| A*P*E (1976) (Also released as: Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla, Hideous Mutant, The New King Kong, Super Kong) Starring Rod Arrants and Joanna de Varona (aka Joanna Kerns) Music conducted by Chung Min Sup (always delicious with a sandwich) Back in my single days, I led a pretty wild life. Most of these antics must stay implied for the sake of younger readership but let's just say that bargain hunting on Saturday mornings was only the tip of the iceberg! I recall one such expedition vividly: I was perusing one of the older non-Mart department stores (now an empty pigeon hotel) for priceless action figures and movies priced under $5. The adventures were fraught with peril! My feet would often become trapped in sticky red Slushie juice that had been spilled on the linoleum floors before I was born. I struggled to free myself as the Muzak version of Karma Chameleon wafted through the ceiling speaker. Just as I was about to be lulled to a sleepy death, a shrill, 16-year-old voice would blare out, "(giggle) Jennifer, pick-up-line-zero-one-Jennifer-line-zero-one (giggle)!" at 100,000 decibels. But nothing could prevent me from finding the "DOD", or "Deal of the Day" which I've just made up to make you think I know trendy shopping terminology. DODs are recognizable by their golden glow visible only to the shopper. The item I'm referring to was a VHS movie titled A*P*E and it was located on a bargain rack, tightly compressed between Cocktail and Return to Blue Lagoon. The videotapes were wedged together with forces comparable to those found at the bottom of the ocean. Stock boys do this hoping that if you manage to remove one tape, the explosive release of pressure will bury you under an avalanche of movies you wouldn't want to be caught buying, let alone be found buried under. A picture on the back of the box shows the ape, easily identifiable as a man in a bad costume, flipping the bird. This was all it took to make the alarm on my internal cheese radar blare like DEFCOM-1. One rule makes A*P*E a delightful derailment: The star must have, at one time or another, been the star of a completely different genre of entertainment. You can imagine my delight when I discovered the screaming heroine (made famous by Fay Wray) is none other than Joanna Kerns, who played the mom in the 1980s sitcom, Growing Pains. To put that in perspective for you kids unfamiliar with the show, it's like finding a rare remake of the 1930 film Metropolis where the robot lady was played by Mimi from The Drew Carey Show. A*P*E began production in 1976 and, by the looks of it, was finished three days later. It seems to be a parody of the King Kong film that starred Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. For example, they refer to a director in A*P*E as "Dino" (the real-life producer of the 1976 remake of King Kong was Dino DeLaurantiis.) According to the Internet, there is a controversy over whether or not A*P*E is a parody or a serious attempt at a horror movie. I don't know how you could think it's a serious film, but one thing's for certain: Since Webster defines the word controversy as a debate over a serious question, I think we can agree it's not a controversy. I presented a viewing of this movie in my own home for an event dubbed "One-Star Cinema Night." It met with unfavorable reviews but plenty of laughs. Some of the laughs may have been a by-product of the can of German-made Bitburger beer that I drank, accompanied by a few of its friends. As the movie opens, we see a freighter plowing through the mighty ocean! In reality, tiny waves push a little toy boat back and forth so violently that passengers on an actual vessel enduring these conditions would experience severe whiplash and suffer fractured spines. A couple of rowdy sailor-types stand on the deck, discussing the ape in storage below that's "almost 36 feet long." I don't know who these actors are, but you couldn't find two guys more uncomfortable in front of a camera if you just randomly pulled two people from a car and forced them to act at gunpoint. The movie immediately puts to rest a major question: Where did the ape come from? One sailor asks the other, "Were you there in Harlem when they caught him?" HARLEM?! Nah, this isn't a parody. Then they inform us they're transporting the ape to Disneyworld (apparently by way of Korea). Nanoseconds later, a giant ape hand crashes upward through the surface of the deck and the model ship explodes into flames. The explosion looks like someone dropped a bowling ball in the water. Free of the ship, the gorilla thrashes around in the ocean which must be 20 feet deep because the water only comes up to his waist. Then the world's largest shark wanders by and a battle ensues between ape and a real shark! Not a plastic one...a real shark! Notice I didn't say "live" shark. That's