What is that ... Spanish?? Nice poster.
Of "Kong Island" and "Point Blank"
Steve Nyland aka Squonkamatic, October 2018
I cannot verbalize coherently on why I adore "Kong Island" to the extent that I do. On the surface it is one of the dumbest movies ever pasted together and the motivations on why someone would think that it was a good idea to pursue at all are baffling. The film lacks a definitive genre to be categorized within, part Jungle Adventure, Survival Thriller, Heist Movie, Mad Scientist Potboiler, and Exploitation Nudie. Yet none of those description pigeonholes what takes place, and if anything the film defies both categorization and expectations. It is an enigma, dreamt up out of nothing and created solely for entertainment purposes. There is no message, no cause, no purpose for its existence beyond consuming time for the paying audience.
Who don't even have to pay anymore, really, as the film lapsed into Public Domain anonymity many years back due to an oversight on the part of the original distributors to include a copyright statement on the assorted language versions created. All indications reveal that English, Italian, French and likely a German language presentation created, the intended audience males age 12 - 35 who have nothing better to do but wait for the scene where the brand name actress takes off her clothes. And yet even for them the film is a tease, sporting only partial or long-shot documentation of the three actresses who were sporting enough to play along. There's not a Kong or giant monkey anywhere, and the movie isn't even set on an island. Takes place in Kenya or something like that.
... And people wonder why I enjoy classic Italian genre films so much.
Ahem.
I will even admit that my initial assessment of the film was dismissive, regarding it as an exercise in "Jungle Trash", a term I coined for low budget potboilers set in darkest Africa like surroundings where white European movie personalities have all sorts of fascinating adventures while the natives carry their luggage. And rest assured there is plenty of that going on for sure, yet over the years + countless viewings of the movie in various forms a different perspective has set in. I now regard it as a classic of Italian genre cinema, a near masterwork of surrealist cinema, and easily my favorite movie to feature its star, muscleman turned Hercules actor Brad Harris. Who sadly passed away only a couple years ago and is worthy of a blog post of his own. Brad Harris movies are special.
Glorious full sized Italian 1-sheet printing. Gots one in my own collection of movie memorabilia.
And "Kong Island" can perhaps be regarded as something of a vanity project by Harris, who helped produce and likely secure financing for the film for low budget expert Roberto Mauri. Like Harris, Mauri was a graduate of the Peplum sword & sandal thriller machine which gave Italian genre cinema its start in the early 1960s. Then evolved into the EuroSpy, Euro Horror and Spaghetti Western genres, which is about when Americanized audiences started to take note. Mauri is perhaps best known for his early Euro Horror thriller "Massacre of the Vampires" (or "Curse of the Blood Ghouls") from 1964 as well as scripting various Italo Western favorites for the "Sabata" and "Santana" characters. Mauri also provided the story for "Kong Island" and pulled out all the stops, crossing off a veritable checklist of genre film concerns catering to Harris' unique talents.
In a nutshell, the plot concerns the exploits of one "Burt Dawson" (Harris), a soldier for hire mercenary who has taken to sub-tropical Africa for employment. With the action on the downswing Dawson agrees to help his flight medic turned medical researcher "Albert Muller" (evil Marc Lawrence, one of the best things about the film) pull off a payroll heist from a mining company along with one of Dawson's mercenary buddies. Lawrence's character goes psychotic, gunning down the payroll handlers & double-crossing his partners, shooting Dawson in the back and leaving him for dead as he makes off with the haul.
"I'll take "Mad Scientists" for $300, Alex."
It is what Muller then does with the haul which twists the film into a pretzel of seeming illogic as he uses the proceeds to finance his experimentation into controlling the brains of apes via radio receiver chips implanted into their brains. His goal to both create a legion of "robotic apes" to do his evil bidding and subjugate an army of likewise controlled human agents to further a plot to take over the entire world. The operation is conducted out of a cave complex in the middle of the jungle where along with his bloodthirsty underling "Turk" (frequent Spaghetti Western functionary Paolo Maglotti, appearing under his anglicized stage name "Paul Carter") he keeps a collection of local women caged up for other experiments the film sadly does not depict.
Some of what you are missing at the end of most English language versions floating about.
