When Dracula Got Hammered (Part II)

 

Note: The first week of September in the United States is recognized National Blood Donation Week. Please donate, if you can. (I promise it won't go to feed Dracula!)

 

Quoted from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally:

"After being lampooned by Abbott and Costello, it seemed the classic monsters were done for good. As the 1950's dawned, American horror movies were no longer being produced by major studios, but by smaller companies like American International Pictures and Lippert, companies that made cheap black-and-white "quickies"  for the entertainment of teenagers at drive-ins. But in England, one company decided to take a chance on reviving the old gothic monsters in lurid, living color."  

                                                                                                      -from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally 

This is part 2 of a series on the Hammer Films Dracula movies from the 1960's and 1970's. Go to When Dracula Got Hammered: Part 1 if you haven't read it yet, or you may be lost...

 

 

 

 

Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966): 

We got back to having Christopher Lee in his customary role as the dental assistant's nightmare in Hammer Films' 1966 entry in the Dracula saga. Having taken a brief hiatus in the second installment (see previous entry), Lee returned with a vengeance. Yep. The bloodsucker was not truly dead, after all... (Surprised?)

Van Helsing must have been on vacation. Or else he was still tracking other minions of Dracula as he had been in The Brides of Dracula, because he is nowhere to be seen in this outing. Instead we get Father Sandor (Andrew Kier) as a vampire hunter. 

 

 

Sandor is an expert on who (and apparently who is not) a vampire. First we have a brief introduction relating the demise of Dracula at the hands of Van Helsing (as seen in Horror of Dracula), with a voiceover telling us the background:

"After a reign of terror spanning more than a century the king of the undead was finally traced to his lair high in the Carpathian Mountains.Though the decades many had sought to destroy him all had failed.Here at last was an adversary armed with sufficient knowledge of the ways of the vampire to bring about the final and absolute destruction. This then was his fate thousands had been enslaved by to obscene cult vampirism now the fountain head himself perished only the memory remained the memory of most evil and terrible creature to have ever set his seal on civilization." 

We come upon a scene where a group of people are attempting to drive a stake through the corpse of a young girl. They are interrupted by Sandor who chastises them as "barbarians", insisting that the girl is not a vampire, telling them that Dracula himself was killed 10 years earlier.  The priest present refuses to perform the burial, but Father Sandor says he will do it instead.

 

At the local pub a couple of married couples are drinking, at least one of them is. Charles Kent (Francis Matthews) is partying like there's no tomorrow, and buying drinks for the entire pub, albeit with the disapproval of his wife, Diana (Suzan Farmer) and sister-in-law, Helen (Barabara Shelly). Charles' brother, Alan (Charles Tingwell) is a bit more accepting of Charles' nature, or at least is resigned to the fact that he is incorrigible. 

 

Enter Father Sandor, whose first response is to disparage the owner from hanging garlic in the inn. He reiterates that 10 years have gone by and Dracula is dead... not just "mostly dead", but really really dead. He meets up with the Kents and discovers that they are on their way to Carlsbad, the former home of Dracula. An amiable sort at the start, if a bit off kilter, Sandor becomes positively adamant that the four should NOT go to Carlsbad, but won't say why.

 

But the vacationers think Sandor doesn't know what he's talking about and head out,regardless of his warnings. But it seems more than just Sandor doesn't want them to go... neither does there driver, who dumps them out of his cart still 2 km from their ultimate destination. Fortunately there is a castle nearby (one that no one seems to want to acknowledge exists, even Sandor). At this point you or I would probably say "Let's just camp over here under this tree..." But not our intrepid (or clueless) vacationers. They go on up to the castle.

 

Or more specifically, are taken there. They find a driverless carriage, and after boarding it with the intention of using it to get to Carlsbad, the horses on their own take the carriage to the castle. Where it seems at every turn they are expected. It's too bad no one listens to Helen, who is very suspicious of the whole situation. They might have avoided what comes next.

