Semiquincentennial Movie Project #35: King Kung Fu

Note: for only the second time during this event circumstances delayed my usual Sunday post by a couple of days. Sorry.

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

Week #35: Kansas

 

The state of Kansas was established on Jan. 29, 1861 

Details about Kansas:

State bird: western meadowlark

State flower: sunflower

State tree: cottonwood

Additional historical trivia:

Helium was first discovered in Kansas.

The fist woman to be elected mayor of a town in the U.S, was Susan Salter, in Argonia in 1887. (Before women could even vote...)

Both White Castle Hamburgers and Pizza Hut got started in Kansas.

Those nutty Kansas people were the first to ever pass a law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol (before Prohibition).

Near Lebanon, there is a site that is officially the geodetic center of the contiguous United States (meaning all states not including Alaska or Hawaii). 

Famous people born in Kansas: Amelia Earhart,  Hattie McDaniel (the first black woman to win an Oscar), Buster Keaton, Kirstie Alley, (except for Steve Walsh) the original lineup of the band Kansas, Melissa Etheridge, Charlie Parker, and Vice President Bob Dole. (Note: Although he was raised in Kansas, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Texas). 

 

Movie (1987): 

Note: I'm dedicating this post to a friend of mine, Kerry, in Kansas, a fellow "cheese and sleaze" movie lover. When I told him that I was picking King Kung Fu for my choice to represent Kansas in the Semiquincentennial Movie Project, he was somewhat dismissive, suggesting I pick something like The Day After. I don't know for sure if he has even seen this movie...  If not, fire up the DVD player, Kerry!

King Kung Fu (1987):

Filmed in the astounding form of SimianScope! (Really!) 

Our story begins in China (of course), where the celebrated Kung Fu Master,  Al Funku (Jim Erickson), is preparing to send his pet gorilla and now karate master, Jungle Jumper (played by John Ballee in the cheesiest gorilla costume this side of Robot Monster), to the United States. Basically he's just dumping his problems off on unsuspecting friends, since he can no longer control the ape... (BTW, you might be tempted to be offended that a white guy is playing a Chinese guy, but he's not doing it in a ridiculously racist manner. In fact, he often drops the fake Chinese accent and just plays it straight.)

Arriving in San Francisco, Jungle Jumper, now rechristened King Kung Fu, is put on board a train to ship to the New York Zoo. But there is a stopover in, of all places, Wichita, Kansas. There the gorilla will make an appearance for the delight of the locals at the Sedgwick County Zoo. 

 

The event is announced by a reporter for the local Eyewitless News (no, that's not a typo... Eyewitless News... this is a comedy... just in case you might have been thinking horror or monster movie...) 

Watching the news are a pair of mental giants, Bo Burgess (Billy Schwartz) and his pal, Herman (Tim McGill), who are upset that the local news is using a second rate reporter when the two of them are miles ahead in talent, but apparently not so "miles ahead" that they can be employed as reporters themselves. These two hatch a plan that will make them candidates, they hope, for real employment. They plan to get a scoop that will make them local stars.

 

So what is this "scoop"? They plan to help King Kung Fu escape, later to recapture him and make headlines. IT COULD WORK!!!

Remember, this movie is primarily supposed to be taking place in the late seventies, so much of the story involves things that were topical at the time, whether or not they were still topical when the movie was completed. As such, Bo and Herman's plans to distract the crowd so they can free the gorilla involve getting Rae Faye (Maxine Gray), a female acquaintance of Bo, to do some streaking at the event. (At this late a date I may have to qualify that term... "streaking" was a fad in the seventies in which a person took off all their clothes and ran into a crowd).

Except this is a (sort of) family movie, so Rae Faye isn't actually going to strip down to the buff. She will be wearing a bikini. And just to make sure she doesn't sunburn, Bo brings along a bottle of suntan oil (which he has replaced with banana oil, and if you don't know why, perhaps you better drop out of this review now...) But Rae Faye doesn't want any suntan oil, so Bo tries to get her to wear it as perfume. Which she doesn't want any of that either...

