Million Monkey Theater B-Movie Reviews!

Taco owns a company named Pacific Pharmaceuticals which for some reason also runs an unsuccessful television show (!). He complains about the show's low ratings and orders the two other men to go to Pharoh Island and capture the monster that the professor is raving about. Okay, a Drug Company executive sending a completely un-planned two-man crew to a remote island to capture a monster of whose existence there is absolutely no proof? Does this actually happen? Who are these two men anyway? Are they drug company marketing men, or are they talent scouts for the TV show? As far as the script is concerned, they're pretty much just Taco's stock lackeys. Maybe they're his entourage, OR (keep in mind the two never seem to express any interest in women for the rest of the film) some male escort service? Hey, remember this IS Southeast Asia we're talking about.

Cut to a Japanese apartment where Elvis is eating dinner with his sister and her boyfriend, who appears to be some kind of inventor. The sister is played by attractive, though rather big-mouthed 18-year-old Mie Hamma, best known as Madame X in King Kong Escapes (1967).

Sister, not her best look.

Her boyfriend, named "Fujita", (which sounds a lot like a mispronunciation of "Fajita" in this film's never-ending quest to make me very, very hungry) is played by legendary Toho performer Kenji Sahara, best known as the main character in Rodan (1956) and the main villain in both Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964) and Yog: The Space Amoeba (1970).

"Woman, go make me a sandwich!"

Fajita demonstrates his latest invention to Elvis, some extremely strong wire which he was "testing in Hokkaido". To show off, he uses it to dangle from the apartment balcony and swing around like Tarzan, which seems needlessly risky and uncomfortable as I am sure a thin wire would not be the easiest to grab and hold onto. The scene is over before it starts with mention of a submarine.

Fajita, pegging the dork-o-meter here.

"Adrian! I did it!"

Submarine? Segway back to our U.N. news report where Eric Carter holds a conversation with a submarine (with Les Tremayne's disembodied voice again) which is en route to the mysterious icebergs in the Bering Sea. Wow, anyone who has seen "Deadliest Catch" can attest that the Bering Sea here looks really, really calm. The conversation is phony and totally pointless, only adding a new shoehorned-in-for-American-version reporter character Utaka Umura, played by 39-year-old James Yagi. Yagi is best known as one of the dubbing voices on the American version of Rodan, where he joined Keye Luke, Paul Frees, and a young George Takei in providing the voices for the film's entire male cast. Umura sits at another "news desk" set in "Japan" with a female typist in the background and a prominent yet pathetically small Japanese flag. He claims to be tracking the sub at "58 degrees north, 178 degrees east", which at the time would have been Russian waters.

Why does this look like a cheap Motel Six room?

Cut to the umpteenth stock shot of our model submarine "Sea Hawk", a fictional submarine of a class I'm not familiar with, but it looks like the same model they also used for the American sub in Atragon (1963).

The Sea Hawk, a reuse of the Red Devil model from Atragon.

The US submarine (complete with a dubbed crew of unprofessional American actors) is investigating the warm current complete with a multinational group of scientists. Why a submarine? Is this the only ship they could come up with in time? A crewman tells the captain that the water temperature is 68 degrees and the captain expresses shock. Wait, isn't that the whole reason they're there in the first place? Another crewman notices a light coming from an iceberg so the captain immediately orders the sub to dive (?).

The sub dives directly toward the iceberg. As soon as they submerge, the captain drops the periscope (!!) and goes to the scientists who are easily viewing it on a TV monitor where it appears to me to be moving laterally (!!!) as though they're floating past it, not at it. Maybe they're watching a recording from before? One of the scientists, played by American expatriate Harold Conway, says it's a "Chelenkhov Light", which isn't even a proper Russian name. Maybe he meant "Chelnokov", but still, this is totally made-up. Watch what happens next, as both the captain and another scientist mouth the words "Chelenkhov Light?" but you only hear one voice. While they're talking about it, the submarine idiotically rams right into the iceberg. Maybe the captain should have kept the periscope up?

