040: That Time King Kong Went to Japan

Welcome back to The SoraRabbit Hole! I’ve got a fun bit of cinema to review for your enjoyment today. As you should all be fully aware of by now, I’m a huge Godzilla fan. Ever since Godzilla: King of the Monsters, I’ve been waiting impatiently for the follow up. I’m pleased with how Legendary’s Monsterverse is shaping up and after watching Kong: Skull Island, I was eager to see who would win in a match up between the reimagined Godzilla and Kong. Well, Godzilla Vs Kong finally came out, and while I was disappointed that I couldn’t see it in the theater, that was the only thing I was disappointed in. I very much enjoyed the movie and it was everything I wanted it to be. Don’t worry, no spoilers will be in this post. This post is here to celebrate that long-awaited film with the review of a much older film… King Kong Escapes!

Look at that… um… majestic beast. (Credit: Toho Studios)

King Kong Escapes was released by Toho Studios in 1967. (The fine people who brought us Godzilla, among many other monsters.) It was the second Japan-produced kaiju film using the American property King Kong. (The first being the classic King Kong Vs Godzilla.) Two things of note before I get started on the plot: First, and most exciting to me, is that the special effects on this film were done by the amazing Eiji Tsuburaya, the man behind the long-running Ultraman series. Secondly, the plot of this film was loosely based on the Rankin/Bass cartoon The King Kong Show. Rankin/Bass, credited as co-producer on this movie, is perhaps best known for their classic holiday stop-motion films such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.

My history with King Kong is not as deep as my history with (and affinity for) Godzilla. I haven’t even seen all the Kong movies. I thought King Kong Lives was interesting but only saw it once when I was a kid. Beyond that, and an appreciation for the original being a big inspiration for Godzilla, I could take or leave King Kong for the most part. That said, both the Toho movies were great fun and the Monsterverse take on the character is great.

Okay, that’s enough background. Time for some big monkey adventures.

Our heroes. (Credit: Toho Studios)

The film opens on a submarine and we’re introduced to our main human characters. There is an American blonde nurse named Lt. Susan Watson. The American Commander Carl Nelson, and Japanese Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura. They are working on an unspecified research mission for the United Nations Research Council.

King Kong Escapes was released first in Japan and then for some reason redubbed into English for American audiences. (I’m assuming this is because the practice at the time was to film silently and dub the audio in later.) The dubbing work was questionable, especially with the voice actor they chose for Susan. I can’t fully describe just how bad the choice was… all I can say is that her voice is way too old for her physical appearance. (By several decades from the sound of it.) Susan’s voice sounds like it belongs to a flirty elderly lady and it annoys the hell out of me and this won’t be the last time I mention that in this post.

“And so you see, science says the monkey is right about here.” (Credit: Toho Studios)

Anyway, Susan notices ape sketches on the table and gets excited. She asks about the sketches and then mentions that she thinks gorillas are dull. (Why did she get so excited then?) Jiro mentions that this one is 60 feet tall. She’s heard the legend of King Kong. (Which instantly shows that this film is not in continuity with King Kong Vs Godzilla. That would have been a well-documented fight.) Carl is certain it’s more than a legend. He’s done his research and believes Kong lives on Mondo Island, which by a fabulous coincidence is right near where they are.

MONKEY SCIENCE! (Credit: Toho Studios)

Susan begs Carl to make a detour and let them visit the island. She wants to see da monkey, but Carl says nah, they have to stick with their mission.

Readers, meet Mechani-Kong. Yes, that’s the name they went with. (Credit: Toho Studios)

At the North Pole, the mysterious and quite evil Doctor Who (no relation) has built himself a Mechani-Kong.

Doctor Who. No, not that one. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Doctor Who is quite impressed with his creation. Less impressed is his partner/boss Madame X. (Note: She is stated on IMDB and Wikipedia to be named Madame Piranha, but the film credits call her Madame X. She is not referred to by any name even once in the film. I’m just gonna call her Madame X.) She changes clothes for every single scene she is in. And she was literally a James Bond villain. (Seriously, she was in a Bond movie shortly before this one.)