Dawson comes back from the grave, so to speak, returning to Nairobi's nightclub scene to find his former partner "Theodore" (Italian genre cinema character actor Aldo Cecconi) and settle his score with Muller. Though the whole thing is a setup by Theodore at Muller's behest, who goes so far as to enlist his son "Robert" (Mark Farran in his sole acting role) and unwitting daughter "Diana" (cult favorite Ursula Davis) to lure Dawson into the jungle so Muller's radio controlled robotic apes can subdue him. Muller's ultimate plot to use Dawson as his initial human experiment and Diana employed as bait to give Dawson a reason to get involved. Also along for additional eye candy placement is lovely Adriana Alben as "Ursula", Theodore's would-be wife and former flame of Harris' Burt Dawson character, and whom male-gaze oriented viewers get to behold the most of as she takes a bath or lounges around in her underthings.
Why, I could post pictures of her all day! Beats painting.
And then there's "Eva" or "Eve", as English language voice actors pronounce her name on their dub track. Not sure what exactly her character is supposed to be, with assorted online reviews speculating she had been raised by apes as a sort of Jungle Jane who parades around clad only in loincloth with actress Esmeralda Barros' long dark hair employed to cover her breasts. Or not, if you find the right version of the film, though sadly part of its current fate of dismissal lies in that most of the public domain English language prints shown on assorted low cost DVD pressings feature a television censored presentation cut free of any hinting of nudity. Not that there's much of it, as any shots of Barros parading around au natural are all long shots including the slow motion jog she does nude as September morn to close out the proceedings.
The film was also made in 1968 with mixed age audiences and an appropriate contemporary MPAA rating on the surviving "uncut" prints would earn it a PG at best: If "Vampire Circus" rates a PG them so would this, though anyone looking for bouncing boobs or scantily clad fornication in the jungle will be sorely disappointed by "Kong Island" in pretty much any form they may find. I mean sure, there's a couple of nudie shots but the point is not to display anyone's breasts for cinematic voyeurs to ogle, which is one of the attributes that makes the film such a bizarre little package. And indeed many of the promotional repackaging efforts by home video distributors play up the naughtiness if not outright create a false expectation of lurid scenes of ape to human miscegenation which likely do not exist even in the stated (if impossible to find) complete 92 minute Italian presentation.
Original NTSC VHS pressing showing the cut TV print. Most current DVD releases have the same thing.
Regardless, Eva's presence in the film is purely for "Lady Tarzan" exploitation and serves scant purpose in furthering the plot aside from setting aside a stack of bananas for Dawson to consume after his all too brief Survival Thriller interlude. She's there for a couple of cheesecake shots and a native flavored Sex Interest character for Dawson to be intrigued by, and eventually lead him to the caves for his confrontation with Albert Muller. The film excuses itself for Ms. Barros' bare buttocks by describing her as the "Sacred Monkey" that Robert takes his sister Diana hunting for as a setup to have Muller's robotic apes kidnap her once she has changed into her nightie and providing Dawson with something more interesting to try and rescue while pursuing his showdown with Muller.
As if all of that wasn't enough we also get a wayward Interpol agent "Forrester" (Italian film/TV veteran Mario Donation) in the movie's Luciano Pigozzi role, who serves to save Dawson's bacon during a key fight scene, die horribly during the Survival Thriller interlude, and thicken the plot by affirming the megalomaniacal intentions of Albert Muller without forcing the movie to budget it in visually. Along the way we get various fight scenes, evil robotic ape menacing scenes, an open brain surgery scene, a trippy Nairobi nightclub scene, and lots of travelogue footage of the stars apparently enjoying an all expense paid trip to Kenya, where the bulk of the movie's location filming was undertaken.
NOW ... with all that described the movie is ultimately a jumble which first-time viewers not hip to the Italian genre cinema industry's ways will find underwhelming to say the least. Those who love action will be diverted momentarily by a couple of decent fight scenes, but the bulk of the film is spent either discussing what must be done or stumbling around out in the jungle, some of it even endearingly filmed on indoor sets with fake trees. The most puzzling section being star Harris' big beefcake interlude after the Survival Thriller scene where he takes a shirtless bath in a flowing jungle stream which looks astonishingly fake: Exotic birds peck about, the atmosphere becomes surreal, Barros watching intently, and his escape from the natives who had been hunting them curiously easy.
French poster. They kept em busy at the design department.
Harris' smokes even make it through the survival ordeal and he manages to dig up a lighter to enjoy a crisp refreshing cigarette by the side of Barros' jungle pool. The film actually takes several opportunities to focus in on Harris as he lights a smoke, or consumes shots of whiskey straight up, and one can picture genre film enthusiasts likewise lighting up right there in the cinema audience with him as they help drive consumer needs to spend money on movie tickets, cigarettes, fashionable jungle/commando wear, and American whiskey. The film's agenda is purely to be consumed and to consume the time of those watching, with any concerns about artfulness or "artifice of reality" out the window very quickly with the opening brain surgery sequence.
