Tag: Willis O’Brien

King Kong Escapes (1967)

KING KONG ESCAPES (1967) ****
I must be a sucker for movies like King Kong Escapes, but I just can’t help myself when it features so many awesome characters, plot details, and scenes.

Of course, we have the title character who’s obviously back from King Kong vs. Godzilla, one of Japan’s biggest Solid Gold hits of the early ’60s.

King Kong Escapes, a Toho Studios and Rankin/Bass Productions co-production, topped King Kong vs. Godzilla for me and I’d like to share how it did just that.

Not only do we have the iconic man-in-a-suit Kong, rather than the Willis O’Brien stop motion Kong from the immortal King Kong, the one that started it all, but we have Mechani-Kong, a giant robot double of Kong that first appeared in the 1966 animated TV series The King Kong Show (hence the Rankin/Bass involvement) and returned for live-action duty in King Kong Escapes.

King Kong Escapes also gives us Gorosaurus and a giant sea serpent, and Kong battles them near their home Mondo Island. See, Kong’s become obviously smitten with the lovely nurse Susan Watson (Linda Miller) and he’ll take on any beast to protect her. She holds sway on the big lug, and that naturally puts her life in danger from the bad guys. Kong saves her several times over the course of a 100-minute spectacular. All in a day’s work.

I believe it’s the human villains who put King Kong Escapes over into greatness for me — the evil mad scientist Dr. Who (not that Doctor Who) and the shady representative of an unknown Asian nation, Madame Piranha. She’s also called Madame X, but I’m sticking with Madame Piranha because I like that name better and she’s played by the pretty Mie Hama. 1967 proved to be a vintage year for Hama, who turned 24 that year and played Kissy Suzuki in the fifth James Bond film, You Only Live Twice. I believe Madame Piranha wins over Kissy Suzuki and ditto for their respective films. Madame Piranha, in fact, belongs right up there with Pussy Galore and Princess Dragon Mom.

Anyway, back to Dr. Who, played by the veteran character actor Hideyo Amamoto (1926-2003). He’s a cross between, I don’t know, Dracula (it’s the cape) and a Bond megalomaniac. He’s one of those characters that we absolutely love to hate and we savor his inevitable demise late in the picture. He’s so vain, so darn smart, so reckless, so persistent, so evil. Dr. Who created Mechani-Kong and when it fails him about 30 minutes into King Kong Escapes, Dr. Who captures first Kong and then Susan Watson, Commander Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason), and Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura (Akira Takarada), Watson’s human interest. Needless to say, Kong and Mechani-Kong and Watson and gang escape from Dr. Who and his henchmen, which leads us to a battle royale atop Tokyo Tower.

I admit upfront that King Kong Escapes is silly, preposterous, and outright bloody ridiculous, in everything from its plot to its English dubbing, but it came as such a rejuvenation to my spirit after I watched The Gorilla, The Screaming Skull, The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy, and The Curse of the Aztec Mummy earlier that same day, four exploitation films that if added together still did not provide as much entertainment value as King Kong Escapes.

Son of Kong (1933)

SON OF KONG

Son of Kong (1933) Two stars

Released on Mar. 7, 1933, in New York City and a month later nationally, King Kong quickly took the nation by storm and became a cinematic landmark.

Nine months later, incredibly, RKO released the sequel Son of Kong and Hollywood did not make another Kong picture for more than 40 years.

Son of Kong just might be Hollywood’s first rush job and one of its first sequels*. It is a pleasant enough movie to watch, but obviously it’s not a patch on an all-time classic. I’ve watched the original numerous times, but I doubt I’ll want to return to Son of Kong a second time.

That’s because it’s virtually dull as dishwater. It takes approximately 45 minutes to get to our title character. That’s way too long for a movie that lasts only 69 minutes. Despite the return of Carl Denham, the most interesting human character in King Kong, played by the reliably entertaining Robert Armstrong, Son of Kong does not maintain the interest level high enough for a Kong movie. Of course, the original set the bar incredibly high.

They give Denham a potential romantic interest, because lovebirds Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and John Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) quite naturally did not return for the sequel after their harrowing experiences, and Helen Mack’s Helene Peterson epitomizes the movie as a whole, since she’s pleasant but dull. She’s a singer, not an actress like the lovely Miss Darrow, and gets a production number. Again, pleasant but dull.

Kong co-directors Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C.Cooper returned as director and producer. Special effects guru Willis O’Brien and composer Max Steiner also returned, as did some of the supporting cast.

They were on a tight budget, an even tighter schedule, and they obviously knew there was no way they could topple King Kong. Armstrong himself preferred Son of Kong, but that’s because Denham received greater character arc. He’s probably the only person to ever prefer Son over its father. Both the son and the sequel are kinder, gentler — not good for a creature feature.

Sequels very rarely even approach their predecessors, and that was true in 1933 every bit as it is this very day.

For every Bride of Frankenstein and The Empire Strikes Back, we have a million failures and footnotes, like Son of Kong.

*United Artists released Don Q, Son of Zorro in 1925, a sequel to the 1920 classic Mark of Zorro. Swashbuckler supreme Douglas Fairbanks starred in both films. Son of Zorro also predates Son of Kong, Son of Frankenstein, Son of Godzilla, and Son of the Mask. To be fair, though, the sound of a toilet flushing predates Son of the Mask.