KING KONG vs. GODZILLA (1962): 30 Days of Godzilla

DAY FOUR

KING KONG vs. GODZILLA (1962)

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up to witness a cataclysmic, catastrophic clash of titanic terrors! Get y'er front-row seats to the knock-down, drag-out battle of the century! Tonight Japan's reigning monster supreme Godzilla goes toe-to-toe with the American ape of astonishing strength: King Kong! When the dust finally settles on the ruins of Japan, who will emerge the new King of the Monsters?

John Landis on KING KONG VS. GODZILLA

Here's a great video by Trailers from Hell in which John Landis (dir. American Werewolf in London) talks about Toho's King Kong vs. Godzilla.

Monster Profile: KING KONG (1933)

King Kong

aka. Kong

Classification: Giant Ape

Living on a forgotten island shrouded by mist, Kong thrives in the violent, primal jungles of a lost prehistoric world. From behind a giant wall, tribal people sacrifice to Kong their women in order to appease him. One day, an American film crew arrives on the island, and Kong becomes smitten with Ann Darrow, a blonde American kidnapped and offered to Kong. Darrow's crew-mates brave the jungle to rescue her, and Kong is captured by the Americans. He's taken to New York as a captive and entertainment attraction. After escaping and rampaging through the city, Kong meets his end atop the Empire State Building and falls to his death.

Max. Height: 5 meters (on Skull Island) or 7 meters (in New York) (18-24 feet)

Weight: Over 38 tons

Weakness: Blonde White Women

Powers: Kong possesses all the abilities and strengths of a gorilla proportionate to his height and size. Unlike apes, however, Kong fights in a very human fashion by employing hand-to-hand combat skills reminiscent of wrestling and boxing moves.

Appearances

King Kong (1933)

Official Variations

• King Kong (1976)
• King Kong (2005)
• Japanese King Kong (Toho)
• Animated King Kong (Japan 1966)

KING KONG - 1933 (Review)

King Kong (1933)

Directors:
Merian C. Cooper
Ernest B. Schoedsack    

RATING: 5 / 5

I cannot in good faith call this site a monster blog without a review of the most famous giant monster movie of them all: King Kong.

But what's left to say about Kong? Heralded as a classic of American cinema and a game-changing cinematic gamble on special effects and action-adventure storytelling, King Kong has been reviewed, debated, and critiqued for over 70 years. The most I can do is try to express my love for this film -- a film released 50 years before I was even born.

Hail to the King, baby.

See, I grew up in the shadow of the 1976 King Kong remake. I didn't see the original King Kong until I was well into High School. As a result I grew up knowing King Kong as a character and a cultural institution but not as the epic cinematic achievement it truly was. Most of my Kong education came from all the parodies and references in cartoons, commercials, and even other films that distilled the story to its basics: giant ape meets girl, giant ape takes girl, giant ape falls off of tall building. Even reading about the original film in monster books and magazines, it didn't sink in how different the original King Kong was from the version I knew. At the same time, the only Kong I saw on TV and with my own eyes was the man-in-suit version designed by Rick Baker. Hell, I even got up close and personal with that Kong when it was still a fixture of the Universal Studios tour.

Screw Jaws. Why didn't anyone want to propose where King Kong pops up?

True story: his breath smelt like bananas.

As you can imagine I still have a nostalgic soft spot for the 1976 King Kong, but once I discovered the original film, I came to see the 1976 remake as a thin re-telling lacking all the magic and wonder of the 1933 classic. In the remake, Kong fights a big snake, overturns a log, and lumbers through the jungle/city before falling to his death. The original King Kong, however, is filled with dinosaurs and prehistoric monsters, overgrown and misty fantasy jungles, and equal parts tribal and urban destruction. People get trampled, smashed into cliffs, gored and gouged by monsters, and chased through the jungle by giant creatures beyond belief. Watching the original King Kong was the only other movie I've ever seen that captured my imagination the same way Jurassic Park did in 1993 when I was 10 years old.

Monster Brawl!

This is a point that bears repeating. I was 10 when Jurassic Park ushered in a new generation of digital creature effects, but it wasn't until years later that I would see the original King Kong in its entirety for the first time. You might expect me to have balked at King Kong's black-and-white cinematography or jerky stop-motion in the face of Jurassic Park's groundbreaking blend of animatronics and digital effects, but no. I felt an instant kinship between these viewing experiences and between the films themselves. Undeniably, the effects in Jurassic Park are light years ahead of what Willis O'Brien could do on King Kong in 1933, but both films felt equally tangible and in-the-moment. They whisked your imagination away to a world of forgotten beasts and impossible monsters. Even if the creatures in both films weren't exactly realistic, they carried themselves with their own sense of materiality that rose above their flaws. You didn't doubt them. You cheered for them or hid your eyes from their terrible, primal fury. Despite King Kong's outdated effects, the craftsmanship was so clear and the attention to detail was so obvious that I would forget that it was released in 1933. I would simply immerse myself in its epic adventure. I am just as captivated today by King Kong's epic, sweeping fantasy narrative.