Don't subs have sonar to detect objects in the water in front of them? Why did the sub feel the need to dive in the first place? The morale aboard deteriorates considerably with the cool-headed Van Johnson look-alike captain calmly barking orders while his crewmen run around screaming. Eventually he orders them to abandon ship, which would be interesting to see, considering the sub is 100 feet underwater and buried in ice up to the propeller. Needless to say, Godzilla (who you guess it, is entombed in the iceberg and is understandably pissed from being stuck there for seven years) solves their problems by summarily killing them all with his radioactive flame breath, even though they are at least 40 feet below the surface and he's entombed in the part that's high above the sea level (and them).

A Kawasaki KV-107 II rescue helicopter arrives immediately on the scene, piloted by two more American expatriate non-actors. The two close in on the berg and are shocked to see Godzilla emerge from the Styrofoam... er I mean "ice". They immediately identify him by name. "Godzilla!!!"

Godzilla emerges!

The next shot is back with our U.N. reporter Eric Carter telling us the most baffling line in the whole film, "the world is stunned to see that prehistoric creatures exist in the 20th century." What? The pilots seemed to be pretty comfortable of the notion of giant monsters, enough so to immediately know the name of the giant monster they were looking at. Maybe in the universe of this film, the first two Godzilla films do exist but only as films and Godzilla is an established popular fictional character? Maybe the Japanese version clarifies this? However, this film DOES seem to be following the continuity (vaguely) established by the past two Godzilla films. Being strict about it, Godzilla was buried in a huge avalanche on an Aleutian (?) island in the previous film. Not only was the island near Japanese fishing waters, but it was also at least a half-mile inland where Godzilla was buried. Even if the ice formed a glacier and slowly pushed Godzilla out to sea, it would be hundreds of years before it would travel that distance. Also, in order for Godzilla to be drifting south through the Bering Sea, that would mean that island was a hell of a lot further north than the Hokkaido-based Cessna planes in Godzilla Raids Again were capable of traveling... oh I give up.

Carter says Godzilla is moving southeast toward "the offshore islands of Japan" (?). The sub gave its position as many miles northeast of Japan, so he'd actually be traveling southwest. What kind of a news program is this? Is this what our UN tax dollars pay for? We're introduced to a Dr. Shigezawa who is the "minister of defense" played by 35-year old Godzilla movie favorite Akihiko Hirata. He's introduced as a doctor, though he never does anything doctorly in the film, plus his name is uncomfortably similar to the late Dr. Serizawa character he played in the original Gojira (1954). No eye patch though. Because he really has no personality or function besides as the stock scientific authority figure (though he never really contributes anything) for the film's duration, I'll just call him "Dr. Smartyhead" for the rest of the review.

Doctor Smartyhead (M).

Smartyhead is swarmed by reporters who ask him immediately if he will use the atom bomb. Why is that even an option? Japan has never owned a nuclear arsenal (unless you believe the conspiracy theory that they tested one in North Korea in 1945), especially not at that point when they'd just been completely shocked by being nuked themselves 17 years prior, not to mention were forbidden to even own nukes by the terms of the peace treaty. Surprisingly, the doctor semi-enthusiastically considers it a viable option! That's the only time in the whole Godzilla series where the Japanese seem to be open to the idea of nuking their own country to kill Godzilla.

Cut to a far-north coastal military compound... either a Russian base on Kamchyatka or a U.S. Aleutian Base. I want to say it's Aleutian because the buildings look like American design and the tanks are American, but there are coniferous trees in the background which do not grow in the Aleutians. The tanks are M4A3E8 Shermans, but they have red stars painted on the sides of them. Could it be the Shermans are Russian World War 2 vintage lend-lease gifts from Uncle Sam? They come out of some sort of underground garage to join the katyusha-like launchers firing away at an approaching Godzilla. So yeah, probably Russia. Most likely Tsuburaya just couldn't get his hands on a realistic model kit for a T-34 or an IS-3.