 

It turns out that the castle is inhabited by a servant of the former Dracula, Klove (Philip Latham), and he has some air of mystery about him, and a sort of subdued sinister attitude. This is not just a personality thing. He is actually involved in a plan to revive his dead master (who was reduced to dust in the first movie, which we saw replayed in the introduction). 

 

He dispatches Alan and uses his blood to give Dracula newly revived body, and Dracula's first victim, of course, is Helen. See? She was right to be suspicious...

 

Enter Sandor who, along with Charles and Diana, ends up in a struggle with the revived count. (I guess he wasn't entirely convinced by his own insistence that Dracula was entirely out of the picture...) Safety is assured when Sandor takes Charles and Diana to the monastery, because, as a new twist to the legend is added, the vampire cannot cross the threshold of the monastery unless someone invites him. Unfortunately, even in the monastery the vampire has some of his non-vampiric minions, specifically Ludwig (Thorley Walters), who, somewhat like Renfield from the classic novel, is a bit unhinged and lets him  in.

 

Ultimately we get a new twist on another way (besides crucifixes and sunlight) that can defeat the Count; running water. So Dracula is finally defeated... And if you believe that, I have a bridge I'm selling.  

 

This third film was released on a double bill with The Plague of the Zombies. It originally was budget at £100,000 and pulled in almost $2.5 million in ticket sales. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 82% approval rating. Some of the critics pointed out there wasn't much new about the film, although one of them noted that the "Instant Dracula" part (where Klove uses the blood of Alan mixed with the ashes of the Count to create a new body) was fairly interesting.

This would make the third and final Hammer Dracula film that Terence Fisher would direct. Those three films, in my opinion are the best of the lot, as we will see. It turns out that production delays were the real reason we didn't get a return of Cushing as Van Helsing. By the time filming began he was obligated elsewhere. Kier, in his place, is acceptable, although hardly has the chops to be a great replacement. 

The film was made at the same time as Rasputin - The Mad Monk, which also starred Lee in the title role, as well as Shelley, Farmer and Matthews. Despite a rather contrived way to revive the Count, this has some things going for it. This despite the fact that Lee's lines in the film consist of only a few hisses. (I guess the revival process didn't include the vampire's vocal cords...)

 

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968):

You can't keep a bad man down (especially if there is money in the sale of sequels...)

So, if you watched the previous film, you know that Dracula had supposedly once again been dispatched (this time by drowning... or something like that). 

A year after an incident at a local church where a young boy found the body of a woman stashed in the church bell tower, the priest finds no one is willing to come to the church to attend Mass. The superstitious townspeople are afraid of going to church because Dracula's castle stands close by and the shadow of it touches the church. 

 

So a Monsignor (Rupert Davies), with the help of the local priest (Ewan Hooper), journey to the castle to perform an ritual exorcism.

 

Unfortunately the priest gets cold feet the closer he comes to the castle, so the Monsignor has to go on alone. While he is performing his rites on the castle a storm blows in. The priest, who has remained back a ways, is startled and falls, cutting a gash on his head. The blood from his wound drips into the river where Dracula has ended up. And, of course, said blood revives the Count.

 

Dracula is incensed that his castle has been defiled by the priest and has his new slave, the priest, dig up a coffin for him. Meanwhile, back at the village a party is underway, Paul (Barry Andrews), who intends to marry Maria (Veronica Carlson), the niece of the Monsignor, is celebrating with the town for her birthday. A lot of this outing centers on Paul and Maria, with the added third wheel of a girl named Zena (Barbara Ewing). Zena is thrown in almost as an afterthought, however. Zena is not Dracula's primary target.

 

What Dracula wants is revenge against the Monsignor, because he put up a giant cross at the doorway of Dracula's castle and performed his religious rites on the place. But instead of getting revenge on the Monsignor himself, Dracula intends to subvert his niece Maria. Ultimately he stops Dracula in his first attempt, but there is still a need to subdue the monster. And that may be a bit of a problem.