And that's why I love it. The film defies commercial categorization, was made without the didactic concerns of the cinema as an art form, free of any constraint upon subject matter or execution method. Studio bound jungle scenes are edited right into the location shot footage, all of it recorded without sound for ease of dubbing into language based upon market needs. Every sound heard in the film is the result of post-production editing, an attribute shared with pretty much every Spaghetti Western, Peplum or Euro Horror film made during the classic 1960 - 1980 era of Italian genre cinema. It was made for one reason: To sell screen rentals, theater tickets (or home video units) and whatever consumer products are consumed during its runtime. You cannot evaluate it in terms of the more artistically ambitious efforts of the genre film industry which germane to its era of production.
How many tough guy actors are game enough to actually dance in their movies? Until Gregory Hines came along, that is.
By contrast, in 1968 Sergio Leone was assembling his masterwork "Once Upon a Time in the West", while Clint Eastwood had returned to Hollywood with what he'd learned with Leone and applied to "Hang 'Em High". The Spaghetti Western industry which had given director Mauri his early Experimental era effort "Colorado Charlie" had evolved into its Classic form with films like "Tepapa", "Face to Face" and the enjoyably morbid "Santana", which itself spawned a series of spinoffs. Those films had genuine artistic merit to them in addition to the violence & exploitation elements which made them so different from homogenized American made efforts of the same years. "Kong Island" didn't even have enough Mad Scientist content to rank it on the bourgeoning Euro Horror idiom which would pick up where the Spaghetti Westerns left off.
One of the first DVD pressings and it's cut. Don't bother.
Instead what viewers are lumbered with is something more internal in nature, a "personal vision" defying easy categorization in spite of it's name brand star. Easiest spot to find for it was in the very short-lived Italian "Tarzan" ripoff market which pitted great white hunter types against various topless leading ladies ("Luana the Lady Tarzan", "Tarzak", "Samoa, Queen of the Jungle" et al), yet even that doesn't quite fit the bill. The objectives of "Kong Island" are purely confined to its own fictional universe with no extension to other franchise efforts or ongoing themes. Any weightiness to its cinematic vision instantly diluted by Mad Scientist beaker scenes, beefcake or cheesecake teases, and bare-knuckled brawling. The only attribute which contemporary viewers will likely gravitate is to the hypnotic and lush music keyboard-heavy score created by Roberto Pregadio, which wavers from Exotic lounge music to wordless Spaghetti Western sonata from scene to scene.
Look for the Greek subtitles. If they're there chances are you are watching the "uncut" print. Or at least what people refer to as the "uncut" print.
But a curious point of view on this came to my attention a couple years ago -- and I wish for the life of me I could remember where to credit the brain responsible -- namely that "Kong Island" is a clever if very oblique homage to director John Boorman's 1967 neo-noir thriller "Point Blank". Now you gotta stick with me here for a minute while I lay out the similarities because the idea has merit. I can even suppose how it came to be, namely the imaginative Harris managed to catch a screening of "Point Blank" and decided to appropriate some of the ideas for what essentially became a low budget vanity project to feature his presence. Another source of ideas likely the Cornel Wilde 1967 Survival Thriller favorite "The Naked Prey", from which Harris & Mauri extracted their own all to brief exploration of that movie's basic premise.
Another cut print on DVD, this is also available for streaming from Amazon Prime. Skip it.
Like "Point Blank", "Kong Island" opens with a Heist Movie sequence where an otherwise good-hearted Hero type takes part in a holdup which results in unnecessary loss of life. The Hero's dark-side friend then double crosses, shoots the Hero and leaves him for dead, setting off to establish his underworld ambitions with no further thought. The Hero type then "comes back from the grave" to cure himself of his injury before setting out to settle his score under the watchful eye of an inside/outside man who helps guide the Hero's actions. There's semi-intimacy with both a woman with a past and an innocent pawn who likewise gets caught up in the proceedings. There's an extended scene in a colorful hip nightclub which ends with the Hero having to fight for his life, emerging more or less unscathed with the next key in the puzzle to finding his vengeance.
It's like he's not even there ...
A short list of similarities to be sure, and of course none of it presented with the cinematic fireworks or vision of Boorman's film, which is regarded as one of the top films of the 1960s and a pinnacle final effort in the Film Noir genre. Boorman's film occupies itself with the psychedelia of its age and the central character of "Walker" (tough guy favorite Lee Marvin in his best film) who acts as a catalyst in a larger effort to wipe out the LA mob which serve as its antagonists from within. There's also no jungle or topless Lady Tarzan prancing around between fight scenes, and unlike "Point Blank" our "Kong Island" appears to end on a very concrete note with hero Dawson taking the pretty Diana back to civilization after the two decide Lady Tarzan is best left be in the jungle.