Now that we can see him proper, let's talk about Godzilla appearance. I think it's one of his best designs, except for the close-ups of the head (for which a puppet is still used, which is odd as the full-size suit seems to be more convincing and have a moving jaw and eyelids). He is very lizard-like this time around with a narrow snout with immobile unexpressive eyes, which actually works great for promoting him as an evil force of nature. He's a little on the puffy and bulky side with a bit too small of a head but thighs even bigger across than the last gal I went out with. The spines and tail are an improvement over his previous designs. He's got a new primary roar for this film, which is one of my favorite ones, but it was only used in this film and briefly in Godzilla vs. Mothra and Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster.

"Rah! I look like Cookie Monster!"

The battle is the stuff that makes us fans as little kids. Even though the editing is really choppy and I don't think any of the shells hit him (though a tracer bounces off him in one shot--nice touch), it's exciting and well-shot, complete with lots of cheesy models exploding and Godzilla stomping on things.

Godzilla strikes a stupid ninja pose.

Unfortunately it cuts away to Mr. Taco watching it on TV (since when does the Soviet government allow live broadcasts to be... oh never mind) and he gets all bent out of shape saying he's "sick of Godzilla". Sick of Godzilla? No! Just when this movie was just starting to get good, it chooses to shift gears and focus on the infinitely lamer monster King Kong for the next 30 minutes. Fuck.

"I'm damn sexy."

Ha! Check out that pocket pencil protector.

I'm just going to skim through the next section as it's always just bored me to tears, ever since I was a little kid. Elvis and Sidekick arrive on Pharoh Island to find the natives (Japanese extras in blackface) praying to their God (who they keep behind a giant wooden wall) while mashing the red berries into gallons and gallons of potion.

No, that looks nothing like a matte painting.

Of course, our heroes are greeted in the standard fashion with spears pointed at them. They bring along a translator, played by a 39-year-old Senkichi Omura, best known as the guy who gets killed trying to get a hat from Rodan in Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster (1964). Here, he's also wearing blackface meaning he's supposed to be Polynesian (I guess) and also in comedy goof-off mode, as though they thought Fujiki wouldn't be enough...

They manage to woo their way into the islanders' good graces by playing a radio playing a Japanese pop song. How is it receiving radio signals from Japan, many thousands of miles away? They also distribute cigarettes to the locals, including to a 6-year-old girl. (!) Suddenly a lightning storm erupts and the natives all go back to prayer mode, which according to Toho films takes up 18 hours of your typical South Pacific island native's day.

I fail to see the harm in giving children unfiltered Camels...

Back in Japan, Elvis's Sister is accosted by her friend (or neighbor) 21-year-old Akiko Wakabayashi (best known as Princess Salno in Ghidrah The Three Headed Monster) and told about a plane crash which may or may not have killed her boyfriend Fajita, the um, "inventor". She decides to leave to Hokkaido to see if he survived or not. Wow what a lousy plot point. You'd think she could just call and find out who survived and who didn't rather than rush off to the other side of the country. Well I've never accused women of behaving rationally. It's also strange (to me) that the two female leads in this film were also the two female leads in You Only Live Twice (1968) six years later.

More U.N. news broadcast. Now Eric Carter introduces us to Dr. Arnold Johnson, played by a 56-year-old Harry Holcombe. This sequence attempts to explain how Godzilla has remained alive for so long (assuming he's a 125 million year old dinosaur like they do) by pointing to suspended animation resulting in being entombed in the ice. This throwaway scene pays no attention to the continuity of the previous two movies, and offers no explanation for why he's 10 times taller than any known dinosaur or why he has radioactive breath. Johnson suggests using electricity to ward Godzilla off, even though we clearly know from the previous two films that electricity has absolutely no effect.

Back to our island where we get to endure a long (and totally useless) trek sequence of Elvis and Sidekick searching for Kong in the island's mountains. They come up totally short and flee like scared rabbits when they hear his roar and see a landslide. Sidekick also gets to battle a rubber alligator (what's it doing at such a high elevation?).