 

Because Paul is an atheist. And his would be partner is the now lapsed priest who has become Dracula's stooge. When push comes to shove, although they stake Dracula, neither has the faith to perform the ritual prayer that would end Dracula's reign of terror.

 

Dracula goes back to Maria and kidnaps her, taking her to his castle, where he wills her to remove the cross and chunk it over the parapet. It lands, conveniently, pointing straight up in the ground. Then, in a final battle with the Count, Paul throws him over the ledge, where the vampire lands (guess where...) And THAT ought to do it, don't you think?

 

 

Then again... maybe not...

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave doesn't measure up to The Brides of Dracula in terms of sheer terror. Most of the time is spent on character development of the subsidiary characters, although at least in this outing Lee as Dracula is granted some dialogue.    

Rotten Tomatoes gives this one an 80% rating, and, as would be expected, the franchise is starting to wear thin per the critics. Variety sums up the overall critical view with "[t]he story's slight, the horror and the bloodcurdling essential to these pix is minimal and even Dracula himself appears bored at being resurrected yet again." 

There were changes, as seem to be typical when dealing with Dracula movies. You will remember from the above movie that it was established that Dracula needed permission to cross the barrier into someone's house, but apparently they dispensed with that for this outing because he enters Maria's room without any preamble. Also is the added need for a prayer to be said over the staked Count. (Why the heck didn't they do that  the first time? It might have been over for Dracula by now...)

The production costs went up slightly for  this time. Much of it may have been to secure the services of Lee, but it had a budget of £175,000. There is no indication of exactly how much profit the film made, but wikipedia notes that it was the highest grossing film of all of Hammer Studio's output. An interesting note: In Dracula FAQ, Bruce Scivally notes that Lee wore a ring in the film that had been given to the actor by the renowned Forrest J. Ackerman.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave was to have been directed, once again, by Terence Fisher, the director of the previous three films, but he had been in an accident earlier, and was unavailable. The services of Freddie Francis were thus acquired for the work. Francis had a decent career as a workmanlike director for Hammer and Amicus, helming such films as The Evil of Frankenstein and They Came from Beyond Space. 

But many of you will know him better as the Academy Award winning cinematographer, which he won for Sons and Lovers in 1960, and Glory in 1989. He was also a BAFTA nominee for cinematography, getting noms for his cinematography on The Elephant Man (which lost to All That Jazz), The French Lieutenant's Woman (which lost to Tess), Glory (which lost to  The Sheltering Sky) and Cape Fear (which lost to The Last of the Mohicans). Clearly he was a great cinematographer, and even though he did not fill that role here, he still had an eye for what he wanted.

Well, tune in for the next installment tomorrow. And get thee to the bloodmobile.

Quiggy

 

 

When Dracula Got Hammered (Part I)

 

Note: The first week of September in the United States is recognized National Blood Donation Week. Please donate, if you can. (I promise it won't go to feed Dracula!)

 

 Quoted from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally:

"After being lampooned by Abbott and Costello, it seemed the classic monsters were done for good. As the 1950's dawned, American horror movies were no longer being produced by major studios, but by smaller companies like American International Pictures and Lippert, companies that made cheap black-and-white "quickies"  for the entertainment of teenagers at drive-ins. But in England, one company decided to take a chance on reviving the old gothic monsters in lurid, living color."  

                                                                                                      -from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally 

 

When the average person hears the name Dracula, it is almost always Bela Lugosi they think of, even though he only played Dracula twice; once in the original Universal movie Dracula, and then once again in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. (Those other vampires he played in movies you are thinking of right now were not Dracula, but some other vampire...) 

 

Lugosi in the original Dracula

Lugosi w/ Costello

 

 

More studious film aficionados may think of Max Schreck from the silent film Nosferatu (in which the vampire was actually named Count Orlok, but was still essentially Dracula), or Bill Skarsgård, who recently starred in a remake of Nosferatu. 2025 also saw yet another incarnation of the bloodsucker with Caleb Landry Jones, directed by Luc Besson.