The villains surrounded by confused henchmen. (Credit: Toho Studios)

We get some important exposition here that sets up the rest of the movie. Madame X has hired Doctor Who to help her obtain the rare Element X for her government (and holy crap I love that sentence). Element X is super rare and there is a big deposit underground in the North Pole. The element can be used to make nuclear weaponry, which Madame X’s government wants in order to rule the world. What government? She doesn’t specify. (Like, at all. It’s really weird how shady she is about it.) She doesn’t think the robot will do the trick and wants the real Kong. Doctor Who is adamant that his creation is stronger than the original. (And yes, I’m going to say his full name every time because it still tickles me that they named him that.) He based the design of his robot on Carl Nelson’s research. (How exactly he got said research is not explained.) Madame X is intrigued by Nelson, but she’s worried that Doctor Who’s ego is out of control and reminds him that her unnamed country buys results. Her country insists that he succeeds. It’ll be fine, though, since Doctor Who’s only character trait is being fully confident in whatever plan he happens to be pursuing at the moment.

Ready for some hot mining action! (Credit: Toho Studios)

A cool thing about Doctor Who’s operation is that he has a seemingly-endless supply of henchmen. All of them wear black suits and white gloves, like Team Rocket. (Not Jessie and James… the grunts.) Some of them wear orange hard hats. They usually look perplexed or outright bored. We get to see some green screen work to make them appear to be in the same place as Mechani-Kong, and at the North Pole. The green screen work is… typical for the time. I’ll leave it at that.

They lift Mechani-Kong onto a platform and set him loose to dig for Element X, which is too radioactive for normal mining. Very little Element X has ever been mined, but Doctor Who promises Madame X 10,000 tons of it in 100 days. She’s practically salivating at this thought. Her country wants nuclear domination over “the universe”, which seems a tad excessive.

Shiiiiny! (Credit: Toho Studios)

Mechani-Kong has a utility belt full of bombs that he starts methodically dropping into a crevice. The robot falls in and immediately starts digging. Before long he reaches the Element X, which appears crystalline and a bit powdery. The Element starts strobing and Mechani-Kong falls over. This infuriates Doctor Who.

Back to the drawing board. (Credit: Toho Studios)

It appears the “magnetic mass has destroyed his surface”, whatever that means. Madame X states that her country is withdrawing all aid, but Doctor Who is tired of her threats. He mentions that he could just give the Element X to another country. Worried, she says she will request patience from her country. (Seriously, this mystery is driving me crazy. If they didn’t want to name a real country and villainize them, why didn’t they just create a fictional one?)

A tender moment in front of the green screen. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Back on the hero sub, they’ve run into issues. The submarine is critically damaged because of a rockslide and so they surface to make repairs. Carl and Jiro have a refreshing cigarette in front of the green screen. Jiro was injured and Susan treats him tenderly, making me wonder if there’s something going on between the two of them. Carl lets them know that they’re going to get their chance to visit Mondo Island after all, since hey it’s right over there what an amazing coincidence!

They leave the sub riding in a small floating pod that soon proves to be a boat/hovercraft and also a car?

The hovershipcarboat. (Credit: Toho Studios)

As they explore the island, Carl wonders where all the villagers went. (It’s never explained and I just now realized that. Another mystery!) They spot a single elderly villager who’s screaming at them in the distance. (Side note, I was pleased to see they didn’t put the native guy in black face like they did for King Kong Vs Godzilla. We don’t talk about that.) The native man is telling them that it’s taboo for them to be there. Susan makes out the word Kong and Carl translates the word King. So now they know for sure King Kong is real and this is his home.

The men go off to explore and leave the weaponless woman behind where she’ll be “safe”. (Ugh.) Of course she’s immediately attacked by Gorosaurus and falls flat on her face after a couple of steps. Yeah… safe.

The lethal Gorosaurus! (Credit: Toho Studios)

Gorosaurus is a dinosaur kaiju some diehard Godzilla fans may know from a brief appearance in Destroy All Monsters. (Actually his appearance in that movie was made up of stock footage from this one!) He was also in Godzilla Island, but he was a toy in that, as were all the kaiju. It occurs to me that maybe Gorosaurus ate the other natives? Hmm…

She’s a real hand full. BWAHAHA. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Susan’s screams awaken King Kong, who rushes out of his cave and stares down Gorosaurus. Then he spots Susan, falls instantly in love, and forgets all about the dangerous kaiju. I don’t know what the thing is about Kong falling in love with blonde women, but it is certainly a recurring theme with him.

