Bad movie review: King Kong

Hey now! Before anyone gets their pantaloons in a bunch, I don't mean Peter Jackson's amazing King Kong (2005). I just saw it and since everyone in the world has reviewed it positively, I can't add much more. Go see it, you'll thank me.

Nor am I talking about Meridian C. Coopers classic original King Kong (1933). Even now, the movie still holds up.

No. Ladies and gents, behold the travesty that is...King Kong (1979) staring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and introducing Jessica Lange. I haven't seen in since I was a child on pay cable, and just watched it on AMC since then... Now this, hasn't aged well at all.

Firstly, I think it's brave of Jessica Lange to play her character completely coked up. There's no other way to describe her giggling, empty looked motions her character "Dwan" goes through. Yes, they changed "Ann Darrow" to "Dwan". Just as well, no one in this movie is like the 1933, or 2005, version. Jack Driscole, first mate, is now Jack Prescott (Bridges), scientist and enviromentalist for an oil tanker expedition. Did I mention the store revolves around finding oil? This was 1976...

Mr. Grodin plays his Carl Denham bastardization character, "Fred Wilson" like a bad Snidely Whiplash imitation, with the mustache twisting and teeth gnashing included. All that pales to glorious badness that is Kong himself.

When the oil tanker arrives on Skull Island, the backdrops look like a sitcom outdoor setting. The only wildlife you can feel are probably the gaffers union workers having a smoke behind the colored sky backdrop while the camera is rolling. But, them we meet Kong, literally, a man in a monkey suit.

I know, I should cut some slack on the look of Kong in 1976, but an ape has a different shape and look than a man. The gorillas in those three stooges shorts looked and acted better. I mean, the face mask looked great, but the suit looked like a baggy mohair jumper. Later, the producers of this train wreck actually built a 35 foot tall King Kong that had his arms move up and down slowly while the rest of his body looked like a stuffed cadaver. Everytime I saw this awesome sight, the first thought in my mind was "I miss those rose parade floats with the animation bits".
After wrestling some snake muppets, like you would act out with a garden hose, Kong is captured and taken to New York... To promote the gas company. Isn't that like Mobile traveling the country with a crock tank? Anyhow, he's taken to what looks like a state fairgrounds parking lot. The director, I think had trouble filling the seats for this scene, as the same extras are placed in different areas to fill out the scene. You can even see some of them use there coats on some seats to help the illusion that "this seat is taken".

Kong is brought out in a gigantic gas pump. That splits open to reveal Kong in a stand up iron cage, shackled, and with a gigantic crown on his head. How the workers got a 10 foot diameter crown to stay on Kongs head is beyond me. I can't even make my cat wear a tiny cowboy hat, no matter how tight I hold him still. He brakes free rather easy (wouldn't happen if those were Teamsters chains) , steps on Fred Wilson, steps on some extras, who proceed to do "The Fish" on the ground afterwards, and goes after Dwan and Jack.

Of couse, in the middle of the chase, Dwan wants Jack to buy her a drink at a bar, and probably to do a new line, to "refreshen" her acting chops. Kong grabs her and climbs the twin towers. And we all know the ending.

Except, that this Kong spawned a sequel, King Kong Lives (1986), where the "I'm not quite dead" Kong has to get an emergency heart transplant from "Lady Kong" back on Skull Island. This is not a joke. Look it up.

Actually, Ms. Lange portrays the most unsympathetic and badly acted "Ann" character ever. Even Toho's King Kong Escapes (1967) cute lil' blond American actress (Linda Miller as Lt. Susan Watson, probably couldn't get a acting job stateside) did a much better job.

So, King King (1976). Terrible. So of course, I'm entertained and love it. I love exceedingly bad movies! Watch it if you can, laugh at it and throw things at your TV like I did, and enjoy slowing down and rubbernecking this highway accident!