When they get back to the village that night, a giant octopus (!?) attacks the native village. This is quite unusual for a Toho film as most of the shots of the monster seem to be accomplished using a real octopus squirming around on land and then blue-screening it into the footage like a Bert I. Gordon film. It's actually a pretty convincing effect, though a rather dull monster. The octopus just seems to randomly slither around while spears get uselessly thrown at him. Also rare is the use of stop-motion in a strange effect where a tentacle wraps around a native and tosses him around in the air briefly.

Red man's firestick goes boom!

It's slimy and gooey and can't breath out of water.

Elvis (who seems to come up with every idea in the film) decides to throw flaming torches at it a la Gorgo (1961) which have no effect either, but we're "treated" to stock music lifted from The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). I have to mention that most of Akira Ifukube's score for this film (which is excellent and was only recently released on CD) was ruthlessly excised by Peter Zinner in favor of stock music from a number of American films, mostly Black Lagoon. How terribly lame.

Our first monster match quickly erupts with the introduction of King Kong, who suddenly marches into town and easily knocks down the barrier separating him from the villagers. All that coordinated Stone-Age construction to build the giant wall was totally in vain, tsk tsk. To make things even worse for the film, Kong looks absolutely god-awful. His face is goofy-looking and totally immobile, his fur is a matted mess, and his arms are different lengths in every shot depending on if he needs to use his hands or not. You can even see a gap between his head fur and the fur from the rest of his body. Slight improvements were made to the suit later for King Kong Escapes (1967) to make it look more ape-like though it still looked quite dreadful in new ways altogether.

Hahahahahaha!

Kong picks up the octopus (which is a completely different color in its close-ups than it is when he interacts with it) and throws it down on the ground. He then throws some rocks at it that bounce off the blue-screen, actually casting a shadow onto it! How sloppy. The terrified octopus crawls back to the sea. Kong immediately goes for the giant pots of berry juice. His close-ups for shots required to show him drinking are absolutely awful and it looks like his teeth are made of cardboard. Elvis persuades the natives to start to play to lull Kong to sleep--which is strange since you'd think this would be an established practice among them by now. Kong falls unconscious and the natives dance around him for what seems like hours.

Kong beats the octopus like a rented mule.

Cut to shoehorned-in U.N. news coverage. Umura tells us in a very lethargic way that Kong is being brought to Tokyo by Mr. Taco. For what reason he's bringing a giant gorilla to Tokyo, we're never really told about besides it being some vague publicity stunt. This makes me wonder how good it would be for a company's public relations to bring a dangerous giant monster into a crowded city and set it loose.

Eric Carter and his guest Dr. Johnson go right to chatting it up about Godzilla and King Kong and even compare their brain sizes as though they just assume the two are going to meet and battle each other. Johnson holds up a marble and says Godzilla's brain is that big. Wow, I'd have thought it would at least been as large as a softball... since it's added in for the American version, I don't know how much this "fact" should be ascribed to the Godzilla dogma, but it really sets the tone for Godzilla's I.Q. for the rest of the film. Even though he is a reptile (though they sometimes refer to him as an amphibian) and a decidedly non-sentient animal, I've never thought of him as particularly stupid. However, this sum-down of his intelligence really sticks and seems to hold true throughout the film. Yes, Godzilla the dumbass.

The two monsters are referred to as "instinctive rivals" though that seems strange to me as Godzilla was explained to be many millions of years old, while Kong is just a freak giant gorilla from a South Pacific island. They never would have had the opportunity in history to exist together. It's movies like this which make science look cornball and haphazard that probably give credence today to such backward (and increasingly popular) notions as Creationism. Please kill me. We're then informed that the Japanese government is understandably less than enthusiastic about allowing Kong entry into the country.

Cut to Kong being towed along the Pacific by one of the same merchantman models so liberally destroyed in Atragon and Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster.

Reuse, yes, but still a nice model ship.