right. A guy in an ape suit battles...a dead shark. Actually, it's not so much a battle as it is assault and battery. On a dead shark. And the way he gently tosses it from side to side, it's almost as if he's washing a dead shark. Whatever the case, it's during this scene that you see a small hole in the ape costume just under the armpit where the actor's T-shirt shows through. The ape reaches dry land to tear apart miniature buildings. This made me envious. It would be so cool to destroy a miniature city complete with pyrotechnics! (Did I say that out loud?) The sound effects in these scenes are really strange. As the ape destroys buildings, you hear the sound of someone either raking leaves or someone quickly ripping duct tape off a fish. I haven't decided which yet. With a little research (O.K...surfing), I discovered this movie was originally presented in 3D. This explains why objects are constantly being thrown at the viewer. Some of these 3D scenes make no sense. A man pulls up in a jeep and drives into what I can only describe as a square log that goes through his windshield ...in 3D! In another scene, children play on swings and kick their feet ...in 3D! Journalist/smiling stud Tom Rose meets moviestar/girlfriend Marilyn Baker (played by Joanna Kerns) at the Korean International Airport. Marilyn has arrived in Seoul to shoot her first Korean movie. I big moment in any young actress's life...I guess. Meanwhile, farmers are finding footprints that are "5 or 6 feet long". In fact, every time they're mentioned, the footprints are always "5 or 6 feet long." The measurements are irrefutable. The military brass excuses the footprints as a publicity stunt for Marilyn Baker's movie, or as the colonel refers to her, "Marilyn...somebody." Next, the ape has a bizarre confrontation with the world's largest snake. The cold-blooded colossus is wrapped around a tree, minding his own business, when the big baboon grabs him (for no apparent reason) and throws him at the camera ...in 3D! The fight is concluded. Winner: One proud giant ape. Loser: one very confused snake. The best part is when the snake hits the camera, making it shake. Next, the ape interrupts the filming of a king fu movie involving a man dressed like a professional wrestler and some martial arts-types. The battle is fought with hatchets and hedge clippers. When the ape appears, the actors, instead of running away, decide to use their prop bows to shoot flaming arrows at the ape. And attack his ankles with a battering ram. As soon as the ape meets a hang glider, the movie turns into Ferris A*P*E's Day Off. On his way to investigate the hang glider, he crosses a field in which a cow peacefully grazes but the ape is kind enough to step over it, rather than throw it at the camera ...in 3D! In the first shot, they show a real cow in a field. In the second shot, they place a small, fake and much pudgier toy cow in the field complete with a moving tail! The giant gorilla is also merciful to the hang glider and after bobbing him up and down a few times in his massive paw, he releases him. Meanwhile, the colonel holds a press conference stating that the eradication of the ape will be a joint effort by the U.S. military and the Korean police force. That's good because I'd be worried if it was just the army. Thank God they have the Korean police force as backup! The press fires questions at the disgruntled colonel. Journalist/hunk Tom Rose chimes in: "Come on colonel, I don't think you're owning up to the seriousness of the situation." The colonel fires back, that's alarmist talk, Mr. Rose! ( How the heck did he know who he was? He didn't even know Marilyn Baker's last name and she's supposed to be a major movie star!) Tom persuades Capt. Kim (of the aforementioned Korean police force) to take him along as he looks for the ape right after he stops off at the studio to see Miss Baker. At the studio, Tom interrupts the shooting of a rape scene to have a heart to heart with Marilyn. The sound in this scene is great. Sometimes it sounds like a normal scene and suddenly it's like they're both talking into a tin can held right up to your ear. I own a small collection of 1970s movies and they all seem to have something in common: The sound quality is not very...how shall I put this..."good." Technology has advanced rapidly during the 20th century, but for some reason, sound quality seemed to improve up to the year 1970, then suddenly degenerated back to the warbled sound of a Little Rascals episode. My theory, though completely unsubstantiated, is that the actual film footage had undergone some sort of honey-glazing process, much like a ham. The colonel decides to evacuate northern Seoul because of the mounting death toll. From a P.A. speaker attached to a pole outside goes the cry, "Evacuate the countryside!" Leaving us to hope there are speakers