Willis O'Brien convinced me a boy could make a living playing with toys

The only thing that mars my current enjoyment of King Kong is the racism and sexism that pervade the film. It degrades women as bothersome, immature children and victims. The romance between Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabbot) is predicated on derision. In fact, the first time they meet, Driscoll socks her in the mouth by accident, and he only manages a half-hearted apology. Meanwhile, anyone who's not white is presented as an over-the-top racist caricature. King Kong -- neither man nor beast -- is deeply rooted in a long tradition of narratives that malign people of African descent for being "ape-like" (not-quite-human jungle dwellers) and out to do sexualized harm to white women. Looking back, it's nasty stuff. However, King Kong has managed to achieve such longevity and multicultural appeal because it is, in reality, more complex than its simple racist undertones.

Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was urban cruelty that killed the beast.

Certain elements of King Kong can be read as counteract its racist elements. Most importantly, Kong isn't just a monster. In fact, he's more than a sympathetic monster. He's a character with which the audience identifies and invests emotions. Since its release, subsequent generations have seen Kong not as a threat from a foreign land (the monstrous "other") but a mistreated creature unfairly imprisoned and destroyed for the pleasure of white people. In this way, he has been championed by many as an anti-slavery parable. At the same time that Kong breaks down the distinction between the urban and the uncivilized. His rampage on Skull Island, where he pummels a snake, fends off a pterodactyl on his mountaintop perch, and stomps and eats some villagers is mirrored during his rampage in New York. He pummels a train, fends off biplanes from his perch atop the Empire State Building, and stomps and eats some New Yorkers. In this way, the distinction between the "civilized" and the "uncivilized" becomes blurred. New York isn't much different than Skull Island, it's an equally savage land. The difference is that the people on Skull Island respect Kong. They sacrifice their own people to him. In New York, Kong is brought forth as a sacrifice of entertainment for the wealthy and elite. This ends up killing Kong, the eighth wonder of the world. So, who's really the monster? Kong, the tribal people of Skull Island, or the people of the "civilized" Western world?

"He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive"

On the surface, King Kong is a swift tale of action, adventure, and giant monsters. Seen in the context of its time, King Kong is a technical achievement of special effects and creature animation that refined and invented new techniques that would be used in films well into the early 1980s. Below the surface, if you consider the film's conflicting themes and narrative, King Kong is a rich movie that has stood the test of time. Yes, I have no problem holding up both King Kong and Jurassic Park side by side. Even though one was released 60 years before the other, they are both equally captivating and thrilling adventures into the world of monsters and human folly.

MEGA POST: Vintage King Kong Commercials

Yesterday my three-movie set of King Kong, Son of Kong, and Mighty Joe Young arrived in the mail, and I was inspired to spend some time on Youtube exploring King Kong's iconic cultural status by seeking out (mostly) vintage commercials from around the world about King Kong and inspired by the the giant ape himself. Enjoy!

Trailer Thursday: A*P*E (1976)

See giant reptile casually tossed off camera.....

Crestwood House: Godzilla and King Kong

I wouldn't be a fan of Godzilla if it weren't for the Crestwood House Monster Series of books.

If you were a monster-loving kid in the late 70s, 80s, or even the early '90s, you probably discovered the Crestwood House Monster Series too. With orange spines and enticing black-and-white pictures, the Crestwood House Monsters Series introduced kids to the classic horror movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman, but the series also introduced kids to the biggest and the baddest of the giant monsters: Godzilla and King Kong.

 By the time I was in Elementary School and able to check out these books, King Kong and Godzilla were not as new to me. I had watched King Kong 1976 on VHS with my parents, probably watching it upside down as I laid under the glass coffee table and chewed on the wood frame (a habit that must have convinced my parents I was part rodent). I was aware of Godzilla too, although I don't recall if I had seen Godzilla 1985 at that point. Godzilla, like King Kong, was a ubiquitous cultural icon forever parodied in cartoons and commercials, so these characters weren't new to me.

