Konga (1961)

fun "King Kong" rip-off!

The UK's answer to "King Kong", KONGA! (1961) stars Michael Gough as Dr. Charles Decker, an eccentric professor who injects a baby chimp with powerful growth hormones and later uses it as a trained assassin to kill his enemies.

Margo Johns enlivens the proceedings and adds glamour, playing Decker's frustrated assistant/housekeeper Margaret. Michael Gough, a serial scene-stealer, lives up to his reputation here. On the down-side, blonde starlet Claire Gordon is a very bland ingenue; the audience doesn't really care about her character by the time she gets her arm caught in a Venus Flytrap.

The special effects (filmed in the 35mm "Specta-Mation" process) are well done for the most part, with lots of cool miniature work. While I don't believe the filmmakers intentionally set out to create a "King Kong" rip-off (excluding the obvious title homage), the similarities are far from subtle. Konga's final stand-off at the site of Big Ben will evoke memories of King Kong's classic Empire State Building demise.

Co-starring Jess Conrad, George Pastell, and Austin Trevor. MGM's DVD has a clean print, with nice colour (though it sadly isn't enhanced for 16:9 displays). Worth getting for killer ape fans or those fond of solid British horror movies. June 20, 2008

NOT KING KONG

ENGLAND'S ANSWER TO THE GREAT APES MOVIES. FINE FOR WHAT IT IS. BUT HOW DOES A CHIMP BECOME A GORILLA? January 21, 2008

King Kong meets Tarantula in a terrible B Movie rip off of Kong

One of the worst movies I've ever seen, It's been said "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is the worst movie ever made, that is not a bad movie, for 50s audience yes it was, but it had a cult following. Konga has not and probably won't, it's just awful, it's not even an entertaining B movie, it was a terrible B Movie. May 27, 2007

mogrilla

Konga is the perfect example of science gone wrong. A lustful scientist
discovers a way to make things HUGE along with his ego. He keeps his girlfriend/secretary on a leash and lusts after a younger high school girl. He then experiments with his chimpanze buddy and turns him into a
moronic gorilla. With one too many mishaps, the gorilla, the girlfriend,
and his lust get out of hand which leads to their destruction. January 17, 2007

"What you have done will startle the world!"

In the last of the successful co-productions between American International Pictures (AIP) and producer Herman Cohen comes Konga (1961), which Herman not only co-producer, but also shared in the writing credits. Some of their most famous collaborations included I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), neither of which, as I write this, are available as of yet on DVD, but should be (Konga was produced with the working title I Was a Teenage Gorilla)...anyway, directed by John Lemont (The Frightened City), the film stars Michael Gough, who appeared in a number of Cohen's features including Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), Black Zoo (1963), Berserk! (1968), but many movie goers will probably recognize him from some of his later films, including his appearances in the various Batman films as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth. Also appearing is Margo Johns (This Is My Street), Jess Conrad (The Assassination Bureau), Claire Gordon (Beat Girl), and George Barrows, as Konga...interestingly enough this wasn't George's first (or last) time donning a big, hairy gorilla suit, as he appeared in Robot Monster (1953), as Ro-Man, the alien with a gorilla body and a diver's helmet for a head, along with Gorilla at Large (1954), as Goliath the Gorilla, Black Zoo (1963), as The Ape, and finally in Hillbillys (sic) in a Haunted House (1967), as Anatole the gorilla...

As the film begins we see a small plane crashing into the African jungle, one carrying famed, English botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Gough), thought to have perished in the accident. Well, turns out Decker didn't die, and has spent the last year in Uganda, assisted by friendly natives, making some incredible discoveries (plants with human characteristics and growth properties), ones which he is now bringing back to England, along with a chimpanzee monkey named Konga. Decker returns home, finding his affairs still in order thanks to his assistant/secretary/housekeeper (I wonder if three jobs means three paychecks?) Margaret (Johns), who obviously has a bad case of unrequited love for the professor. Anyway, Decker begins growing his own, meat eating, mutant plants, extracting their juices, which he laces with some obedience seeds, and then injects into the pint-sized Konga causing him to grow from a small ape to a slightly larger ape, and then later into a full size gorilla...more aptly, a full sized man in a gorilla suit, obedient to Decker's commands. Decker has a bit of a falling out with the dean of the school where he teaches, to which he let's the hulking Konga settle the dispute, along with later instructing Konga to deal with a scientific rival, whom Decker, the glory hog, feared would beat him to the punch with his own findings. Also, Decker seems to have taken an unhealthy, lecherous interest in one of his students, Sandra (Gordon), much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Bob (Conrad). Things get out of hand, a scorned woman exacts her revenge (at terrible cost), and soon a 50 foot man in a gorilla suit is terrorizing London, destroying a few miniature sets along the way, leading to mayhem of the wackiest kind as the Brits find themselves up a ginormous monkey creek without a banana paddle...

All in all I thought Konga was a blast...yeah, it tended to get a bit talky at times, but there was enough of the insano to keep me interested. My favorite aspect was seeing Michael Gough, a normally reserved British actor, taking it over the top, an opportunity which he seemed to relish when appearing in numerous Cohen features. His character here was intriguing in that he first appeared the altruistic sort, interested in the advancement of knowledge for the betterment of all mankind, but this was soon polluted with dreams of self aggrandizement along with his wanton desires towards his comely student Sandra, a naïve blondie with a huge rack. He's condescending, misogynistic (a common theme in Cohen's films), manipulative, and completely unsympathetic, perfectly illustrated in the scene where his cat gets into his serum, resulting in a swift dispatch of the feline for fear the affected animal would tip his scientific hand before he was ready. As far as the rest of the cast, they do well enough, but all seem background players against Gough's character. The story itself is fun, albeit containing a number of rather large plot holes including the aspect of the serum turning a chimpanzee monkey into a gorilla, especially since it seemed the only properties it was supposed to have were to embiggen creatures, not transmute them into different species. Another element that stood out was Konga's subservience to Decker...did the serum also allow for the primate to understand the English language? In terms of the special effects, some were quite good, like near the end when the giant Konga was roaming the city streets, while some quite ridiculous, specifically Konga himself. The ape suit wasn't the worst I've seen, but it did look pretty funky, and was very droopy in the drawers, often appearing as if Konga sported a perpetual load in his furry pants. The unintentionally funniest scenes are near the end, as Konga grows to a staggering degree, almost as tall as Big Ben. At first, when people on the street witness the behemoth their demeanor hardly changes, but then the expected, uncontrolled panic finally comes, as does the trigger happy army, who begin blasting away despite the very obvious fact that Konga is carrying Decker in his shaggy mitt. Oh well, what's the life of one compared to many? Well, perhaps they saw as I did, that Konga did, in fact, have only a poor looking doll, made up to look like a person, in his paw rather than a real human being. Another really goofy part is Konga just stops at Big Ben, and stands there for about five minutes, allowing for the military to get set up. The ending sequence is hardly a battle, but more so target practice as Konga seemed to have little will for retaliation.

The fullscreen (1.66:1) picture on this DVD is excellent, looking very sharp and clean, looking better than any video release I've previously seen, and the mono audio comes through very clear. There are no extras included, except for a couple of previews for the films Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) and MirrorMask (2005).

Cookieman108

If you're interested in some other, cheaply made, good for laughs, giant simian films I'd suggest the following...The Mighty Gorga (1969), Ape (1976), Queen Kong (1976), Mighty Peking Man (1980), and King Kong Lives (1986)...all are available on DVD in some form or another.
January 15, 2006

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