Mr. Taco arrives in a Sikorsky H-34 (these helicopters are quite prominent through the rest of the film as both Zilla and Kong are tailed by one throughout the duration). Taco is lowered to the deck and immediately almost blows Kong to pieces by accidentally leaning against a plunger detonator set up right in the middle of the deck. (!!!) For some safety measure the crew decided to set up dynamite charges all around Kong in case he decides to wake up with a bad hangover... but we all know better that in Japanese movies conventional explosives have no effect on monsters anyway so the most they'll do is cause him some nasty ringing in his ears. Needless to say we get some Three Stooges-esque slapstick as Taco, Sidekick, and Elvis keep accidentally coming close to unintentionally tripping the self-destruct.

Taco goes down the line.

A coast guard cutter screams alongside and some officers come aboard. The leader explains that Mr. Taco needs to return Kong to Pharoh Island or else he'll be arrested for bringing a giant monster to Japan. Now that would make for an interesting few weeks of CourTV. Mr. Taco faints.

Back in Japan with same stock shot of the Japanese street we got at the beginning of the film, and the same fake-ass Japanesey music that really sounds more at place in a 40's propaganda war movie. Fajita returns to his apartment to find his neighbor totally shocked that he's still alive... so much so that she even drops her plate of sweet 'n sour pork on the floor. Fajita explains he missed his flight while his neighbor, who I must admit looks quite alluring for a nondescript Japanese girl, tells him that his girlfriend (Elvis's sister) is looking for him in Hokkaido and that she's riding the "Subaru Express". Conveniently yet another neighbor shows up right then (with a tiny Kenny-like Japanese boy in microshorts) who says Godzilla just showed up on Hokkaido. Zoinks!

Cut to the Subaru Express, a decent passenger train screaming along the Japanese countryside at night. Onboard Fajita's girlfriend kindly interacts with another woman and her daughter while the train unknowingly screeches along toward its doom.

The next scene is confusing. The news reports say that Godzilla has risen from the sea and is headed for Hokkaido... but Hokkaido is an island, Japan's second-largest, and in order to have risen from the sea in Japan that would men he's already ON Hokkaido. Some military men have the standard meeting with politicians and reporters. Notice that the outside shots establish this as clearly during the daytime. The main general is played by yet another familiar Toho face, 52-year-old Jun Tazaki, who played the sub captain in Atragon and the newspaper editor in Godzilla vs. Mothra (here also dubbed by Les Tremayne). Opposite him is the prime minister played by 60-something Sensho Matsumoto, the guy who played the smartyhead professor in Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster. Surprisingly, everyone is touting up the idea of using the atom bomb to destroy Godzilla. Even if they did O.K. nuking Godzilla, where are they going to get this nuke from? Even though we got stock shots of Russian, English, and American limousines pulling up outside, no non-Japanese nationals seem to be present at the meeting. An aide goes to show where Godzilla is on Hokkaido Island, but the map he points to is of Honshu, just north of Tokyo actually! A miscommunication by the American dub?

Back to the Subaru Express which is still chugging along on its way through the night. This is either some very confusing cross-cutting or this is a VERY slow train. Godzilla emerges from the mountains ahead and the train slams on its brakes. The passengers spill out and board some very convenient busses and trucks which just happen to be waiting right where the train stops.

Godzilla on the rampage.

Fajita is now in full-bore hero mode to rescue his girlfriend, and rides in with an American World War 2-era Jeep. How did he get there so fast? Oh yeah, he did have that whole day while the military men were talking, so maybe the train was just going in circles for 24 hours while he just flew to Hokkaido and rented a jeep? I have a feeling this isn't even meant to be set on Hokkaido and that it only is so in the American version.

Godzilla gets to do some quality model train stomping, then begins bearing down on the girl, though I doubt he really is coming after her--more like he just happens to be walking in the same direction she decided to flee. This sequence is confusingly edited with a lot of previous shots of Godzilla thrown in, making it look like he's making no progress at all. Fajita shows up at the knick of time, picks her up, and backs into a cave while Godzilla marches by.

