancroft over his head for the crowd's pleasure!

The belated identification of the real killer is a big surprise – which makes the sequence of Burr taking on the blame for the circus murders and his eventual revelation as a cripple by Mitchell in front of Cobb a moving one and the film’s highlight. While the ape itself is clearly a man in a suit, it’s not a particular liability to one’s enjoyment of the show; the 3-D effects are not especially obtrusive either and are limited to the beast swinging by rope or walking into camera and passing through the revolving merry-go-round at the film’s climax. In conclusion, this modest production proved to be highly enjoyable hokum – although, admittedly, the nostalgia factor may have had a hand in how much I wound up liking the whole thing. Being a picture originally distributed by Fox, it was surprisingly (but thankfully) added to the coveted “Midnite Movies” line of DVD releases (which has recently been taken over by Fox from MGM) along with the unrelated Spanish adventure effort MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (1981) featuring genre icons Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy and which I will get to later on during this Halloween marathon.