King of Kong Island (1968)

Eve is a jungle girl brought up by apes. She is captured with a number of apes by a mad scientist, conducting mind control experiments on them. Eventually she is liberated by a young explorer.

Director:

Roberto Mauri (as Robert Morris)

Writers:

Walter Brandi (story), Roberto Mauri

Stars:

Brad Harris, Esmeralda Barros, Marc Lawrence

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Brad Harris	...	Burt Dawson
Esmeralda Barros	...	Eva - The Savage Girl
Marc Lawrence	...	Albert Muller
Adriana Alben	...	Ursula
Mark Farran	...	Robert
Aldo Cecconi	...	Theodore (as Jim Clay)
Paolo Magalotti	...	Turk (as Paul Carter)
Mario Donatone	...	Forrester (as Dan Doney)
Miles Mason	...	Malik - The Gorilla
Gino Turini	...	Turk's Goon (as John Turner)
Ursula Davis	...	Diana
Gianni Pulone	...	Payroll Robber (as Bianni Pulone)

Storyline

A group of mad scientists travel to Kong Island where they implant receptors into the brains of gorillas planning to create a gorilla war for world domination. Out to break a few heads is a descendant of King Kong.

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Plot Keywords:

mind control | female nudity | mad scientist | jungle girl | experiment | 

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Taglines:

From the forest came the terror of...

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Unrated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although the U.S. version was promoted under the title "King of Kong Island", the on screen title reads simply "Kong Island".

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Quotes

Albert Muller: [to Burt Dawson] You're an excellent specimen of the human race - strong, clever, brave. That's why I've chosen you for my first experiment on a human being. You'll have the honor of being the first man to become my slave.

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Alternate Versions

The Retromedia DVD release offers two variants of Eva- La Venere Selvaggia ('Eva-The Savage Venus')- 'Kong Island' a watered down version that played US theaters in the late sixties and 'King of Kong Island' the 'uncut European version'. 'Kong Island' looks the better of the two but is poorly panned and scanned and removes shots of the thrill-seeking daughter's gorilla observed striptease, the whole introduction of Esmeralda Barros' topless female Tarzan character as well several instances where Barros' long hair fails to hide her bosom. Despite Retromedia's hyping of 'See: chicks without their tops' these scenes are unlikely to rustle even the most conservative of collars nowadays. 'King of Kong Island' restores all these previously censored moments, offers a new title sequence and presents the film in widescreen. Unfortunately this version has been sourced from a Greek video release, and so features large Greek subtitles, and quality which is bellow par for a DVD presentation. An uncut, letterboxed British release on the 'Intervision' label in the early 1980's, began the film with its US 'Kong Island' credits, but concluded with the Italian end credits (!), that allowed for a reprise of Barros' slow motion nude jog and alluded to the film's Italian/Spanish/New York financing

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Connections

Referenced in Best of the Worst: The New Gladiators, Exterminator 2, and Aftermath (2013)

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Soundtracks

Jungle Shake
Written by Roberto Pregadio
Performed by Roberto Pregadio

User Reviews

Life is cheap but ape suits are expensive

We now go to East Africa, where life is cheap but clearly ape suits are expensive. And by Africa we mean a studio back-lot somewhere in Italy that doubles for the "island" in King Of Kong Island.

I must have denghi fever and it's my insane imaginings that jungle B-films were the property of the 1930s and 40s: what could be described as "Apesploitation", or the "Monkeys Going Bananas" genre. And yet in the 1960s, with Planet Of The Apes one of the most popular films of the year ("You dirty rotten stinking apes!") we have Night Of The Bloody Apes (1968) from Mexico, soon followed by the Italian sexploitation film Queen Kong (1976), and Hong Kong's Goliathon/Mighty Peking Man (1977). It may be man's endless fascination with our lesser-evolved simian twins, or we just can't help but get a cheap laugh out of a guy in a monkey suit.

King Of Kong Island opens with a dastardly scientist Dr Muller using stolen goods to fund his surgical experiments on gorillas. Now, seriously, "gorilla"? Even I own a better monkey suit than this. Cut to a hunting expedition led by Burt (Brad Harris, the American actor who played everyone from Samson to Goliath and Hercules) who is ambushed by not one but TWO "gorillas", complete with surgical scars, who kidnap Diana, the most attractive of the group. Despite his previous mission's complete and abject failure, Burt is charged with bringing Diana back, past miles of stock footage - although to be truthful the producers did find a parrot and a cockatoo and a few pink flamingos for a shirtless Burt, who at times resembles a shaved ape himself, to chase around a studio lagoon.

In an amalgam of every thirty-year old jungle cliché, Burt comes across some spooked natives in awe of the Sacred Monkey God, a helpful chimp and a jungle girl called Eva, who can't utter a word of English but speaks fluent monk-ese, which leads Burt to look her square in the eye and ask, "Are you the Sacred Monkey?" Unbelievable. The hunt ends at Dr Muller's underground dungeon-cum-laboratory in the middle of the jungle where the insane megalomaniac - and the King of the title - has turned the apes into radio-controlled zombies, manipulated by an enormous Electronic Brain.

The film was picked up by American producer Dick Randall, an old-fashioned expert in hullabaloo who was as colorful as the characters in his own Z-grade pickups. Born in the US but based mainly in Rome, Randall was the guy who filmed Jayne Mansfield's grieving family a week after her death and immediately edited the footage into his 1968 mondo film The Wild World Of Jayne Mansfield. He also sold the Filipino midget James Bond spoof For Your Height Only (1981) to the world and turned the two foot nine star Weng Weng into an unlikely international superstar. He could sell a chainsaw massacre to Texas with the 1982 Spanish slasher film Pieces, and could sell a turkey-baster to Foghorn Leghorn in the same breath as he sold this turkey.

Did I say "turkey"? I meant "gorilla", and as honorary Great White Hunters we should approach this film with the right spirit, whose concepts are as absurd as the very idea of white colonialism itself.

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

29 September 1968 (Italy)

Also Known As:

King of Kong Island

Company Credits

Production Co:

Three Star Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min 85 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1