But there is a very interesting scene where Dawson sits quietly on Ms. Alban's bed while she poses for him in her knickers + bra while essentially setting up the plot without being prompted to. He seems to not actually even be there at first and his arrival is not shown, and her being so at ease in his presence while wearing so little in the way of clothing is eyebrow raising. And finds near parallel in "Point Blank" during the scene where Marvin sits on his former wife's sofa wordlessly while she spills the beans on the former best friend who had betrayed him. The two scenes certainly do have obviously different objectives, but one other aspect does seem to link the two plots, namely that Dawson doesn't even seem to be there at first.
No clue what this holds forth. My intuition says copy of Retromedia's DVD showing the Greek print, but the cover was appropriated from the NTSC VHS showing the cut TV print. I doubt they even know themselves just what they have, whoever "Mr. Fat-W" is supposed to be. Purchase at your own risk.
One of the intriguing attributes of "Point Blank"'s story is the question of just what temporal state Lee Marvin's "Walker" character is in. Is he just some guy out for revenge + payback? Or does the film relate his dying fantasy wish for that revenge as he bleeds to death back on Alcatraz? Or, as some argue, is Walker actually a ghost or revenant of his former self as he fades in & out of the shadows lurking at the edges of "Point Blank"'s ingenious widescreen photography. If anything can be said about "Kong Island" it is that it does not feature ingenious widescreen photography, or at least not that much of it, with the surviving English prints sadly pan/scan formatted for 4:3 television screens when it was prepared for home video screening either via television or VHS. I would never try to imply that "Kong Island" shares any artistic ambition near the slickly produced "Point Blank" but would argue that inspiration does sometimes come from the damnedest of places, and chances are good that Harris or Mauri saw "Point Blank" and was impressed enough to try and imitate some of its substance in a low budget potboiler.
OK, so what is Harris' "Burt Dawson" character? Or rather, what is the inner truth of the film's narrative in relation to it's fictional universe? Could Harris and Mauri have picked up on the "Walker is a Ghost" or having a dream fantasy angle and worked it in somehow as well? If so the idea doesn't manifest itself directly in how the story is told aside from Dawson's resigned presence in the conversation scene with Ursula in her underwear, and perhaps the scene in the lushly exotic jungle pool, which looks unreal to begin with. The rest of it could be regarded as a fragmented collection of dream images involving jungle safaris, girls changing into nighties, scheming Mad Scientist types, and robotic radio controlled apes getting to rampage about. The unlikeliness of Esmeralda Barros' "Eva" character could also lend credence to such speculation as there's no way such a real person could exist. The Survival Thriller chase at the hands of savage natives waving spears also ends far too quickly, and not because I suspect anything is cut. It's purpose in the story structure was to propel Burt Dawson into the Sacred Monkey's jungle glade so he could doff his shirt & flex his muscles in a beefcake scene which plays out like a bizarre dream.
Were "Kong Island"'s artistic ambitions even that high? Honestly, I doubt it, but it does make certain characteristics of the film more interesting to ponder. And I do sense a patterning to the first half of the film's length which does indeed mimic "Point Blank" closely enough to give the idea some validation, particularly the nightclub scene and all it's furtive glances between characters who know more than they are saying. Too bad Stu Garner Trio wasn't brought along for another hot psychedelic soul number, but the groovy nature of the scene and its function within the plot both mimic "Point Blank" enough to at least be considered. I mean, who knows? Especially given the scant information which exists on "Kong Island" and the truly miserable state the film can be found in for viewers to consider at all. "Point Blank" has been upgraded to a new HD Blu-Ray transfer, in part because it is an active studio property well-regarded as an artistic breakthrough and one of the best examples of its form. "Kong Island" is ... well, "Kong Island." It doesn't even have a King Kong character, was just hitched with the name as "Eva the Savage Virgin" wouldn't do well in selling it to English language audiences in 1968.
Superb VHS cover from the UK PAL format VHS though the image shown has nothing to do with the movie. I still want one, though ... That's a rack.
