countchocula
06-24-2004, 10:57 PM
Fay Wray Come Out and Play: A King Kong Compendium
http://www.gojistomp.org/gfacts/kingkong.jpg
If you can overlook the imbecilic plot holes, the egregious effects (you can spot shadows on the blue screen), and the non-acting, King Kong vs. Godzilla is gamesome entertainment. Never a studio to make stand-alone films, Toho contiguously cobbled up a sequel to their take on Kong. 1967 saw the fountainhead of King Kong Escapes. I almost declined to annex this flick for evaluation purposes. It’s inordinately rare. It’s not commercially available on VHS or DVD, so I had to swallow my pride and resort to commingling with eBay. I glommed onto the uncut Japanese version. The widescreen print is crystalline and I didn’t have to withstand disgracious dubbing. Maybe eBay is good for something after all (sorry, but I despise auctions; thank Satan for the “Buy It Now” option).
King Kong Escapes isn’t nearly as flaky as one would expect. Sure, the concept is quizzical, the effects are often antic, and the actors try too hard to act, but this sapid conversation piece crests King Kong vs. Godzilla by an olympic mile. It gets brownie points right off the bat for originality. It’s basically a James Bond movie, only with whaling monsters crashing the party every once in awhile. A displaced mad scientist by the name of Dr. Who prefabs a robotic Kong (christened “Mecha-Kong”) to retrieve Element X, a radioactive ore cached in the North Pole. When Mecha-Kong proves to be an impassable failure, Dr. Who requisitions the assistance of the real thing.
The setting is a fresh change of pace. We don’t spend too much time in a peopled, multitudinous city. The aberrant martinets do the bulk of their damage either at sea, in an arctic climate, or on Mondo Island (the first name that has ever been given to Kong’s domicile). The film doesn’t waste any time getting to the protean carnage. Kong scraps with Gorosaurus (who would later appear in Destroy All Monsters) and a sea serpent in the first act alone. The action quotient is husky and conducive to the rolling pace. Highlights include Gorosaurus dropkicking Kong while balancing on his tail (!) and Kong prying the exertive dinosaur’s jaws open in a cute nod to the 1933 original. The creature suits aren’t quite as felicitous. Everyone’s favorite ungoverned gorilla looks frumpy and disheveled. I read that they used the straggly get-up left over from King Kong vs. Godzilla. I don’t know if that holds any truth, but it’s not hard to believe.
Director and kaiju veteran Ishiro Honda seemed to have had a hulking budget to misemploy. The photography is crisp, though I don’t know what it would look like on a battered videotape. The cast ranges from stiff to lovingly strident. Eisei Amamoto leaves restraint and self-possession for dead as Dr. Who. He has a blast with the exultantly diabolical character, sonorous evil laugh and all. Our “heroes” are woefully glazed over. Save for the jocund, inobservant Linda Miller (who am I to criticize a cute blond chick?), most of these Shakespearian thespians are dull. There’s no other way to describe them. They’re just dull.
King Kong Escapes has a mean streak, which is something I can’t say for any other Kong tryst (with the partial exception of the first film). It was actually intended for adults. No, it’s not plethoric with gore or nudity, but there are a couple of instances of cold-blooded murder. They come out of nowhere, and keep things interesting. As I avouched earlier, this flick echoes your typical Bond exploit. We get hot femmes fatales, a theatrical villain, and (too) many verbal exchanges between the good guys and the bad guys. At one point, Dr. Who plays a game of chess with the central protagonist! The 007-esque subplots don’t minify the monster movie badinage, though. If anything, they boost the film’s schlock appeal.
http://www.fullyarticulated.com/images/KongJapanPackage.jpg
After he “escaped,” the barbarous spectacle took another sabbatical. Toho didn’t want to play with big monkeys anymore, so famed producer Dino De Laurentiis took it upon himself to exhumate Kong. 1976’s remake of King Kong has its heart in the right place. It understands the unalloyed scope of its source material. It treats the patrician tale as an epic, a timeless fable that deserves a snowcapped budget, kingly production values, and a deliberate set-up. However, the film ultimately drowns in all of its grandiose Hollywood posturing.