Max Schreck as Orlok

Bill Skarsgård as Orlok

 

Caleb Landry Jones as Dracula

Even more obsessed fans of Dracula may recall some others from bygone days, such as Klaus Kinski, Jack Palance, Frank Langella and John Carradine in serious Dracula roles, and George Hamilton, Adam Sandler, Leslie Nielsen or even David Niven (yes THAT David Niven...) in comedic portrayals. One of the best portrayals would have to be Gary Oldman in the Francis Ford Coppola venture into the vampire legend. 

Gary Oldman as Dracula

 

But the most prolific actor in the role of the famous vampire would have to be Christopher Lee, who essayed the role in the Dracula movies that Hammer Films issued in the 60's and 70's. And without a doubt, in the opinion of your humble blogger, Lee was the scariest of the toothy menace to ever appear on screen. Lugosi was interesting, but really, he didn't really frighten me one bit. 

Christopher Lee as Dracula

 

Lee made 7 movies for Hammer Films starring as the title character, and his cohort, Peter Cushing also made films with him as Professor Van Helsing  (there were actually 9 Hammer Dracula films in total). Of course, both of them together only shared the spotlight 3 of them. Which was surprising to me because I thought they had been together in more. But then I realized that the source of that misconception was that they had indeed made many movies together, 24 to be exact, but they weren't all Dracula movies. They also were in The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Scream and Scream Again and House of the Long Shadows (both of those last two with Vincent Price) among others, although not all with Hammer Studios.

You could be forgiven if you thought that Hammer films only produced horror movies, since that is what the movie buff would call to mind if "Hammer Films" came up as a topic, but the fact is up until the early 50's most of the output of the studio was either comedy, science fiction or film noir. The first genuine horror Hammer film did not appear until 1955. If you'd like to check out my other reviews of Hammer films (up to this point), both of them on film noir movies you can see them here and here. Surprisingly (and unfortunately, in my opinion) this is my first foray into Hammer horror movies, however.

 

 

 

 

Dracula  [re-titled Horror of Dracula in the U.S.] (1958):

The first foray into the Hammer studios oeuvre of the Dracula saga was an attempt to translate the original Bram Stoker novel to film. As such, some of the story makes it's way into the film, although quite often the script takes some liberties. If you weren't blessed with the assignment to read Dracula in a high school English class like I was, you may not even notice some of the differences. But some of them stand out like a sore thumb.

The most striking piece of trivia about this version of Dracula is that, believe it or not, it was the first ever vampire movie to be filmed in color.  The bloody fangs of Dracula in all their red glory were on display for the first time. Hammer doesn't waste time in gently nudging you to this new color concept, either. In the first scene, directly after the opening credits, the camera focuses on a crypt with the name "Dracula" emblazoned on it, as red blood drips from somewhere off camera onto the coffin.

Bloody tomb

 

Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arrives at Castle Dracula. Ostensibly he has come to take on a role of cataloguing the library of Dracula (Christopher Lee). But at the outset we find out that, unlike the character from the Stoker novel, Harker knows full well who and what Dracula is and has come with the express intent to rid the world of this cursed fiend.

Van Eyssen as Harker

 

A woman approaches Harker and begs him to help her escape from Dracula's evil clutches. But the woman (Valerie Gaunt) is really a vampire, one of Dracula's minions (although, technically, there are no "minions" in the film. One could easily get the idea that he can only control one victim at a time, as that is all he ever seems to amass during the course of the film. However, that may not be the case, as later films imply that he has a larger following). 

Valerie Gaunt as "Vampire woman"

 

Harker ends up being bitten by both the vampire woman and Dracula, but he still retains some sense of his own independence and faithfulness to his mission as he dispatches the woman in her coffin with a stake. But, too late, Dracula has come awake and traps him in the cellar, and that's the last we see of him alive.