Kong contemplates a Susan doll. (Credit: Toho Studios)

He picks Susan up and admires her before he remembers he was supposed to be in a fight. It was nice of Gorosaurus to give him a moment before attacking. Kong sets Susan in a tree and does battle. He starts by rushing at Gorosaurus, gets kangaroo kicked, and does sweet somersault, ending up in a standing position. I made a GIF of it for you.

This is the best. (Credit: Toho Studios)

You’re welcome.

Hahaha, dumbass. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Kong gets kicked a few more times before he decides to punch Gorosaurus right in the mouth. The mouth that is wide open and full of sharp teeth. Yeah… Kong is not the smartest banana in the bunch. Kong finally flips Gorosaurus over and beats on him for almost a full minute until I started to feel sorry for the ugly lizard.

Once he’s good and dead, Kong returns to his newfound love and plucks Susan from the tree. Jiro almost shoots him before Carl stops him. Then we’re treated to the horrible horrible dubbed voice of Susan screeching “KONG! Put me DOWN Kong! Put me dowwwwwn!” (It happens more than once in this movie, and it never stops being painful.)

Kong’s really only getting every other word, tbh. (Credit: Toho Studios)

After several repetitions of this, Kong finally gets the gist of what she’s trying to tell him and sets her down. She runs to her friends, crying and hysterical.

The battle continues! (Credit: Toho Studios)

But then… plot twist! Gorosaurus isn’t as completely dead as we thought and he chomps down on Kong’s leg. Susan is suddenly worried about leaving him in danger but Carl insists they run away. As the heroes heroically escape back to their hoverboatcar, Kong stomps on Gorosaurus’s head and starts beating him to death a second time. Kong then breaks Goro’s jaw..

Yeah… pretty sure he’s actually dead this time. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Again, poor lizard. His only crime was wanting to eat someone, and I think we can all relate. Um, I mean, good for Kong.

They all look like they’re feeling different things here. Susan, for instance, seems more than a little aroused. (Credit: Toho Studios)

With Gorosaurus dead again, Kong realizes his beloved Susan is getting away. He rushes after them, roaring. The hovercarboat is in danger from a giant sea serpent because why not? Kong hits it with a boulder and then wades out to let it wrap around his neck.

“Aw crap, I didn’t think this plan through at allllll!” (Credit: Toho Studios)

While Kong’s “fighting” the sea serpent, the controls are jammed on the boathovercar and the men on the sub are shooting. Carl yells at them to stop and prepare to dive. After getting control back, they get to the sub. Kong beats the sea serpent and follows them, rocking the sub.

Kong looks super bored here. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Susan comes to the rescue and climbs out to talk some sense into the moronic ape. In her most annoying tone and worst pantomime, she explains that he shouldn’t rock the sub because she sleeps and eats on it. Kong looks on with a dull expression. He’s not getting it and manhandles her again.

She’s a real ha— oh wait, I did that one already. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Susan again screeches at him to put her down. He’s not getting it, so she jumps down into the water. (Which I would guess is about 20 feet down. Maybe more.) Kong scoops her out of the water and reluctantly puts her back on the sub. Carl declares they’re heading back to the UN to report on Kong and they flee. The big ape looks sadly after the departing sub. Violin music does not play but it should have.

We cut to the UN where Carl is holding a press conference to reveal how Kong got horny over Susan. (I’m kind of kidding, but it does come up.) Carl says that he’s planning another expedition to Mondo Island. In what I like to think is a little dig at the original film, someone asks if they plan to bring Kong back to New York and Carl says that would be a bad idea. They’re just going to study him. Madame X arrives and asks why Kong was so gentle with Susan. Susan is embarrassed but Carl makes a joke about how Kong is a male and Susan is… well… you know. Hahaha, everyone laughs. (Except Madame X. She can only laugh evilly while doing evil things.)

In the ladies room, Madame X contacts Doctor Who with her lipstick radio, saying that her (still nameless) country will grant him more time. Their plan now is to take the real Kong to do the mining. Doctor Who is certain he can survive the radiation, although I’m not sure what he’s basing that assertion on.

Kong takes a nap. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Doctor Who and his henchmen fly helicopters out to Mondo Island where they drop sleeping gas bombs on Kong and snare him. Doctor Who also shoots the old native guy several times because he’s evil. They carry Kong off with four helicopters.