It certainly looks beautiful. The ruddy colors are pronounced, the scenery is scenic enough, and Kong himself is a palatial combination of animatronics and man-in-a-suit chicanery (Rick Baker-in-a-suit chicanery, to be exact). These outward endowments merely deacon the film’s shallow inlay. Void of substance, the exposition grovels along with only a cosmetic grasp on its purpose. The moratory pace didn’t vex me at first. I figured that it would take me awhile to warm up to a storyline that I was immune to. The script isn’t exactly full of surprises, so I exculpated it for going through the motions. I wasn’t as clement when it came to the lack of action, character development, or ingenuousness.
The acting is mostly affected. Jeff Bridges is the craftiest player here. I’ve always liked him, and his performance as Jack Prescott corroborates why. He saves the film from retrogressing beneath its oppressive breadth. Prescott is the only remotely sympathetic character to clamp onto. Jessica Lange is more interested in posing for the camera than acting. She’s quite the looker, but it matters none. She plays Dwan (that’s “Dawn,” but with the ‘a’ and the ‘w’ interchanged just for the sake of being different...ugh), a naive, incipient actress. What a stretch. This was Lange’s first role, and she approaches it as if she was starring in a straight-to-video softcore porno alongside Richard Grieco. Charles Grodin can play a disdainful asshole in his sleep. He gets the job done as Fred Wilson, an oil-digging comptroller. Since he’s meant to be just as much of a monster as Kong, I didn’t particularly care about his fate. Yep, these are the people that I was stuck with for 134 minutes.
Where senseless regalement is concerned, King Kong ‘76 doesn’t deliver. We get two notable battle sequences. Two. In a film well over two hours long. What’s worse, the fight choreography is languid and fragmentary. Besides Kong, only one other beastie populates the film, that being a behemothic snake. Now, I’d like to think that I’m more cultured than prepubescent brats with exiguous attention spans, but when your movie flaunts a 50-foot-tall gorilla, you had better sustain momentum by stupefying the viewer with voltaic set pieces. Don’t give me protracted scenes that establish a slushy relationship between Kong and our leading lady.
http://www.britannia.org/film/images/posters/img401587247f689.jpg
The ending is an effusive tearjerker, and expectedly so. It would later be cozened by Roland Emmerich’s equally fluffy Godzilla revamp. Speaking of exanimate corporate products (I hesitate to label it as a “film”), Laurentiis upreared a belated sequel to his astral remake. 1986’s King Kong Lives is not a horror flick. It’s a saccharine Disney-esque production that virtually overpasses mature moviegoers. It could be viewed as the modern equivalent to Son of Kong, only it’s not as amusing. Unlike most of my fellow genre practitioners, I don’t loathe it with every fiber of my being. Still, it’s hard to avert revilers with much aplomb or persuasion.
The plot picks up where King Kong ‘76 left off. We’re apprized of Kong’s current condition. It seems that he has been in a deep coma for the past decade, and requires a heart transplant. In order to perform the operation, Kong also needs a blood transfusion. But where in the world (is Carmen San Diego...sorry) will they find a blood type that matches Kong’s claret? Why, in the form of Lady Kong, of course. King Kong Lives could have been entitled, Bride of Kong. Once the two amorous primates make eye contact, they are inseparable. We watch them canoodle, caterwaul, and covet one another. An accolade, if I may (it’s the least I can do); the creature suits are truly amazing. They don’t look like special effects, and the miniatures don’t undercut their believability.
The humans aren’t quite as lucky. You almost feel bad for Linda Hamilton, as she tries to take her role seriously. She takes it too seriously, in my estimation. Her histrionic dialogue only abrades her abscessed performance (“Only one thing can save Kong now.” “What’s that?” “A miracle.”). Brian Kerwin is decent as the hero, but whenever his character attempted to be “funny” or “slick,” I was moved to insert a catheter into my penis just so that I could frantically rip it out. The PG-13 rating is perfidious. If you don’t blink, you can catch a fleeting glimpse of Linda Hamilton’s breasts. There’s also a remunerative amount of gore for a film of this pedigree. At one point, Kong tears a redneck in half. Good, clean fun.