Death of "Vampire woman"

 

Dracula tries to get his revenge on Harker for dispatching his vampire bride by making Harker's fiancee his new victim. Lucy (Carol Marsh) has been feeling out of sorts recently and has been diagnosed with a case of anemia by her doctor. Lucy is the sister of Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and sister-in-law to Mina (Melissa Stribling).. The film combines characters from the novel in a seemingly haphazard fashion, but at only 82 minutes in length, I guess some concessions had to be made... The fly in the ointment of Dracula's nefarious plans, however, is the arrival of an old enemy, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). He is tasked with telling both the Holmwoods, and Lucy about the death of Harker.

Stribling, Gough and Cushing

Carol Marsh as Lucy

 

Van Helsing knows of Dracula's true nature, but he has the devil's own time in trying to get anyone to take his suggestions seriously. (What? Put garlic flowers up in the room? And lock all windows and doors after dark? And what's this all about that stupid superstition about keeping a Christian cross lying about in plain sight?) Eventually, of course, Van Helsing does convince Holmwood of the necessity, but only after his wife starts to exhibit strange behaviors.

Ultimately, of course, it appears that Van Helsing is successful at dispatching Dracula, but if you know anything about horror cinema, you know that somehow this is not the final end for our villain. You know the old saying "you can't keep a good man down"? Well, apparently you can't do it with a vampire either...

 

The film was released in it's home nation of the U.K. as Dracula, but U.S. distributors were worried that the American public might confuse it with the 1931 Tod Browning version of the character. (Although how that might happen is confusing to me... surely no one would mistake Christopher Lee for Bela Lugosi, but then maybe they were worried that people wouldn't get past the title to realize it couldn't possibly be a re-issue of the classic Universal movie...)

The film was a box office success. It originally cost £81,000 (which converts to about $275,000 in 1958 monies) and grossed well over $3 million in ticket sales. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds at 89% Fresh, pretty damn good for an independent film by still virtually untested studio. 

Both Lee and Cushing stand out in this film: Lee all the more so, because his brief scenes are memorable even in and of itself. Apparently. according to someone who has WAY more time on their hands than I do, Lee as Dracula only occupies about 7 of the 82 minutes running time of the film. Cushing, who got top billing in the credits, as needs be, occupies much more screen time, but if you want to be honest about it, you are likely to remember the villainy and  menace of Lee's Dracula more than you are of Cushing's mild sympathetic Van Helsing. 

The rest of the cast is pretty much workman like. Even Michael Gough who made a fairly big impact in the Batman movies of the late 80's / early 90's as Bruce Wayne's butler almost seems to fade into the woodwork here as Holmwood. The rest of the case don't have much impact at all. Wikipedia articles on each of the main cast members say that they are each "most well-known" for having appeared in this film. But then you don't come to a Hammer horror film for Oscar worthy performances: you come to them for the straightforward shock of the evil characters.

Lee, who was a stickler for faithfulness to the original concept in the Stoker novel would eventually become  disenchanted with the Hammer version of Dracula. He was quoted as saying about Dracula that his regret was that he had  "never been able to present the Count exactly as Bram Stoker described him." This may have been part of what convinced him to step away from the vampire role when the second film was being produced.

 

 

The Brides of Dracula (1960): 

The second Dracula feature film from Hammer did not have Christopher Lee in it (more's the pity), but it did have Peter Cushing reprising his role as Prof. Van Helsing. Lee, for his part, was afraid of getting typecast if he were to reprise the Dracula role (among other reasons.) The script had been already plotted with the idea of Lee returning, but since he declined a new script was written, focusing more on Cushing's Van Helsing. The result was that the first script was one that even Cushing wanted nothing to do with, so I guess a panicked production team immediately cranked out a new one, one that was more pleasing to their potential star.

