At the North Pole the mad scientist Dr Who (Eisei Amamoto) has built a giant robot ape. He needs the robot ape to dig deposits of Element X out of a cavern. Dr Who is in the employ of an unnamed country which it’s reasonable to assume is meant to be China (Red China hysteria was huge in 1967).
He is taking his orders from the beautiful but deadly superspy Madame X (Mie Hama).
Meanwhile a super-advanced United Nations submarine skippered by Commander Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason) has to take refuge in an inlet in a tiny island. The island is of course the island on which the legendary King Kong was supposed to live and by one of those amazing coincidences which abound in this movie Commander Nelson (a character clearly heavily based on Admiral Nelson in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) and his executive officer Lieutenant Commander Jiro Nomura (Akira Takarada) are totally obsessed by the subject of King Kong. They believe he really existed. They’re Kong experts.
Nelson and Nomura, accompanied by the ship’s nurse Lieutenant Susan Watson (Linda Miller), land on the island. They discover that Kong not only was real, he’s still around. The island is also swarming with dinosaurs.
Given that we know that Kong has an eye for a pretty girl we’re not surprised that he takes a shine to Susan. I can’t say that I blame him. She’s cute and blonde and adorable. But of course Kong has lousy luck with women. Whenever he thinks he’s found Miss Right something always goes wrong.
Kong has more urgent things to worry about. Dr Who’s robot ape has broken down so he decides to kidnap Kong. A real giant ape should even more useful than a robot one. Kong will be easy to control. He’ll be hypnotised. What could go wrong?
So far the action has taken place on Kong’s island and at the North Pole so the good people of Tokyo are probably breathing a sigh of relief that at least their city is not going to get stomped this time. But they’re wrong!
Doctor Who is perhaps not the brightest of mad scientists. His schemes always seem to contain some fatal flaws. He loses control of Kong. He thinks he can threaten Commander Nelson into helping him regain control of the recalcitrant ape. The key of course is Susan. Cute blondes can persuade giant apes to do anything.
Meanwhile Madame X seems to be cooking up schemes of her own.
There’s no point in complaining that this movie is very silly. It’s fairly obvious that it’s supposed to be silly. We’re not supposed to take it the least bit seriously.
The special effects are not very convincing but they’re fun and fun matters more than realism. The submarine miniature is cool. And there’s a flying sub. It’s not as cool as the one in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series and it’s more of a miniature hovercraft sub but it’s kinda cool as well.
We get a reasonable amount of mayhem with both Kong and the robot ape slugging it out, not just for dominance but for possession of the luscious Susan.
Mie Hama has huge amounts of fun as the sexy but evil lady spy Madame X. Linda Miller is just bursting with cuteness as Susan, Kong’s love interest. The two male heroes are perfectly adequate.
Eisei Amamoto as Dr Who manages to seem evil, crazy and incompetent all at the same time and his performance is most enjoyable.
King Kong Escapes is lightweight good-natured goofy fun and if you’re content with that then it’s definitely recommended.
King Kong Escapes looks lovely on Blu-Ray. The disc is barebones.
2 comments:
A fantastically entertaining film - the sort that critics HATE - that is, the best kind of movie lol. It's easily Mie Hama's best film, of the ones I've seen her in - she usually played leading characters' chaste girlfriends.
Linda Miller was a model, not an actress, so under union rules she had to be dubbed in the English language version as well as the Japanese version; she said in an interview that she hated 'her' English voice!
tom j jones said...
It's easily Mie Hama's best film, of the ones I've seen her in
She's definitely one of the highlights here!
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