After the incredible success of RKO's King Kong in 1933, the giant ape became something
of a cultural icon.
Kong was famous around the world, particularly in Japan.
After Toho Company got into the business of making giant monster movies in the wake of
1954's Godzilla, the Japanese film studio borrowed the rights to the character from RKO.
Despite a bitter legal battle over those rights back in America, Toho produced and distributed
their first movie featuring the giant ape: King Kong vs. Godzilla, which would prove
to be one of the highest grossing movies in the entire Godzilla canon.
"King Kong can't make a monkey out of us."
After that, the only question for Toho was how to bring Kong back for an encore.
The megalomaniac Dr. Who has built a giant robot in the image of King Kong in order to
extract the highly dangerous Element X from the North Pole.
When this Mechani-Kong fails, though, he resorts to kidnapping the real Kong from his home
on Mondo Island.
When submarine commander Carl Nelson discovers this, he and his crew chase Dr. Who to the
frozen wastes, where they too are captured.
Enraged by his enslavement, Kong breaks free and swims to Tokyo, where Dr. Who hopes to
set the stage for a confrontation between the giant ape and the mechanical menace.
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In 1966, Toho began working on a follow-up to King Kong vs. Godzilla in partnership with
the American animation studio Rankin/Bass Productions, which had managed to borrow the
rights to King Kong through some impressive legal magic.
This film, titled Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah, started to fall apart
due to the unavailability of Godzilla director Ishiro Honda, which caused Rankin/Bass to
pull out.
Toho, unwilling to abandon the project altogether, replaced Kong with Godzilla and released the
film as Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, one of the more tonally awkward Godzilla films of
the Showa era, though definitely not the weirdest.
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Around the same time, Rankin/Bass Productions, in association with the Japanese animation
studio Toei, began a groundbreaking collaboration to produce the first anime series made in
Japan for an American company: The King Kong Show.
Running for a total of three seasons, The King Kong Show was aimed at children and,
in addition to featuring all kinds of wacky threats like aliens and robots, it spoofed
spy movie tropes made popular by the burgeoning James Bond franchise.
When Ishiro Honda became available for Toho again, Rankin/Bass and Toho agreed to try
once more to produce a King Kong movie, this time a loose adaptation of The King Kong Show
called King Kong Escapes.
Though still envisioned as a family-friendly picture, the movie's plot--written by Takeshi
Kimura, who also wrote Rodan and The Mysterians and would later work on a few Godzilla films--removes
the central human characters from the television show.
Instead of a young boy and his family, then, King Kong Escapes features an American submarine
commander and two subordinates, who all form a bond with the titular primate.
To play the lead, they hired the character actor Rhodes Reason.
Reason was not a fan of the script, of Ishiro Honda, or of Japanese cinema in general, but
he agreed to the part because he "couldn't turn down a trip to Japan."
Alongside him is Toho staple Akira Takarada, probably best known for the original Godzilla,
in the role of Lieutenant Commander Jiro Nomura, as well as the model Linda Miller as Lieutenant
Susan Watson.
"Well, I don't see how can be amused by gorillas."
For the evil Dr. Who (no relation to the British television show) they cast Hideyo Amamoto,
another Toho veteran who, like Takarada, also appears in Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.
Dr. Who's assistant is played by Yoshibumi Tajima, most recognizable as the villainous
president of Happy Enterprises in Mothra vs. Godzilla.
The enigmatic Madame Piranha, who is billed in the American release as "Madame X," is
played by Mie Hama, who's not only in King Kong vs. Godzilla but also plays a Bond girl
in 1967's You Only Live Twice.
"It's hard work."
For the U.S. release, Linda Miller's lines were dubbed over by Julie Bennett--who also
dubbed over Mie Hama's dialogue--even though Rhodes Reason was able to dub over his lines.
"Kong, stop that ship!"
There are two cited reasons for this: one, Miller was not a member of the Screen Actors
Guild, and two, she was still living in Japan when the dubbing took place in New York.
Almost all the other male voices in the U.S. version, including that of Dr. Who, were dubbed
by master voice actor Paul Frees.
"You think I wouldn't kill you?
I could, and I would."
To play King Kong, the legendary Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima donned the suit.
He also appears in a cameo as "curious spectator."
I've tried my best to find him, and I think, though I'm not a hundred percent sure on it,
he's this guy.
Hiroshi Sekita, who had previously suited up as Ebirah, played opposite him as both
the Gorosaurus and Mechani-Kong, and he too supposedly has a cameo, but good luck
finding him as the "security officer."
Naturally, the effects were done under the supervision of Eiji Tsubaraya, the same man
responsible for nearly all of the early Showa-era Godzilla films.
There is some good miniature work, with the Tokyo Tower sequence standing out due to the
fact that it had to be strong enough to support two men in heavy suits climbing all over it.
I'll admit that King Kong looks pretty derpy, but like an animal that is so ugly you can't
help but love it, the big guy kinda grows on you as the movie goes on.
As for Mechani-Kong, a holdover from the original cartoon series, he's pretty great and was
so beloved that he inspired Toho to create Mechagodzilla half a decade later.
Another Toho staple, Akira Ifukube, was responsible for the music.
The King Kong themes are similar to Ifukube's famous Godzilla theme, but stand apart in
this film with a more Bond-movie-inspired blaring horn sound.
[A Bond-movie-inspired blaring horn sound]
It's not Ifukube's best work, but even an Ifukube at his worst isn't half-bad.
King Kong Escapes premiered in July of 1967 in Japan, in time to commemorate Toho's thirty-fifth
anniversary, and in June of 1968 in America.
Though there are a few differences between the American and Japanese versions, they reportedly
aren't as severe as most other Toho films of the era.
It's hard for me to say, though, as the Japanese version has never been released in the U.S.
It was a modest success at the box office in both places, though American critics tended
to dismiss it.
For Toho, it was popular enough that they tried to get the rights to King Kong for a
third film and even tried to get around those rights by making a film with Mechani-Kong
fighting Godzilla in 1990.
Though that film also got cancelled due to copyright issues, the idea Toho had for it
sounds amazing, with Mechani-Kong injecting people into Godzilla to fight him from within
like a bizarro take on Fantastic Voyage.
Toho has also re-released the film multiple times, most notably in 1973 as part of the
Toho Champion Festival.
Now I'm not going to try to tell you that King Kong Escapes is a work of genius cinema
or that it deserves to be put in the same category as the original Godzilla.
I'm not even going to try to argue that it has a landmark place in Toho's giant monster canon.
However, it's one of those movies that doesn't try to be anything more than it is.
It doesn't have the subtext of Godzilla, Mothra, or Rodan--and it has some issues with pacing
along with obnoxious sound effects that threaten to ruin the entire thing--but King Kong Escapes
does manage to be entertaining on its own merits, a successful attempt to be nothing
more than a fun, family-friendly good time.
It offers homages to the classic King Kong--with several scenes that are re-imagined versions
of classic Kong moments--and it dabbles in respectful satire of the spy genre.
But at the end of the day, this is just a movie where a giant ape is pitted against
a giant ape robot.
In my eyes, it doesn't need to be more than that to be a sci-fi classic.
And that's all for today, my fellow Earthlings.
What other classic Japanese giant monster movies do you want me to cover?
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more sci-fi classics in both film and literature.
Until next time, though, when we'll see a different kind of escape, this is The Unapologetic
Geek, telling you to never be ashamed of what you love, as long as you're not hurting anybody.
"You're a failure!"
"Not a chance of that."