King Kong Escapes (DVD)

A guilty pleasure I remembered from my younger days. Kong costume is poor, but remember this is a Japaese film and most of the monsters in these movies (Godzilla, etceteras) are a bit cheesy looking. This was limberger! For the story line of course there is Kong's proverbial fascination for blondes, Linda Miller (who interestingly was an American model living in Japan at the time she was cast for the film). According to IMDB she only appears in one other film and if you get this movie you'll know why, but then again her voice was dubbed. It's interesting that in 1967 the story line develops a relationship between Lt Watson (Miller)and Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura (Akira Takarada)! Wow, an interracial love interest! Rhodes Reason is here (Rex Reason's brother of "This Island Earth" fame) who does an okay job and Paul Frees (from the Bullwinkle cartoons and many of Rankin Bass' other productions) dubs the voice of the evil Dr Who (Eisei Amamoto). My fascination was with the Mecha-King Kong which looks really cool and the battle scenes with Kong are really set up well. What else can I say, it's not "To Kill A Mockingbird" or "A Beautiful Mind". It's just good fun!