BA_Harrison From legendary exploitation producer Dick Randall, jungle adventure King of Kong Island starts off in suitably trashy fashion, but quickly loses momentum when it becomes evident that there isn't nearly enough plot to support a full length feature.The film begins as a group of armed robbers ambush a payroll. Instead of splitting the $300K haul, Albert Muller (Marc Lawrence) betrays his comrades, shooting them all and making off with the loot. However, one of the men, Burt (played by peplum muscleman Brad Harris), is still alive, and, after recuperating, goes looking for revenge. Meanwhile, Albert is conducting experiments on gorillas, inserting AA batteries into their skulls in order to make them obedient slaves.When I tell you that the highlight of the whole movie is an early scene in a nightclub, where Brad Harris shows off his hilarious dance moves (he nods his head a lot and occasionally claps his hands), that might give some idea of just how tedious everything else is. There's loads of aimless wandering around the jungle (with the usual stock footage of animals to pad out proceedings), Brad gets shirtless to appease fans of his ripped bod, a nearly naked jungle woman preserves her modesty with her strategically placed hair, and we get a few men in really manky gorilla costumes; all of this is executed with zero flair, looks incredibly cheap, and moves at a sluggish pace.I have a pretty high tolerance for low budget schlock, but found this one quite a chore to watch.

bkoganbing Marc Lawrence who had blacklisting problems and was exiled for years from the USA had to take parts in a lot of really bad films. But I don't think he sunk lower in his career than when he took the part of the mad scientist in Kong Island. At least Lawrence got to chew a set full of scenery and after that a whole jungle on this mythical tropical island where there are a whole lot of gorillas running wild. Lawrence thinks they'd make great soldier/slaves and he's invented a control device to implant in their skulls so he can bend them to his will. Dr. Moreau on his island never thought of anything this fiendish.Brad Harris who was one of many peplum heroes got to occasionally wear a shirt in this, but we saw enough of his well developed torso and shoulders. It was a change of pace for Harris who is the hero, but the film belongs to Marc Lawrence though I'm sure he winced at the mention of this one.

Andrew Leavold We now go to East Africa, where life is cheap but clearly ape suits are expensive. And by Africa we mean a studio back-lot somewhere in Italy that doubles for the "island" in King Of Kong Island.I must have denghi fever and it's my insane imaginings that jungle B-films were the property of the 1930s and 40s: what could be described as "Apesploitation", or the "Monkeys Going Bananas" genre. And yet in the 1960s, with Planet Of The Apes one of the most popular films of the year ("You dirty rotten stinking apes!") we have Night Of The Bloody Apes (1968) from Mexico, soon followed by the Italian sexploitation film Queen Kong (1976), and Hong Kong's Goliathon/Mighty Peking Man (1977). It may be man's endless fascination with our lesser-evolved simian twins, or we just can't help but get a cheap laugh out of a guy in a monkey suit.King Of Kong Island opens with a dastardly scientist Dr Muller using stolen goods to fund his surgical experiments on gorillas. Now, seriously, "gorilla"? Even I own a better monkey suit than this. Cut to a hunting expedition led by Burt (Brad Harris, the American actor who played everyone from Samson to Goliath and Hercules) who is ambushed by not one but TWO "gorillas", complete with surgical scars, who kidnap Diana, the most attractive of the group. Despite his previous mission's complete and abject failure, Burt is charged with bringing Diana back, past miles of stock footage - although to be truthful the producers did find a parrot and a cockatoo and a few pink flamingos for a shirtless Burt, who at times resembles a shaved ape himself, to chase around a studio lagoon.In an amalgam of every thirty-year old jungle cliché, Burt comes across some spooked natives in awe of the Sacred Monkey God, a helpful chimp and a jungle girl called Eva, who can't utter a word of English but speaks fluent monk-ese, which leads Burt to look her square in the eye and ask, "Are you the Sacred Monkey?" Unbelievable. The hunt ends at Dr Muller's underground dungeon-cum-laboratory in the middle of the jungle where the insane megalomaniac - and the King of the title - has turned the apes into radio-controlled zombies, manipulated by an enormous Electronic Brain.The film was picked up by American producer Dick Randall, an old-fashioned expert in hullabaloo who was as colorful as the characters in his own Z-grade pickups. Born in the US but based mainly in Rome, Randall was the guy who filmed Jayne Mansfield's grieving family a week after her death and immediately edited the footage into his 1968 mondo film The Wild World Of Jayne Mansfield. He also sold the Filipino midget James Bond spoof For Your Height Only (1981) to the world and turned the two foot nine star Weng Weng into an unlikely international superstar. He could sell a chainsaw massacre to Texas with the 1982 Spanish slasher film Pieces, and could sell a turkey-baster to Foghorn Leghorn in the same breath as he sold this turkey. Did I say "turkey"? I meant "gorilla", and as honorary Great White Hunters we should approach this film with the right spirit, whose concepts are as absurd as the very idea of white colonialism itself.