Meanwhile on the Kong transport boat, Kong begins to stir around and cause huge waves to splash onto the deck. The crewmen and heroes run around scared while Mr. Taco takes out a tiny umbrella to shield himself from the splashes.

This is why we nuked Japan. Twice.

Despite his objections, they eventually succeed in exploding the dynamite which should in all rights have blown Kong into a million pieces (it certainly makes quick work of the raft he was on anyway). Why is the monster so impervious? Even if its skin was several inches thick, you'd think it'd still be susceptible to explosives. Not under Toho logic. However, I must note that the composite shot of the raft exploding while the crewmen duck for cover in the foreground is one of the best of the film.

Yes, an excellent matte!

Pissed, Kong emerges from the water and treads around a bit before swimming off toward Japan. Somehow our heroes manage to beat him there (perhaps a helicopter picked them up from the ship?). The next thing we know we're in some random uninhabited region on Honshu somewhere north of Tokyo. Some JSDF soldiers have set up some sort of a defended area with some Davey Crocket surface-to-surface missile launchers (I must note that the warheads for these are actually low-yield tactical nuclear devices, which Japan would not have). Elvis, Sidekick, and Mr. Taco talk their way into the area and find some seats in the treeline from which they can see everything perfectly, and of course Kong and Zilla, at the 56:00 mark of the film, FINALLY meet.

This first battle doesn't last very long at all. Godzilla uses his radioactive breath to down Kong's tailing Sikorsky H-34. Kong responds with some strange epileptic eye flutter and hurls a couple large boulders at Godzilla with no effect. Godzilla starts a small forest fire by breathing radioactive breath at the trees at Kong's feet (but mind you, never directly at Kong himself). Scared and befuddled, Kong wanders off while Godzilla does some silly victory dance involving clapping his limp hands together over his belly. As Godzilla walks away, notice he keeps opening his mouth but we only hear one roar.

Anyone want to explain the ruler?

Now comes out requisite JSDF plan to fight Godzilla. The intricate plan involves dumping thousands of gallons of gasoline into two parallel rivers, channeling Godzilla into a gigantic pit filled with dynamite (which was dug and concealed in less than 24 hours). The effect of the burning rivers is quite convincing, except in the full shot where Godzilla's feet are visible BELOW burning river (?). Also, a lot of the Godzilla shots are taken from his earlier attack on the train--most likely the result of bad re-editing for the American version.

All this shot needs is Tom Servo and Crow...

The plan goes off without a hitch, but of course the dynamite has no effect on Godzilla aside from briefly turning his head into a hand puppet. This leads to plan B involving an "electrical blockade", a brainchild by Dr. Smartyhead (although we never really get to see any of this). The JSDF also manages to hook this blockade up in a less-than-24-hour period. Wow, those Japanese really can construct things quickly if they put their mind to it. I don't understand why the whole thing is necessary though as you'd think all through Japan, Godzilla would be encountering many, many high tension powerlines wherever he goes, and these should have the same effect. Strangely enough, the barrier actually works (so much for the series' continuity!) but Godzilla is smart enough to find a new path moving along the edge of the barrier. Right when all the JSDF personnel begin to celebrate, we're reminded that King Kong is approaching Tokyo. Oh yeah, the other monster...

Godzilla zapped by electricity!

Kong is suddenly all antagonistic and is running toward Tokyo like he has a purpose. We get some quality hut-stomping shots and lots of crowds-running shots. Kong then gets to the electrical blockade. He smashes through one layer, then decides to bite down on a wire and chew up (!!!) the electricity. Up to this point the film portrays him as just a giant gorilla, but suddenly he has electric superpowers. These powers did not reemerge for King Kong Escapes or any other film, mind you.

In contrast, Kong finds electricity yummy.