Ultimately it takes a couple of attempts for the bumbling would be reporters to succeed in the attempt to free King Kung Fu. 

 

And even then, the plan goes awry, because the big ape escapes. Leading to the best part of the movie, the varied attempts and shenanigans that King Kung Fu and the reporters end up in during the monkey's free-for-all.

 

But if that not all of it. There is also a overly enthusiastic law enforcement officer trying to corral the escaped simian. This is done by an over the top parody performance by Tom Leahy as a witless J. W. Duke, one of the more ridiculous but also more humorous performances. (Just in case you miss it, "J. W." is doing a balls out imitation of John Wayne, and to drive home the parody, his second-in-command is named "Pilgrim"...) 

 

I don't want to give away too much of this film. Gotta leave some stuff for you to watch for yourself. Besides, some of the antics by the ape are so over the top you will probably groan. One little inducement to further whet your interest: They didn't have an Empire State Building (the battle scene from the original King Kong) or the Twin Towers (the final battle site for the 1976 King Kong), but they had the tallest building in Wichita to film a free-for-all between King Kung Fu and his foes... the local Holiday Inn, at the time the tallest building in Wichita, maybe even in the whole state... Besides. this is just a normal sized up. One of those really huge buildings would have detracted from the ape itself.

 

Is this film as funny as, say, Blazing Saddles, a parody of which I am enamored? Well, not really. But then, the whole appeal for this one is it's cheesiness, rather than it's quality humor and acting. 

The background to this film is about as strange and funny as the actual film. It was originally scheduled to be completed in time to compete with the big budget extravaganza remake of King Kong, due to be released in 1976. Unfortunately the producers ran out of money and the project was shelved.  But then, in 1987, 10 years after the fact, they must have managed to gather up enough money to finish it. The result looks quite a bit like the low budget values imbued into an average Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. None of the actors are very competent acting wise, but that's what makes the entire thing enjoyable to someone like me.

On that note, none of the actors or actresses even had a career outside of this movie. I think most of them were probably just locals that the producers talked into being a part of the film. There is one big name, however.  The part of Myrtle was played by Lois Ayres. Who is "Lois Ayres" you're asking... OK, the joke is on you... her extensive career outside of this film was as a porn actress... She made around 150 of them from the early 80's through the 90's. (She's fully clothed... and playing an old lady to boot... so don't get your bonnet in a bustle...)

 

A documentary I watched on the making of this film (there was a "making of King Kung Fu" documentary???) has one of the producers saying that this movie was kind of like a live action comic strip. That in essence is a great sum up. Let's face it. If you come into the film expecting a quality production, or even a low-budget quality production, you are doomed to disappointment. It is pretty much a film done by amateurs who only had a basic working knowledge of how to make a movie. (Although one of them did graduate from KU with a film degree... See, Kerry? It has a hometown connection...) The pdirector ends up saying, at the end of that documentary, that although it was not up to the best that he wanted that, in the end, he "wanted to make a movie and I did it, and not everybody can say that."

It only costs $300,000 to make, however, since it was not released nationally, only locally, it probably just barely recouped it's production costs. But in later years it has become a cult classic. As I understand it it is a fairly popular movie in Wichita. Which is kind of like saying "well, it's good, but will it play in Peoria...?" It premiered at the Crest Theater in Wichita, and according to the documentary, the crowd there liked it. I think it's probably mostly well known through word of mouth from cult lovers of cheesy low budget schlock like me, however.

As ridiculous as this movie is, it is all done with intentional comedy, unlike A*P*E*, which was made as a serious attempt at cashing in on 1976's King Kong. 

Well, folks, that wraps up my Kansas entry. Hope to get back on track for my regular Sunday posting for the next one.

Quiggy