The pace is swift. We dive right into the volant goings-on. The storyline is engrossing in an “I don’t really want to watch Dr. Phil, but I want to know what becomes of this dysfunctional family” kind of way. You feel like you have to finish the film. Granted, I was rooting for Lady Kong and her inamorato, but anyone would. John Guillermin returns to the director’s chair after having helmed King Kong ‘76. If I didn’t know any better, I’d deduce that King Kong Lives was directed by King Kong himself. Guillermin succumbs to the “point and shoot” technique. Aside from a few shots of a full moon (which, as I learned from the immortal MonsterVision, was just a painted beach ball), the visuals are indecorously blanched.
http://x-human.net/images/king_kong.jpg
I have nothing against sterile, salutary “kiddie horror,” but the fact that King Kong Lives will be vouchsafed digital restoration before the 1933 original hits DVD is goddamn sacrilegious (oh, I’m so ironic). Yes, you read that right. King Kong, one of the greatest films of all time, is not on DVD! Do you know what is on DVD? Blood Gnome, Monsturd, and Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy. That pretty much sums up the ills of society.
In all likelihood, a super-duper-uber-deluxe Special Edition DVD will be disencumbered into the market to either precede or coincide with the release of Peter Jackson’s upcoming overhaul of the horror/fantasy staple. I know that angrily vituperating remakes is the trendy thing to do, but I can’t help but to highly anticipate King Kong ‘05. Some say that Jackson is tarnishing a classic, that we don’t need yet another version of Kong. While I’m just as disentranced by Hollywood’s lascivious remake fetish as the next eremitic genre geek, I feel that this particular modernization (I say “modernization,” but it will be a period piece) can be justified.
Kong isn’t exclusive to horror circles. He’s an ecumenical icon. It’s important for the next generation to have their Kong. I had mine, and my parents had theirs. The eighth wonder of the world can’t be forgotten by mainstream crowds. I don’t mind if The Crazies or Suspiria fade into oblivion. Those are the movies that you seek out once you’ve been properly introduced to the genre by way of such tutelaries as King Kong, Godzilla, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees. Let the sprouting cherubs have their remake. Perhaps it will spark a love for all things horror, and they will one day be impassioned enough to foster their own creations...woah, that was too deep. Go out and buy Type O Negative’s Bloody Kisses LP. It features a filler track by the name of “Fay Wray Come Out and Play” that samples the original King Kong. Hmm, where have I heard that title before?
http://www.gojistomp.org/gfacts/kingkong.jpg
If you can overlook the imbecilic plot holes, the egregious effects (you can spot shadows on the blue screen), and the non-acting, King Kong vs. Godzilla is gamesome entertainment. Never a studio to make stand-alone films, Toho contiguously cobbled up a sequel to their take on Kong. 1967 saw the fountainhead of King Kong Escapes. I almost declined to annex this flick for evaluation purposes. It’s inordinately rare. It’s not commercially available on VHS or DVD, so I had to swallow my pride and resort to commingling with eBay. I glommed onto the uncut Japanese version. The widescreen print is crystalline and I didn’t have to withstand disgracious dubbing. Maybe eBay is good for something after all (sorry, but I despise auctions; thank Satan for the “Buy It Now” option).
King Kong Escapes isn’t nearly as flaky as one would expect. Sure, the concept is quizzical, the effects are often antic, and the actors try too hard to act, but this sapid conversation piece crests King Kong vs. Godzilla by an olympic mile. It gets brownie points right off the bat for originality. It’s basically a James Bond movie, only with whaling monsters crashing the party every once in awhile. A displaced mad scientist by the name of Dr. Who prefabs a robotic Kong (christened “Mecha-Kong”) to retrieve Element X, a radioactive ore cached in the North Pole. When Mecha-Kong proves to be an impassable failure, Dr. Who requisitions the assistance of the real thing.
The setting is a fresh change of pace. We don’t spend too much time in a peopled, multitudinous city. The aberrant martinets do the bulk of their damage either at sea, in an arctic climate, or on Mondo Island (the first name that has ever been given to Kong’s domicile). The film doesn’t waste any time getting to the protean carnage. Kong scraps with Gorosaurus (who would later appear in Destroy All Monsters) and a sea serpent in the first act alone. The action quotient is husky and conducive to the rolling pace. Highlights include Gorosaurus dropkicking Kong while balancing on his tail (!) and Kong prying the exertive dinosaur’s jaws open in a cute nod to the 1933 original. The creature suits aren’t quite as felicitous. Everyone’s favorite ungoverned gorilla looks frumpy and disheveled. I read that they used the straggly get-up left over from King Kong vs. Godzilla. I don’t know if that holds any truth, but it’s not hard to believe.