We now get our film's solitary city-stomping scene, which consists of a marionette (!!!) Kong aimlessly wandering around Tokyo. He then bears down on one random building and pounds it with his fist for no reason like he's really bummed out. Then he spots and goes for the regulation passing bullet train (Fajita's girlfriend happens to be on board). Why are the trains still running when the city is supposed to be evacuated, and why does it (like all trains in these films) slam on its brakes when a monster is about to grab them? Kong picks up the train and is instantly smitten with affection for Fajita's girlfriend, extracting her from the train car and then tossing it aside, presumably killing everyone else aboard. Okay, another one of these awful Toho film coincidences! What are the chances (out of the tens of millions of people in Tokyo) that the woman he picked out would be the sister of the very man who orchestrated his capture? Why does Kong love these little human women so much anyway?

Here he comes.

God the dubbing in this movie is awful. Fajita's girlfriend, who I'll just call "Faye Wray" from here on, starts screaming with at least two different women's voices (one for the 'aaaah's and one for the 'put me down's. On a side note, I don't understand why all the attention was paid to the giant robotic Kong hand-built for the '76 De Laurentis version, when it seems to have been done before in EVERY previous Kong film including this one.

Kong climbs the Tokyo capitol building, which is a measly 10 stories tall at best... not even up to his chest level. Weren't there more impressive structures in Tokyo at the time for him to climb? However, I think this is the only time in the entire original Godzilla series where the Capitol building is represented by a miniature and stepped on.

Wow, that just looks stupid.

Fajita loses it and goes "ape-shit" (pardon the intentional bad pun) yelling at Kong to let his woman go. Would that really be a great idea when she's 300 feet up off the ground?

Elvis comes upon the great idea to lull Kong to sleep with drums (played by Elvis, who gets to show off his sudden new-found musical ability), and Mr. Taco adds to the idea by having them shoot Davy Crockett rockets loaded with the Soma Berry Juice at Kong as well. In a matter of minutes, the JSDF positions at least six Davey Crocketts, along with speakers and a full surround sound setup, while one of Mr. Taco's assistants drives across Tokyo and back and mixes up a batch of juice from the single jar of berries in Taco's office. If that wasn't unbelievable enough, they somehow start playing the same music the natives played on the island--how they got a recording of that we never learn. Of course, the plan works perfectly and not only does Kong fall down and fast asleep, but in a way that does not hurt Faye Wray either. He may as well have just dropped or smushed her as she has no part to play in the rest of the film anyways.

Bongo karaoke was very popular in Japan.

The military men discuss what to do, but the ultimate decider ends up being Elvis, who want to airlift Kong with balloons and Fajita's wire. The JSDF immediately goes into action and somehow finds miles and miles of Fajita's recently invented wire and uses it to fasten numerous yellow balloons to King Kong. The bluescreen effects used here are rather dodgy, with all the foreground figures surrounded by noticeable blue haloes and flickering and bouncing in a way that does not correspond to the footage behind them. Some of the figures on Kong himself appear to be animated (!) stick figures (!!!).

Two Sea Kings and a Sikorsky H-34 immediately arrive to guide the Kong balloons and pick up... Dr. Smartyhead? The Main General? The Prime Minister? No, they're there for Elvis and Fajita, who are suddenly in charge. (!!!) Because it was thought up by the heroes of the film, this plan goes perfectly too and Kong is lifted over Shingoku toward Mt. Fuji (where we're told Godzilla is earlier in a laughably random throwaway line).

Whheee!!! The laws of physics be damned!

The next morning at Mt. Fuji, Godzilla is aimlessly milling around and looking down as though he's lost his car keys. Kong regains consciousness immediately when near Godzilla. The helicopters respond by blowing charges around his balloons (good thing they thought that eventuality through) and Kong falls several hundred feet and lands flat on his ass on the slope above Godzilla. Ouch! Kong slides down the slope and knocks Godzilla into a headlong somersault to the base of the mountain. Pissed, Godzilla gets up and pursues Kong, who callously steps on several houses that were idiotically built right on the slopes of Mt. Fuji. Serves 'em right.

Hmmm...not sure what I am seeing here.