like that in the countryside for people to hear. Meanwhile, Marilyn is doing another rape scene, this time outdoors (to stretch her acting chops, I guess). As she runs from the attacker, Pseudo-Kong sees her running in a red silk robe and scoops her up! After some tromping around the countryside, the ape stops to rests with Marilyn still in his mighty paw. She looks up and says, "Be gentle, big fella." The ape responds with a groan sounding like someone gargling mouthwash. He puts her down and she escapes to a cave. Tom and Capt. Kim are watching all this unfold. Tom says he'll rush in and save her while the ape's distracted. Kim says OK, you can take her to my house in Seoul. She'll be safe there. Safe? He's been crushing houses in Seoul all day! The ape swats down toy helicopters as Tom gets Marilyn to safety. The evacuation of Seoul is depicted by the same dozen Korean extras running from one scene to the next. You never saw so many smiling people (thrilled to be in a movie) running in terror. The ape continues his destruction of Seoul, interrupting a pool game, a prostitute transaction and even a Korean family dinner. As Marilyn operates a marionette (which so far has gotten more screen time than most of the actors), a look comes over her face that tell us she senses something awry. She glances toward the window time and again as if something might be wrong. Call it uneasiness. Call it a woman's intuition. Call it a giant ape knocking over dozens of buildings just down the street. The sauntering simian finally finds Marilyn and plucks her from the building, carrying her around like a cheap dollar store doll with stiff limbs and an oversized head with big frizzy hair. Oh, wait...that's exactly what it is. Judging by the size of the doll, Marilyn has just become tall enough to block a Yao Ming shot. After the military exhausts exactly 0 efforts to capture the ape, the order is given to kill him. They set up an ambush in the countryside so the director doesn't have to build any more miniature cities. What does the army use to lead the assault? The Rangers? The 3rd Infantry Division? No, just a few guys with rifles. (Even elephant poachers use big guns, why wouldn't they be used against an ape that's almost 36-feet tall?) Well, this is the 1970s, maybe the 3rd Infantry Division was capturing Mick Jagger at the Battle of Studio 54. The ape hides the girl behind his back to accomplish two objectives: Protect the girl from gunfire and hide that ridiculous doll from the camera. He sets her down on the ground and takes on the army! Tom declares he's off to save Marilyn. I would have happily accepted this statement as fact, but to properly illustrate this, we are forced to watch Tom run across a field in his leisure suit for what seems to take forever. My buddies seemed to enjoy one scene in particular where the ape throws boulders at army tanks. The boulders are swung on wires causing them to arch in mid-air prompting the remark, "The ape throws curve balls!" Bottle rockets fly all around the giant ape! (Or maybe they're just lit cigarettes ... I can't tell.) Korean soldiers attempt to climb a mountain to get to the ape but he creates a rockslide that causes fake boulders to bounce harmlessly off the soldier's bodies. The army, bummed that bullets didn't do the job, brings in the heavy artillery to bring down the ape. To me, his cause of death seems undetermined. One minute he's flailing his limbs, roaring his mouthwash-gargling sounds and then he suddenly spits up gallons of blood and falls over like he was hit in the stomach by a wrecking ball. Updating the classic King Kong line (“It wasn't the planes that killed him. It was beauty that killed the beast”), Tom holds Marilyn tight and proclaims, “He was just too big for a little world like ours.” Ah! A very poignant lesson. But there's an even greater lesson here that I think everyone should learn; men, women and children alike: Owning an ape suit obligates you to make a bad movie. Not only should you do it, it's your civic duty. |
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Gather your friends and get a case of Bitburger beer
and a pizza to watch model buildings destroyed by a man in a really bad
ape suit!
Colonel's aide: "The
press is waiting for you, colonel."
Colonel: "The hell with
the press! I'm gonna smoke this goddamn cigarette!"
Marilyn to the ape: "Be
gentle, big fella."
Marilyn: "Why do they have to
put him on display? Why can't they take him back to where they found
him?"
Tom: "Have you ever heard of a man shutting
off an oil well that produces 100 barrels of oil a day? We don't live in that
kind of world!"
Colonel (as the ape's being killed by the army): "Let's
see him dance for his organ grinder now!"
Marilyn (crying as ape lays dying): "Oh,
Tom...why? Why??"
Tom: "He was just too
big for a small world like ours."