In fact, pointing viewers in the direction of just whose meager presentation of the movie to bother subjecting themselves to at all is tricky business. The movie is most widely available in the cut television print titled "King of Kong Island" found on any number of bargain bin DVD pressings by entities like "Treeline Films" or "Synergy Ent." which specialize in recycling unlicensed films for Dollar Store quality presentations. This version runs about 84 minutes, is almost washed out of any print color, and removes any of the cheesecake footage of our Lady Tarzan spilling out of her loincloth. For those scoring along at home the key scene to tell whether you have the cut version or not comes at about the 39 minute mark when one of the natives carrying the luggage points out the Sacred Monkey to our great white hunters: If you don't see Esmeralda Barros in a tree after the guy says "I don't mean the chimpanzee" your print is cut. Sorry, and in fact from what I was able to tell after obtaining numerous pressings of the film, all of the currently circulating English versions except one show the cut print.
The one to score is easily identified by having an English language audio dub but onscreen Greek gibberish subtitles which cannot be removed. This is because the original source was a Greek made VHS from the early 80s which utilized a more complete assembly of the English language print which had Greek subtitles imposed on it for the mid 80s home video rental market in Greece. Finding an original of the tapes can be costly and time consuming, but exploitation movie experts "Retromedia" made a very passable DVD presentation in the mid 2000s which offered this "uncut International print" as a bonus feature. Which was sad but necessary, as Americanized consumers would (and do) go spare when presented with foreign subtitles on a movie which cannot be switched off or masked. Missing the point that the foreign subtitles mean that the print did not go through the censoring process which many films had to undergo before being imported to English speaking markets. Britain being one of the worst offenders in hacking apart low budget exploitation fare to make dopey little movies like "Kong Island" acceptable for their home video industry. Though I suspect the cuts to the "Kong Island" English version were more oriented for television broadcast, mostly because there's so little to see in those versions which contain the nudie scenes.
Retromedia's admirable DVD featuring the Greek subtitled English version, and another marvelous cover which has nothing to do with the movie. Too bad ...
Click here for an Amazon.com "Buying Option" page which appears to offer the Retromedia DVD as a new/sealed item. Best suggestion is to message the seller first to make sure or purchase the "Fulfilled by Amazon" choice in case it needs to be returned. This movie is a tough egg to crack!
Retromedia's DVD has gone out of print but apparently enough of them were made to still be available at a premium price as a new/sealed item on Amazon.com, though I would caution interested parties to message their seller & make sure it is the Retromedia pressing before committing to the purchase. Another likely source of the Greek subtitled English print is what looks to be a retail bootleg sourced from Retromedia's disc pressed by something called "Mr. Fat-W Video" which I will not expend money on as have both the Retromedia disc and an original Greek VHS tape on my shelves. I'm good. In all honestly I'd warn interested collectors off obtaining anyone's DVD at all except what Retromedia made, and look for a used copy on eBay with a picture of their memorable if admirably deceptive DVD cover. Or message your Amazon seller but be prepared for a return situation if what you get ain't the right animal.
As far as online or streaming viewing of "Kong Island" I am disappointed to say that both of the viewing options available at Amazon's otherwise highly worthy Prime Video service show the cut TV print commonly found on the bargain DVDs. Don't bother, at least as of this time. But YouTube has proven more useful with uploads of the Greek subtitled print coming and going. I've even got it on my own channel albeit in a very low resolution form made for viewing on a 2006 era iPod Video, though recorded from my own VHS. Linked below it allows viewers to enjoy the movie in this "uncut" form without giving bootleggers a form then can readily re-distribute for profit. If you want something more clear and sharp dig up the Retromedia DVD. It's something of a collector's item and if intrigued by the movie's charms will make for many repeat viewings to justify the entertainment dollar spent.
More adventuresome viewers might enjoy a predominantly Italian language spoken version I obtained many years ago and just uploaded to my channel. It was another Greek subtitled home video release pressed by the formidable "Cronos Video" who often had remarkably complete export versions of Spaghetti Western or Euro Horror offerings which made Greek tapes such a hot commodity. Mine is sadly marred by a terminal playback flaw at about the 72 minute mark and I efforted a composite using the Greek tape to account for the remainder of the film. And it was only when writing up this blog that it occurred to me that at 88 minutes PAL 25fps it is the longest running presentation of the film yet to surface in addition to being letterboxed at about a 1:58:1 ratio. The color is faded almost to sepia and there is no translation for the Italian spoken dub track, but fans of the movie will find it quite enjoyable. All I ask is that nobody bootleg it, to help ward off which I added the URL to this blog as a watermark. And no, you can't have my source disc, though I will try to fix the tape and try a re-transfer at some point to capture the entire Italian version. I am a geek for stuff like this. No, really.
I this movie for the first time at an Italian Theater on the big screen. Fabulous.
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