Hey, it worked on Skydon. No wait… it didn’t. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Cocoashade, who was watching this with me, was pretty sure this Kong-hoisting wouldn’t work in real life, but I thought it might. So while writing this, I decided to do the math, which is weird because I’m bad at math and hate it. (This is a one-time thing. I don’t plan to do any more kaiju-related math problems. “If Rodan was flying at 60 MPH and Godzilla was tail-sliding at 10 MPH and they were two miles apart, how long would it take Mothra to stop them from colliding?”) I took the highest average height and weight of a gorilla (the largest of the apes) and multiplied that up to 60 feet, which they stated Kong was. This means Kong would weigh about 4,850 pounds, or 2.5 tons. Light utility helicopters can lift about 4,000 pounds and there were four of them. So, oddly enough, this math adds up and I have no idea why I did that.

While they’re putting Kong into their Secret Evil Base, the expedition has arrived back on Mondo Island and have realized other humans have been on the island recently. Jiro smells ether and they find the dying native man. Susan can’t save him. Carl translates his dying words. An oriental skeleton, a devil, took Kong away to the sky. Carl has him buried and tells his friends he knows exactly who did this. His “old friend” the international Judas, Doctor Who.

After doing some research, they find that the ether bombs came from “an asiatic country”, which makes it obvious the movie has no intention of ever revealing where Madame X came from.

What? How would YOU hypnotize an ape? (Credit: Toho Studios)

Kong awakens in his cell and sees his neighbor, Mechani-Kong. In his doped-up state he hallucinates that it’s a real ape and waves at it. As Madame X and Doctor Who have a drink, they discuss their plans. He’s going to hypnotize Kong. Also he knows Carl and his friends are on their way over and will help him handle Kong.

Meanwhile, the trio are hustled onto a plane supposedly heading for Hokkaido. Jiro doesn’t trust the pilots because they don’t look Japanese. (Which makes me wonder where Doctor Who hired his henchmen from.)

Back at Villian HQ, Operation Monkey Hypnosis is going well. Doctor Who releases him and his henchmen implant radio transmitters in his ears. Doctor Who orders Kong to go to the crater to get Element X. (Never mind the fact that Kong’s never been off his island before and should have no idea what Element X is.)

Kong on his first day at the job. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Kong starts digging, picking up where his robot brother left off.

Mining radioactive elements makes me sleepy too. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Kong find the Element X but soon runs out of steam. Doctor Who keeps shouting at him to keep digging, but Kong gets mad and rips the transmitters from his ears, running through the tunnel. They lock him in, Doctor Who lamenting that he could withstand the radiation, but ran out of power. (No mention of his hypnosis failing.)

For a super villain mad scientist, Doctor Who is a gracious host. (Credit: Toho Studios)

The pilot minions have brought Carl and his friends to the base. They’ve seen Mechani-Kong and are not pleased to see Doctor Who. He tells them they must help him, but they, of course, refuse.

Carl enjoys some flirting and intimidation. Some flirtimidation if you will. (Credit: Toho Studios)

They’re put into a cell but soon a henchman comes to fetch Carl. Carl meets with the evil Madame X, who offers him a drink, fluctuating between flirty and creepy. Madame X has a weirdly well-decorated room in this Villainous North Pole HQ. She claims she doesn’t want to work with Doctor Who anymore and offers Carl the lab and the evil Doctor’s job.

“You’re not Japanese!” Carl says, grabbing her face. “Chinese? Thai?“ Obviously she refuses to answer so the mystery can consume us forever more. “Vietnam? Burma?“ he asks. Doctor Who interrupts the interrogation, saying he’s getting warm. (They’re doing this on purpose. I swear. But you notice Carl didn’t mention Korea… hmm…)

The flirtimidation continues. (Credit: Toho Studios)

After a brief stop back at his cell, Carl is taken to play chess with Doctor Who. (Apparently they had played chess before, so that makes me think the “old friend” reference wasn’t sarcasm.) Doctor Who has noticed Jiro and Susan are affectionate and Carl acknowledges this, saying they could be happy. (Aww. All those Jiro and Susan shippers should be happy now. It’s canon!) The cell temperature is brought down to zero and Doctor Who says they will die if Carl doesn’t cooperate. He punches Doctor Who (who can actually fight!) before he’s restrained.