iago-6 I found this movie as part of a 3-movies-on-one-budget-DVD set called Killer Gorilla, and, having never considered the killer gorilla movie as a genre, thought that I should immediately fill this crucial gap in my knowledge. I also am attracted to the brazen way which this movie attempts to cash in on the familiar name of a more famous movie: that's right, Howard's End.Viewers will not be surprised to learn, however, that there is in fact no king, no kong, and no island. We begin with what I can only assume is the "Love Theme from Kong Island" as we have all this exotica lounge music playing over the credits (by the way, this movie is just Kong Island in the credits). We are immediately introduced to our local mad doctor, who is performing a top-secret operation on a gorilla while spooky "woo-ooo" music plays. This, I might as well just tell you now, is to implant a mind-control device, so the mad doctor can control the gorillas, raise an army, etc.Cut to hot bar owner Theodore, who likes his women the way he likes his rocks: silent and still. He has this daughter Ursula, who is still in love with this guy Burt, who I think may be the hero. One thing you notice right away is that the guys are pretty burly! They are all gathered in this happening exotic nightclub, where some hugger-mugger or other happens, I think telling us that Burt is on some mission of revenge or some such.Soon we are treated to some really low-grade kung fu, then they all head off into the jungle, led by their guide Kaloomba. Unrelated nature footage abounds as they turn left and right, pretending to be amazed by the many wild creatures of the Congo. But soon, guys in gorilla suits are gathering and they make off with Ursula.Burt, this muscleman played by Brad Harris, who apparently portrayed Hercules in several movies, and was also in SS Hell Camp, as well as Dallas and Falcon Crest, decides that he's feeling not so fresh, and locates a stream where he strips his shirt off and runs cool water all over his heavily muscled body. It is total beefcake. He then sees the jungle queen, whose name is, I kid you not, the Sacred Monkey, and he says the only thing his little mind knows how to: "HEY!" Then we rejoin Theodore and his wife as they have a fight. Theodore slaps the bejesus out of her, then throws her on the bed to ravage her, then we cut away. We next see the mad doctor in his poorly-conceived lab, where he tells Ursula "Now you will have to serve me, like them!" (meaning like the gorillas. So, is he saying that the gorillas serve him sexually? Kinky doctor.) Then the hero shows up, and there's some fights, then Theodore and his wife are there, and the wife shoots Theodore right in front of Ursula, his daughter! The mother turns around and tells Ursula: "This is all your fault!" Poor Ursula is really gonna have a few issues with relating, closeness and intimacy, I'm afraid.Anyway, as has been signed into law, if a mad scientist has created and / or controls a living thing, it is decreed that the animal or whatever revolt and rise up to kill him at the end. The pattern is not reversed here. Then they bid a bittersweet adieu to the Sacred Monkey, and Ursula is all perky and waving "bye!" mere minutes after watching her mother kill her father in front of her. Poor girl, her mind is irrevocably cracked.Overall, kind of fun, though it did get a little boring with all the interminable walking through the jungle and gaping at inserted nature footage. Though on the plus side there is all the hunky male beef and the exotica bachelor den music… it could be worse.------ Hey, check out Cinema de Merde, my website on bad and cheesy movies (with a few good movies thrown in). You can find the URL in my email address above.