To draw in the paying crowd, an attempt to connect Brides to it's predecessor included the Dracula name. And, while there is indeed a vampire in the film, it is not named "Dracula", nor is there any real hint of the character being even related to the character. All you essentially get is the Van Helsing character continuing his own quest to eradicate the world of the scourge of un-dead bloodsuckers.  

The film picks up somewhere after the events in the previous film. Dracula himself is still dead (and not just un-dead, but really, really dead...) But he has left behind some remnants of his reign of terror. As the narrator at the beginning says "his disciples live on, to spread the cult and corrupt the world". 

Note: In many of the vampire film lore traditions, the descendants of the original head vampire are usually destroyed (or revert to normality, if not too far along...) when the head vampire is dispatched. (See the ending of the previous movie...) But not in the context of this film. Hammer tended to play fast and loose with the traditional rules when it came to the sequels...

The movie begins with the arrival of Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) at an inn on her way to a teaching position at a school for girls. The coachman drives off and abandons her, leaving her to the mercy of the innkeeper, but the innkeeper professes that "there is no room at the inn."

Luckily (or unluckily), the appearance of a Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) saves her from having to sleep in the stable. She takes Marianne to her castle, which is conveniently nearby. 

 

There Marianne discovers that the Baroness' son, Baron Meinster (David Peel) is also a resident at the castle.  

 

 

It appears that the Baron is being kept prisoner. He is chained up in his own lodgings in a remote part of the castle. Despite the fact that the villagers think he is dead, and the Baroness says he is nuts, the Baron convinces Marianne to steal a key from his mother's bedroom and free him. Bad mistake! Because the Baron is actually a vampire, and the shackles were what was keeping him from roaming free.

The Baron kills his mother (or more to the point, turns her into a vampire). He has an ally in a servant, Greta (Freda Jackson), who along with his mother had been luring young girls for him to feed off their blood.  With mom out of the way, the Baron has plans to get as many women for his concubine (the titular brides). He gets a couple, but his real designs are  on Marianne.

 

As usual, the fly in the ointment is the appearance of Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Van Helsing, having dispatched the head honcho vampire, Dracula, in the previous film, is now trying to rid the world of the rest of the scourge, including Baron Meinster, whom he is aware is one of the vampires.

 

The Baron manages to lure and turn a couple of girls before Van Helsing traps him at an old mill. In the ensuing battle the Baron knocks out Van Helsing and puts the bite on him. For all intents and purposes it seems that Van Helsing may become a vampire himself, but he seems to find a way to stop it from happening. (And if it was that easy, then why doesn't he do the same thing for the victims he encounters prior to their succumbing to vampirism? This is the only quibble I have with an otherwise very entertaining entry in the series.)

 

The Brides of Dracula was released as a double feature (paired with The Leech Woman) . It was not entirely well received. Many critics were along the same lines as The New York Times crtic, Bosley Crowther, who said "another repetition of the standard tale of the vampire ... There is nothing new or imaginative about it."

On the other hand, there were a few who had some good words for it. Leslie Halliwell is quoted as saying "The best of the Hammer Draculas, with plenty of inventive action, some classy acting and good sense of place and period." On a budget of only £120,000, it cleaned up with well over it's cost. It holds a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it 4th overall in the list of 9 Hammer Dracula outings.

My personal opinion is that I think it is better than the first one, although I may be in a minority there. (The first one comes in at #3). I am withholding my opinion of it overall until I wrap this series up later this week, but I still think it held my interest much more. Part of that may be due to the fact that I found Monlaur such an attractive female victim for the bloodsucker.  Hey, if I was the Baron I would have chosen her over any of the others as my primary future bride myself...

 

Tune in tomorrow for part II, when I will be reviewing Dracula: Prince of Darkness and Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.

Until next time, drive safely folks. And it is night time now, so be on the lookout for bats and charming entrancing men on the road.

Quiggy

 

   

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 the famous Lois Ayres. Who the heck 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 in this movie... 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