Susan and Jiro cuddle for body heat and Doctor Who comes to the cell to mock them. (A nice little touch— the henchmen shiver, but Doctor Who seems unaffected by the cold. Super villain!) He implies that he killed Carl and tells him he’ll let them go (and pay them) if they help him. Before they can refuse him, the henchmen chain Jiro up and threaten to press Susan’s face up against the frozen metal wall. Kong (hearing them?) throws a fit and starts breaking down the tunnel door. In the chaos Susan unlocks Jiro and they get away.

Kong has, as the title suggests, escaped. Doctor Who activates Mechani-Kong and the fight we’ve been waiting over an hour for is finally approaching! Kong runs across the ice and snow and jumps into the water, where Mechani-Kong can’t follow him.

The heroes find each other, but are caught by Madame X, who seems to have chilled out a bit. Doctor Who, however, has not. He imprisons them again and Madame X calls him a failure. Kong is nearing Tokyo.

Um… what?

Ahh, lifelike. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Okay, let’s think about this. Even disregarding the fact that King Kong has no conceivable reason to make a beeline for Tokyo— a place he has never been— this doesn’t make sense. Per casual internet research, the distance between the North Pole and Tokyo, Japan is 3,757 miles. Kong swam all that way in one night? No, no that’s insane. And now I’m really thinking too much about this. This giant monkey movie is making me use my brain and I didn’t sign up for that. I’m really only here to see the monkey fight, dammit.

Sigh. Anyway, Madame X is concerned. If Kong reaches Tokyo, thousands will die. Also her country can’t stand an international incident. (Bitch, WHAT COUNTRY?) The Defense Agency assembles to face Kong and people evacuate Tokyo in an orderly and peaceful manner. (LOL.)

“Cawwy meeee!” (Credit: Toho Studios)

Due to her sudden change of heart (and her obvious crush on Carl) Madame X sets the heroes free. They try to convince her to go with them but she refuses. “You must know I represent a certain country,“ she says pointlessly. Carl says he’ll protect her and she responds with “Thank you. I’m sorry my country wasn’t right.“ The mystery will consume us forever now, as this is the last mention of her unnamable country. She leads them out and henchmen see what’s happening. luckily they shoot like Imperial Stormtroopers, so Carl and company are free and clear.

Kong has arrived in Tokyo. And somehow, so have our heroes. (Actually I forgot to mention, but Doctor Who and his Evil Crew have boarded a boat and set sail for Tokyo somewhere in the last few scenes. They made it there in a single night too. Do the filmmakers think Japan is right next door to the North Pole and not on another hemisphere?) Carl warns the Defense Agency against attacking Kong. Susan runs to talk sense into Kong. She keeps screaming “KONG!” and waving, long after he’s seen her. She gestures for him to pick her up like a toddler and steps into his palm willingly this time.

Not a thought in his pretty little head. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Susan tells Kong to calm down in her most annoying dubbed voice. Mechani-Kong appears, destroying buildings. Susan warns Kong that he can’t defeat it. Ignoring her warnings, he sets her down and faces his adversary.

I’ll bet just one of his eyes is always burning out like my wife’s driver’s side headlight. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Mechani-Kong’s eyes flash, blinding Kong. As seen above, Mechani-Kong has been upgraded with a head-boner. It contains the hypnotic device that was used against Kong earlier in the movie. It starts to use the device, but Jiro shoots the device out, evening the playing field.

MONKEY FIGHT! (Credit: Toho Studios)

The monkeys finally fight, but soon Mechani-Kong grabs Susan. (I’m assuming it only does this so that Susan will scream “KONG!” several more times… because that’s exactly what she does.) Then Mechani-Kong promptly starts climbing Tokyo Tower because it’s a King Kong movie and you cannot have a King Kong movie without some hot building-climbing action. (Monsterverse movies notwithstanding.) Doctor Who is able to talk through Mechani-Kong’s mouth and Susan screams some more.

Back at Evil Base, which is a boat now, Madame X faces down Doctor Who and tries to shoot him. He wrestles the gun from her and shoots her in the arm.

Yeet. (Credit: Toho Studios)

There’s more tower climbing and honestly it’s tedious. Kong grabs Mechani-Kong’s leg and the robot drops Susan, who screams like a hell beast. Kong scoops her up and sets her unconscious body on the tower.

