[HorrorScience] King Kong Vs Godzilla (1962)

In 1962, a series of coincidences resulted in the confrontation between the two most popular giant monsters in cinema, King Kong and Godzilla, in what would be the first color film for both.

These monsters had other similarities, such as the fact that at the time they only had two films each. King Kong had the original 1933 film and its immediate sequel (Kong's son) released the same year. Godzilla had his original 1954 film and its sequel (Godzilla strikes back) released the following year.  In both cases, the first film was an unprecedented success, which led to a hastily made sequel that did not live up to the original.

Now, finally both characters would have another opportunity to amaze the public, in this film that would be directed by Ishiro Honda, who had achieved great success with the first Godzilla film years ago, so the product was in good hands.

As was the case with almost all Japanese films of the time, this film was manipulated, cut and edited in the worst possible way when it reached the West, as many phrases in the script were changed, absurd scenes were added with American actors who surely did not even know what film they were filming for, at the same time that minutes were removed from the original film and the great soundtrack by Akira Ifukube was mutilated, which was replaced by songs from other films.  However, that couldn't stop the greatness of bringing King Kong and Godzilla together, in what should be an epic film, right?

The film begins when some members of a pharmaceutical industry discover a red substance that could be used as a medicine and, in the process, relaunch their company, which is not going through its best moments. Unfortunately, this product is only found on the island of Faro and the natives are not willing to share it with strangers, as they use it to make a drink that they give to their God, who apparently is a giant monster.

With the idea of ​​the giant monster in mind, the owner of the company sends his men to find out if it is true, so that he can exploit it and make money. Shortly after arriving on the island and winning over the natives by giving them a radio and tobacco (even to the children), the town is attacked by a giant octopus, which is stopped at the last moment by a huge ape measuring almost 100 meters who turns out to be the God of the natives, King Kong, who after defeating the octopus drinks the red substance and takes a nap to the sound of the natives' drums.

On the other hand, Godzilla reappears in the sea after freeing himself from the iceberg where he was captive, which causes alarms to go off in Japan. Fortunately Kong has been taken to the Japanese country, which causes the first confrontation between these two colossi, which I will describe in detail:

Godzilla roars at King Kong and moves his arms in a threatening manner, Kong throws a rock at Godzilla, who uses his atomic breath to burn the surrounding trees showing his destructive power, Kong scratches his head and after briefly meditating, flees surreptitiously without making much noise, which surely left everyone who saw this movie in the cinema looking stupid.

Fortunately the army has more plans to stop Godzilla, but they don't turn out as expected either. On the other hand, Kong is also on the loose and does not hesitate to kidnap a woman he takes from a train car, fulfilling what was expected of him and adding more problems to the army.

The plan to stop King Kong involves putting him to sleep using the drums and fruit juice they collected from the island, thus managing to rescue the girl without risking hurting her.

With Kong asleep, the military learns that Godzilla has reappeared, so they think again about facing both monsters despite the terrible result that idea had the first time.

After transporting Kong using a special thread and balloons to where Godzilla is, the fight is not long in coming. The ape knows that the radioactive saurian has a very bad temper and is capable of breathing fire, so he tries to develop combat strategies that alternate with blows worthy of a drunken fight with which the film will end.

From the first time I saw it, this movie seemed like a great idea wasted in the worst way possible. If we stop to watch the original King Kong film from 1933 and the first Godzilla film from 1954 we will see that both are dramatic and serious. If we go on to see this film from there, it will give us the feeling that they wanted to make a parody of both.

And it must be recognized that as a parody it works very well, since they mix the basic concept of both films and round it off with ridiculous characters, hilarious scenes and a King Kong who looks and acts like Homer Simpson in disguise, which will inevitably cause laughter, but since it is not a parody, that laughter is followed by a feeling of disappointment.

Leaving aside the lack of seriousness of the film, it should be noted that the special effects do not live up to expectations either, some of them may have turned out poorly as this is one of the company's first color films (black and white helps a lot to make up for deficiencies in some effects) but there are others that are not justifiable, starting with Kong's horrible costume, which is much worse than what one can find in costume stores or some scene in Stop-Motion that is far below what has been seen. in much older films.

Although this film is not at the level of the previous Godzilla films (nor many of the later ones), it is worth clarifying that the public went en masse to see it in theaters, making it one of the highest-grossing films of the entire franchise, proving once again that the money a film makes does not have to be linked to its quality.

It is not surprising then that there are many people who love this film and that it is much more popular than other Kong or Godzilla films, but all of that is based on the name and the striking concept of the film itself and not on the quality of its performances, script and special effects, which totally pale in comparison to the previous Kong and Godzilla films.

Curiosities about this movie.

• There is a very popular urban legend about this film, where it is said that in the Japanese version Godzilla wins and in the American version King Kong. The truth is that both versions have the same ending.
• Initially this film was about the confrontation between a giant Frankenstein monster and King Kong, but the idea passed from hand to hand until it was discarded and became King Kong Vs Godzilla. However, the influence of Frankenstein remains latent in the film, especially when seeing that Kong strengthens himself by absorbing energy from lightning.
• Eiji Tsurubaya, the special effects guy, really wanted to make a movie with a giant octopus as a monster, which is why the octopus scene was included in this movie. Not happy with the result, the octopus appeared again in War of the Gargantuas and also in Frankenstein Conquers The World.
• Haruo Nakajima (the actor who plays Godzilla) admitted in an interview that some scenes of the fight between Kong and Godzilla were improvised, since no one on the team knew very well how to choreograph them successfully.