What the books did, however, was introduce me a wealth of monster movie material I didn't even know existed. In Elementary School, I had no idea that King Kong was originally a black and white film from 1933 or that movies like Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young even existed. Furthermore, by the the first printing of the series in 1977, there had been 15 Godzilla films released in Japan. If I was aware of Godzilla at all, I had no idea of the character's long tradition of wrestling strange and wonderful monster rivals like Gigan, Mothra, and Rodan. The Crestwood House Godzilla book was a rich world of insane monsters that were completely foreign to me and plot summaries of movies that made the monster movies I was used to pale in comparison. More than the King Kong book, I poured over the Godzilla book and soaked up as much knowledge about the King of the Monsters that I could between checkout and due date. For years, I remember that cover image of Godzilla fighting Ghidorah, a creature I thought too bizarre to exist even in the movies. In North America, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Universal stable of monsters had become so commercialized and common place they were a standard part of North American iconography. King Ghidorah, a three-headed golden serpent with two wings, two tails, and two legs but no arms, was so out-there that it stimulated my imagination for years.

In the days before a quick Google search could bring you more information about Japanese monster movies than you could handle, the Crestwood House Monster Series was an invaluable window into the history of monster movies, and it shaped me into the monster fan I am today.

Thanks Crestwood!

1. 2. 3. ALL MONSTERS BLOG!

Greetings fellow monster maniacs and kaiju-crazed film fans. This is ALL MONSTERS BLOG!, a new site devoted to giant monster cinema from around the world.

My name is Aaron Allen; I'm a horror movie blogger and podcaster and-all-around-dork for genre cinema. I operate The Zed Word: Zombie Blog, a site devoted to my love of zombies, and Monster Chiller Horror Theatre, a blog about silly, sexy, surreal, and shocking horror movies. But above all, my love of horror stems from one thing: a deep-seated love of monsters. Giant monsters! City-destroying, colossal, rubber-suited giant monsters battling for Earth and space against Super Robots and bizarre aliens from the furthest reaches of the universe! It hasn't been until recently, however, that I've realized how deep my love affair with monsters runs. Looking back, monster movies have been a pervasive part of my life. With that in mind, I've planned this blog to document my exploration of kaiju nostalgia as well as record my thoughts on giant monster movies that I'm rediscovering as an adult and even enjoying for the first time.'

Before I loved zombies, I had a passion for Giant Monster movies, or as the Japanese call them, daikaiju eiga. I recall whole summer afternoons watching any giant monster movie we could find on VHS. One of my earliest cinematic memories is of crying at the death of King Kong in the 1976 remake. I cheered on the goofy and kitschy exploits of Godzilla in his later child-friendly films. I even built small cities out of Lego and crushed them before me. Mwhaahahahah! Now as an adult, I do considerably less Lego building, but I appreciate daikaiju films in a new way. On the one hand, I appreciate them for their cheesy qualities. Many are fun and silly looking B-movies. On the other hand, I appreciate them for their occasional allegorical poignancy and craftsmanship. More than ever, I celebrate their devotion to costuming, miniatures, and puppetry. In a world where so many special effects are CGI, there's something very satisfying about seeing a physical creature destroy physical sets, even if a CGI creature could theoretically do more.

So where did this interest in giant monster movies come from? First, it came from a love of monsters in general. Like many weird kids, I spent my school days doodling monsters in the margins of my notebooks and assignments. With the time to day dream, any blank space on the page could be a fertile land of ferocious beasts. My wild imagination was fueled by a steady stream of monster entertainment that started before I could walk or talk. What began as a very young attachment to the fuzzy monsters of The Muppets and Mercer Meyer's monster art in books like One Monster After Another turned into a fascination with more elaborate puppet creatures in movies like The Dark Crystal, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Star Wars, which I always preferred over the humanoid monsters of the Universal horror films.

This love of monstrous creatures evolved into a brief period of dino-fever when I discovered the majesty and terror of dinosaurs. Stop-motion dinosaur movies and animatronic dinosaur exhibits at places like Science World in Vancouver immersed me in an educational and thrilling world of prehistoric biology that combined science and entertainment. I was ten years old when Jurassic Park came out, and it was the apex of my interest in dinosaurs.

At the same time, I was also heavily into robots, which was probably why I loved animatronic puppets so much. Transformers toys were a particular favorite of mine. Like dinosaurs, Transformers were giant and could cause untold destruction, but they could do almost anything. The storytelling options were limitless.

Although I had all these separate genre interests, I soon found a genre that combined my love of wild monsters, the dinosaur's epic scale and legendary quality, and the awesome power of Sci-fi Super Robots. I'm talking daikaiju films, baby! Now that I'm returning to the genre with an adult interest, I'm rediscovering the joys of my childhood but also finding whole movie series that I never saw before, including the unfairly neglected Gamera franchise.

I hope you'll enjoy my reviews. We'll have movies about giant atomic monsters, prehistoric beasts, outer space terrors, colossal insects, and terrible mistakes of science. Cities will be destroyed! Monsters will battle! ALL MONSTERS WILL BLOG!