Director and kaiju veteran Ishiro Honda seemed to have had a hulking budget to misemploy. The photography is crisp, though I don’t know what it would look like on a battered videotape. The cast ranges from stiff to lovingly strident. Eisei Amamoto leaves restraint and self-possession for dead as Dr. Who. He has a blast with the exultantly diabolical character, sonorous evil laugh and all. Our “heroes” are woefully glazed over. Save for the jocund, inobservant Linda Miller (who am I to criticize a cute blond chick?), most of these Shakespearian thespians are dull. There’s no other way to describe them. They’re just dull.
King Kong Escapes has a mean streak, which is something I can’t say for any other Kong tryst (with the partial exception of the first film). It was actually intended for adults. No, it’s not plethoric with gore or nudity, but there are a couple of instances of cold-blooded murder. They come out of nowhere, and keep things interesting. As I avouched earlier, this flick echoes your typical Bond exploit. We get hot femmes fatales, a theatrical villain, and (too) many verbal exchanges between the good guys and the bad guys. At one point, Dr. Who plays a game of chess with the central protagonist! The 007-esque subplots don’t minify the monster movie badinage, though. If anything, they boost the film’s schlock appeal.
http://www.fullyarticulated.com/images/KongJapanPackage.jpg
After he “escaped,” the barbarous spectacle took another sabbatical. Toho didn’t want to play with big monkeys anymore, so famed producer Dino De Laurentiis took it upon himself to exhumate Kong. 1976’s remake of King Kong has its heart in the right place. It understands the unalloyed scope of its source material. It treats the patrician tale as an epic, a timeless fable that deserves a snowcapped budget, kingly production values, and a deliberate set-up. However, the film ultimately drowns in all of its grandiose Hollywood posturing.
It certainly looks beautiful. The ruddy colors are pronounced, the scenery is scenic enough, and Kong himself is a palatial combination of animatronics and man-in-a-suit chicanery (Rick Baker-in-a-suit chicanery, to be exact). These outward endowments merely deacon the film’s shallow inlay. Void of substance, the exposition grovels along with only a cosmetic grasp on its purpose. The moratory pace didn’t vex me at first. I figured that it would take me awhile to warm up to a storyline that I was immune to. The script isn’t exactly full of surprises, so I exculpated it for going through the motions. I wasn’t as clement when it came to the lack of action, character development, or ingenuousness.
The acting is mostly affected. Jeff Bridges is the craftiest player here. I’ve always liked him, and his performance as Jack Prescott corroborates why. He saves the film from retrogressing beneath its oppressive breadth. Prescott is the only remotely sympathetic character to clamp onto. Jessica Lange is more interested in posing for the camera than acting. She’s quite the looker, but it matters none. She plays Dwan (that’s “Dawn,” but with the ‘a’ and the ‘w’ interchanged just for the sake of being different...ugh), a naive, incipient actress. What a stretch. This was Lange’s first role, and she approaches it as if she was starring in a straight-to-video softcore porno alongside Richard Grieco. Charles Grodin can play a disdainful asshole in his sleep. He gets the job done as Fred Wilson, an oil-digging comptroller. Since he’s meant to be just as much of a monster as Kong, I didn’t particularly care about his fate. Yep, these are the people that I was stuck with for 134 minutes.
Where senseless regalement is concerned, King Kong ‘76 doesn’t deliver. We get two notable battle sequences. Two. In a film well over two hours long. What’s worse, the fight choreography is languid and fragmentary. Besides Kong, only one other beastie populates the film, that being a behemothic snake. Now, I’d like to think that I’m more cultured than prepubescent brats with exiguous attention spans, but when your movie flaunts a 50-foot-tall gorilla, you had better sustain momentum by stupefying the viewer with voltaic set pieces. Don’t give me protracted scenes that establish a slushy relationship between Kong and our leading lady.
http://www.britannia.org/film/images/posters/img401587247f689.jpg
The ending is an effusive tearjerker, and expectedly so. It would later be cozened by Roland Emmerich’s equally fluffy Godzilla revamp. Speaking of exanimate corporate products (I hesitate to label it as a “film”), Laurentiis upreared a belated sequel to his astral remake. 1986’s King Kong Lives is not a horror flick. It’s a saccharine Disney-esque production that virtually overpasses mature moviegoers. It could be viewed as the modern equivalent to Son of Kong, only it’s not as amusing. Unlike most of my fellow genre practitioners, I don’t loathe it with every fiber of my being. Still, it’s hard to avert revilers with much aplomb or persuasion.