Kong hides behind a ridge, followed closely by Godzilla, who conveniently completely neglects to utilize his reptilian peripheral vision. This allows Kong to easily sneak up behind him and grab onto his tail. Now, I'm sure something was cut here as I've seen many publicity photos and clips in the trailer of Kong swinging Zilla by his tail, but no such luck in the American version. Godzilla shakes King Kong off a couple (two) times and then trades a couple boulder-throws with Kong. I am starting to notice a pattern in this fight--everything happens twice in a row.

Is this really Honshu? Because it looks pretty deserted.

Kong tries to grapple with Godzilla but this proves fruitless as Godzilla has much sharper teeth and claws and is at least a head taller. Godzilla zaps Kong twice (two times) with his radioactive breath at point blank range, but this has no effect other than causing Kong to reflect briefly about his singed hair.

"My hands! My beautiful hands!"

Just like any MMA fight eventually degenerates to, Kong loses his cool and dives to tackle Godzilla and the two roll and grapple down the side of the mountain until Godzilla is left lying on his back. Poor Haruo Nakajima seems to have a hell of a time getting up, while the actor in the Kong suit gets a little too enthusiastic, doing a somersault right into a rocky ledge, knocking himself out cold.

"I wish I could quit you..."

Godzilla, more than pleased with this reversal, decides to knock several boulders onto Kong and attempts to bury him. Why not just finish him off with his breath? After a few repeated shots of rocks piling onto Kong, Kong springs to life and attacks only to have Godzilla rear up and knock him down with his hind legs (in a curious and very unique Tsuburaya stop-motion shot that must be seen to be believed). Kong falls down the hill and hits his head on ANOTHER ledge and falls even more unconscious than the last time.

Godzilla goes back to the same routine of piling rocks around Kong to build him a shallow grave. Our heroes in the Sikorsky H-34 fly in circles around doing a play-by-play, when suddenly a freak lightning storm saves the day. Despite lots of elevation around him, TWO (!) lightning bolts single out Kong and zap him in the face, resulting in him briefly glowing blue and then leaping to his feet with renewed energy. Suddenly armed with a special shocking grip much like what Gabara had in the horrible movie Godzilla's Revenge (1969), Kong grabbles with Godzilla some more and even tries to force a tree down his throat.

An early example of Japanese tentacle porn.

Hmmm...is that a tree?

Eventually the two are just bumping into each other as though battling as toys manipulated by a 7-year old's hands, which is exactly what is going on, only in this case it's a full-grown Japanese professional special effects man's hands. Godzilla finally grows a brain and uses his tail to trip Kong and then tries to roast him with his radioactive breath. It misses, so Kong charges right at Godzilla, who seeks cover behind a large 18th century Japanese castle. In what is probably the most iconic sequence of the film, Kong tries to get at Godzilla by charging right through the castle, and Godzilla joins him in the most delightfully random trashing of any proud Shogun-era architecture ever committed to film. Eventually the two plunge into the sea, followed by a series of stock earthquake shots from Battle in Outer Space.

Oh, that's not covered in their insurance policy, I bet.

Sidekick, Mr. Taco, Dr. Smartyhead, and the Prime Minister all gather at the cliff ledge (as almost all Toho movies of the period tend to end) and look out to the horizon. King Kong emerges and swims out to sea. No mention or indication of what happened to Godzilla, but it's assumed that he either was killed or is lurking around somewhere beneath the depths. It's not clear whether Kong won and is victoriously swimming away, or if he just panicked once he fought Godzilla underwater and now he's swimming away out of humiliation. Either way, he's swimming out to sea and away from Japan which pleases the Japanese to no end. Now they no longer have to pay the insane royalty fees to Universal for use of a truly lame monster... though it would come again five years later courtesy of American animators Rankin/Bass who leased the rights for their animated Kong Series and co-funded the Japanese to coincide with the release of semi-follow-up King Kong Escapes.

Or is it?

Oh yeah, since when could Gorillas swim?

The End.

Written in March 2008 by Mike Martinez and used with his permission.

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