Whilst many will draw the obvious parallels with King Kong (1933), Konga arguably has more in common with the cycle of horror movies produced by Universal in the 1930s and 40s, particularly those that featured Boris Karloff, Lionel Atwill or George Zucco as a monster-making scientist who becomes so absorbed in their work that they lose all sense of perspective and are happy to justify a few deaths in order to further man's advancement.
Here we have Michael Gough in that role as leading botanist Doctor Charles Decker, returning to London after having been missing-presumed-dead following a plane crash in Uganda a year previous. During his exile, Decker learnt a few secrets from a local witch doctor and is keen to exploit them. This includes developing a serum which accelerates the growth of organisms.
Waiting to resume work with him is his assistant-cum-housekeeper Margaret, whose unrequited love for Decker assures her devotion to his cause but is only infrequently repaid through affection. Decker thrusts himself into his new research, but also resumes his teaching at the local college, where he takes a fancy to busty young student Sandra, who has grown up somewhat since he originally left for Africa. Oh, and Decker also brought back with him a young chimpanzee named Konga... So far, so good. That set-up is pretty solid. Unfortunately, as the plot then plays out, things get increasingly daft.
Decker tries out his new serum on little Konga (of course). And little Konga grows. However, this accelerated growth doesn't occur over days or even hours, but is virtually instantaneous, which is rather unbelievable. On this first occurrence, Konga remains a chimpanzee, but when Decker later administers a further dose of the serum, Konga grows again to a height of about 7 feet, and now resembles a gorilla. (In the process, Konga switches from being portrayed by an actual chimpanzee to being played by a guy in a gorilla outfit.) A further effect of Decker's serum is that it makes Konga obedient to his human 'master'. So, when Decker gets into a squabble with the dean of the college who took exception to certain remarks made to the press, Decker decides to get even by having Konga murder the dean for him. Now, I can buy this up to a point in that an ape could be rendered compliant through drugs, but how it can somehow suddenly comprehend a detailed series of instructions delivered in English is beyond me. Still, I suppose Gough's babbling to the ape is that old plot device of actually explaining to the audience what is going on.
The film continues with Decker becoming more fanatical and ruthless, continuing to use Konga to deal with his rivals in science and love, until eventually Margaret's devotion is strained to breaking point by his infatuation with Sandra and she goes rogue. In trying to bring Konga under her own control, Margaret gives the ape more of the serum causing it to grow to gigantic proportions (a size which lacks consistency from scene to scene here on in). But this merely causes Konga to go on a rampage - of sorts. After smashing up the house he carries the helpless and protesting Decker to the centre of London and, for no apparent reason, stops next to the 'Big Ben' clock tower and just stands there while the same police officers who were investigating the dean's murder react with no surprise to incoming reports of a giant ape running amok and round up the army to deal with it.
Although nominally a 'giant ape' film, Konga only appears intermittently and isn't giant in size until towards the very end. It is actually Michael Gough who carries the film in his role of the fanatical Dr Decker, being on screen for about 95% of the time. The character is fairly interesting, as is the relationship between him and Margaret, although a little more depth would have been appreciated. The other characters in the film are very one-dimensional, with the possible exception of George Pastell as Professor Tragore.
I'm sure the fact this this was a colour production was a big selling point at the time of its original release, but Konga surely would have been more effective as a dark, moody and more ponderous monochrome film, and played up the mystery more by keeping the ape largely hidden until the climax. Its pace feels a little forced and it lacks subtlety, and the ending, with the giant ape offering no resistance, isn't the most satisfying. But one can never accuse Konga of being dull, and indeed it is great fun to watch as long as expectations are not too high!
Here we have Michael Gough in that role as leading botanist Doctor Charles Decker, returning to London after having been missing-presumed-dead following a plane crash in Uganda a year previous. During his exile, Decker learnt a few secrets from a local witch doctor and is keen to exploit them. This includes developing a serum which accelerates the growth of organisms.
Waiting to resume work with him is his assistant-cum-housekeeper Margaret, whose unrequited love for Decker assures her devotion to his cause but is only infrequently repaid through affection. Decker thrusts himself into his new research, but also resumes his teaching at the local college, where he takes a fancy to busty young student Sandra, who has grown up somewhat since he originally left for Africa. Oh, and Decker also brought back with him a young chimpanzee named Konga... So far, so good. That set-up is pretty solid. Unfortunately, as the plot then plays out, things get increasingly daft.
Decker tries out his new serum on little Konga (of course). And little Konga grows. However, this accelerated growth doesn't occur over days or even hours, but is virtually instantaneous, which is rather unbelievable. On this first occurrence, Konga remains a chimpanzee, but when Decker later administers a further dose of the serum, Konga grows again to a height of about 7 feet, and now resembles a gorilla. (In the process, Konga switches from being portrayed by an actual chimpanzee to being played by a guy in a gorilla outfit.) A further effect of Decker's serum is that it makes Konga obedient to his human 'master'. So, when Decker gets into a squabble with the dean of the college who took exception to certain remarks made to the press, Decker decides to get even by having Konga murder the dean for him. Now, I can buy this up to a point in that an ape could be rendered compliant through drugs, but how it can somehow suddenly comprehend a detailed series of instructions delivered in English is beyond me. Still, I suppose Gough's babbling to the ape is that old plot device of actually explaining to the audience what is going on.
The film continues with Decker becoming more fanatical and ruthless, continuing to use Konga to deal with his rivals in science and love, until eventually Margaret's devotion is strained to breaking point by his infatuation with Sandra and she goes rogue. In trying to bring Konga under her own control, Margaret gives the ape more of the serum causing it to grow to gigantic proportions (a size which lacks consistency from scene to scene here on in). But this merely causes Konga to go on a rampage - of sorts. After smashing up the house he carries the helpless and protesting Decker to the centre of London and, for no apparent reason, stops next to the 'Big Ben' clock tower and just stands there while the same police officers who were investigating the dean's murder react with no surprise to incoming reports of a giant ape running amok and round up the army to deal with it.
Although nominally a 'giant ape' film, Konga only appears intermittently and isn't giant in size until towards the very end. It is actually Michael Gough who carries the film in his role of the fanatical Dr Decker, being on screen for about 95% of the time. The character is fairly interesting, as is the relationship between him and Margaret, although a little more depth would have been appreciated. The other characters in the film are very one-dimensional, with the possible exception of George Pastell as Professor Tragore.
I'm sure the fact this this was a colour production was a big selling point at the time of its original release, but Konga surely would have been more effective as a dark, moody and more ponderous monochrome film, and played up the mystery more by keeping the ape largely hidden until the climax. Its pace feels a little forced and it lacks subtlety, and the ending, with the giant ape offering no resistance, isn't the most satisfying. But one can never accuse Konga of being dull, and indeed it is great fun to watch as long as expectations are not too high!