The plot picks up where King Kong ‘76 left off. We’re apprized of Kong’s current condition. It seems that he has been in a deep coma for the past decade, and requires a heart transplant. In order to perform the operation, Kong also needs a blood transfusion. But where in the world (is Carmen San Diego...sorry) will they find a blood type that matches Kong’s claret? Why, in the form of Lady Kong, of course. King Kong Lives could have been entitled, Bride of Kong. Once the two amorous primates make eye contact, they are inseparable. We watch them canoodle, caterwaul, and covet one another. An accolade, if I may (it’s the least I can do); the creature suits are truly amazing. They don’t look like special effects, and the miniatures don’t undercut their believability.
The humans aren’t quite as lucky. You almost feel bad for Linda Hamilton, as she tries to take her role seriously. She takes it too seriously, in my estimation. Her histrionic dialogue only abrades her abscessed performance (“Only one thing can save Kong now.” “What’s that?” “A miracle.”). Brian Kerwin is decent as the hero, but whenever his character attempted to be “funny” or “slick,” I was moved to insert a catheter into my penis just so that I could frantically rip it out. The PG-13 rating is perfidious. If you don’t blink, you can catch a fleeting glimpse of Linda Hamilton’s breasts. There’s also a remunerative amount of gore for a film of this pedigree. At one point, Kong tears a redneck in half. Good, clean fun.
The pace is swift. We dive right into the volant goings-on. The storyline is engrossing in an “I don’t really want to watch Dr. Phil, but I want to know what becomes of this dysfunctional family” kind of way. You feel like you have to finish the film. Granted, I was rooting for Lady Kong and her inamorato, but anyone would. John Guillermin returns to the director’s chair after having helmed King Kong ‘76. If I didn’t know any better, I’d deduce that King Kong Lives was directed by King Kong himself. Guillermin succumbs to the “point and shoot” technique. Aside from a few shots of a full moon (which, as I learned from the immortal MonsterVision, was just a painted beach ball), the visuals are indecorously blanched.
http://x-human.net/images/king_kong.jpg
I have nothing against sterile, salutary “kiddie horror,” but the fact that King Kong Lives will be vouchsafed digital restoration before the 1933 original hits DVD is goddamn sacrilegious (oh, I’m so ironic). Yes, you read that right. King Kong, one of the greatest films of all time, is not on DVD! Do you know what is on DVD? Blood Gnome, Monsturd, and Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy. That pretty much sums up the ills of society.
In all likelihood, a super-duper-uber-deluxe Special Edition DVD will be disencumbered into the market to either precede or coincide with the release of Peter Jackson’s upcoming overhaul of the horror/fantasy staple. I know that angrily vituperating remakes is the trendy thing to do, but I can’t help but to highly anticipate King Kong ‘05. Some say that Jackson is tarnishing a classic, that we don’t need yet another version of Kong. While I’m just as disentranced by Hollywood’s lascivious remake fetish as the next eremitic genre geek, I feel that this particular modernization (I say “modernization,” but it will be a period piece) can be justified.
Kong isn’t exclusive to horror circles. He’s an ecumenical icon. It’s important for the next generation to have their Kong. I had mine, and my parents had theirs. The eighth wonder of the world can’t be forgotten by mainstream crowds. I don’t mind if The Crazies or Suspiria fade into oblivion. Those are the movies that you seek out once you’ve been properly introduced to the genre by way of such tutelaries as King Kong, Godzilla, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees. Let the sprouting cherubs have their remake. Perhaps it will spark a love for all things horror, and they will one day be impassioned enough to foster their own creations...woah, that was too deep. Go out and buy Type O Negative’s Bloody Kisses LP. It features a filler track by the name of “Fay Wray Come Out and Play” that samples the original King Kong. Hmm, where have I heard that title before?