This is not a good place to monkey fight. (Credit: Toho Studios)

As expected, Kong is pissed now. He continues to pursue the robot. Even though Susan is safe where she is, she stupidly climbs out onto scaffolding and has to be saved by Jiro. At least she’s stopped screaming for now. Near the top of the tower the two simian kaiju fight, kicking at each other and wrestling.

While this more interesting stuff is going on, Jiro reaches Susan and Carl stands uselessly on the street gesturing at them. Susan almost dies again and is saved again. Mechani-Kong tears off part of the tower and beats Kong with it, the wreckage nearly crushing Jiro and Susan. Mechani-Kong tries to blind Kong again, but Kong covers his eyes this time, showing he’s not completely dumb. (Just “fight a robot while hanging from a tower” dumb.)

Poor Madame. She was actually kinda badass. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Madame X tries to take control of Mechani-Kong and Doctor Who unceremoniously shoots her dead. (Memorial service to be held in one week in an undisclosed country. Bring Element X in lieu of flowers.)

It’s always fun and games until one of you falls off Tokyo Tower. (Credit: Toho Studios)

The top of Tokyo Tower breaks off and Mechani-Kong falls to his death. Whee!

Noooo, my favorite character! (Credit: Toho Studios)

The robot breaks apart on impact. Poor monkey-bot.

Don’t worry, he’ll regenerate next season. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Then it’s suddenly morning and Kong is racing to the docks while Doctor Who is trying to escape in his Evil Boat. Susan screams to Kong to “get the ship” but Kong hears it as “murder everyone”. Kong swims out to the departing ship and the henchmen shoot at him. Either they’re extremely poor shots or he’s bullet proof. Probably a little of both. Kong wrecks the ship, killing the henchmen. Machinery crushes Doctor Who, killing the nefarious villain in a surprisingly bloody end.

Kong is triumphant! Kong has slain all his enemies! (Credit: Toho Studios)

Kong celebrates his victory and without a backwards glance, swims away. Susan screeches some more, making it a truly tragic ending.

One last screech for the fans. (Credit: Toho Studios)

Susan cries out “KONG! KING KONG!” Carl says he’s gone. “But he’s going,” Susan whimpers. “He’s going home,“ Carl says, “I think he’s had enough of what we call civilization.“ The end.

What a dope. (Credit: Toho Studios)

And that’s King Kong Escapes! It was a silly, fun movie. Kong himself looked pretty dopey, but his design wasn’t bad. I liked Mechani-Kong. Gorosaurus was a badass. Obviously I hated Susan’s voice. Other than that, I have few complaints about the movie. Plot inconsistencies, breaks from reality, odd dialog and plot choices… they’re all part of the experience and all of it adds to the fun.

Smile! (Credit: Toho Studios)

Like I said earlier, King Kong is not my favorite character— aside from the Legendary version— but I liked this iteration of Kong. He was just a big, lonely, dumb ape, dragged from everything he knew, compelled to protect Susan from the forces of evil. Central to King Kong in most every appearance (aside from Skull Island) is that he’s taken from his home and doesn’t know what’s going on. This movie continues that theme, but in classic kaiju tradition, it adds in an evil plot, spies, a giant robot, and an outlandish reason for Kong to be transplanted from his home. Barely-developed human characters prance around in between monster fights and the fights themselves are huge spectacles using practical effects. It’s a scenario we’ve seen play out over dozens of Godzilla movies and many other films of the genre. Here it’s interesting because it takes an American kaiju and gives him the Japanese treatment. That’s what I enjoyed most about this movie. We got to see our character through another culture’s lens.

Sure, speculating about the mysterious country Madame X relentlessly teased us with, the unfortunately named Doctor Who, the identical useless henchmen, and even Susan’s horrible dubbing choice… they were all fun. But the most fun of all was seeing a goofy-looking Japanese King Kong duking it out with first a giant dino-lizard and then a shiny metal version of himself.

These movies weren’t made to be taken seriously. They were made for fun. And King Kong Escapes was a lot of fun.

I enjoyed revisiting this classic film with you all and I hope you enjoyed it too. Thank you for joining me in this tribute to the biggest and most famous ape of them all. And if you have any idea where the hell Madame X really came from, let me know. It’s still killing me.

Kong has had enough of Susan’s voice actor. (Credit: Toho Studios)