King Kong vs Godzilla (1963)

Note: This article is specifically about the Universal Pictures "Americanization" of Kingu Kongu tai Gojira (1962).

Primary Genre: Science Fiction

Secondary Genres: Kaiju, Horror, Fantasy

Plot: Godzilla attacks a submarine and begins a cross-country rampage toward Tokyo.  Meanwhile, a comic relief Japanese media & pharmaceutical mogul decides he wants a giant monster for his advertising and sends two adventurers to a Polynesian(?) island to investigate an anesthetic narcotic known to the natives.  They find the both the narcotic and King Kong, and then they use a large amount of the narcotic to subdue King Kong and bring him back to Japan.  What could possibly happen next?

The Good Stuff:

• Never Boring: You can say a lot of bad things about this silly movie, but the one thing it isn't is boring.  It entertainingly zips right along, so it's a lot of fun for movie parties.
• Fun for Kids: Aside from a scene where the adventurers start passing out cigarettes to backward natives and a child demands one, this is a good movie for children.  Most of the violence is fantasy oriented and relative light hearted, and it's an easy story to follow.
• Miniatures: Some of the fun of watching old Godzilla movies is seeing the highly detailed miniature work.  (When I was a kid, the biggest reason for watching a Godzilla movie was to see all the toys.)
• Not Preachy: There are no serious villains in this story, and the plot doesn't agonize over world affairs.  It was a pleasant break from the earlier Toho kaiju movies.  Unfortunately, sometime later Toho kaiju movies started taking themselves VERY seriously and also became overbearingly preachy about world affairs.

The Bad Stuff

• King Kong Eats Lightning Now?  An odd quirk in the plot has King Kong eating electricity.  Yes, really.  And then he uses an electric touch against Godzilla.  We think this might have been a leftover from an earlier version of the plot that would have had a giant Frankenstein monster vs Godzilla.  (Note: Toho did another King Kong movie called King Kong Escapes that discarded this eating lightning thing.)
• Kong Suit: The King Kong suit, is, well, a highly detailed gorilla suit with human facial features. (Compare with the original King Kong which had no physical human features yet could express emotions humans could understand.)  It's a good suit but maybe too simplistic for a kaiju.
• The Natives Are Restive: Although the original King Kong (1933) had its monsters living on an island somewhere off the coast of Indonesia with primitive Negro natives, the primitive natives on this movie's island (somewhere in the Solomons) appear to be mostly Asian actors with brown body make-up.  Maybe. Can't tell what color they're supposed to be; it just looks distractingly weird.

The Who Cares Stuff

• Box Office: The original Japanese version of this movie has sold the most tickets of any other Godzilla movie.  Toho hadn't been planning on making any more Godzilla movies (the previous Godzilla had been made seven years earlier), but its success followed by the huge popularity of Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964) changed their minds.
• King Kong vs "Tako": When the movie introduces King Kong, he's fighting a giant octopus.  This is the only time that comes to mind that a Toho kaiju used a real animal instead of a puppet or a man in a suit.
• Leftover Ideas from Unproduced Movies: Toho had been working on a Frankenstein vs Godzilla movie after they saw a script outline and artwork by Willis O'Brien (the guy who'd did the original King Kong special effects) for movie about a giant Frankenstein's Monster vs King Kong. Toho began development for a giant Frankenstein's Monster vs Godzilla movie, but it became King Kong vs Godzilla.
• The Universal Dub: Most Americans have seen the Universal version, which was heavily reshot for American audiences just as Gojira (1954) would later be altered with Raymond Burr into Godzilla: King of Monsters (1956).  Universal's version (1) adds scenes of commentary by an American news anchor and various experts covering the story in the movie (Really, does this plot require explanation?), (2) replaced the original music with music from earlier Universal movies. (If you've seen Universal sci-fi and horror movies from the 50's, you've heard this music before.), and (3) ended with one of the monsters as the winner (The original version ends with both monsters seemingly destroyed or lost.)  Most Kaiju purists hate the American version, but to be honest: The original went through many plot and concept contortions to get made in first place; therefore, being a purist about it is kind of moot.
• Personal Note: This was the first movie I asked to see.  When I was four, I'd gone to the drive-in with my parents (can't recall what we watched) and saw a trailer for this movie.  Later, when we got home, I said, "I want to see King Kong and Godzilla".  They said, we can do that.

See Also

• Gojira (1954): Godzilla was originally conceived as a kind of giant gorilla sea monster.  (The people who made Gojira were huge fans of both Willis O'Brien's King Kong (1933, which had been re-released in 1952) and Ray Harryhausen's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).)
• Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965): As noted earlier, Toho had been working on a Frankenstein vs Godzilla movie, then scrapped it.  This was the other movie that came from that scrapped idea: A piece of the Frankenstein Monster, mutated when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, becomes (in a roundabout way), a giant version of the Frankenstein monster that goes on a rampage then fights another giant monster.
• The War of the Gargantuas (1966): Two giant furry humanoids rampage around Japan. So, two King Kongs, right?  Not so fast.  The monsters are called "Frankensteins".  Sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World?  Why not?.
• King Kong Escapes (1967): Evil mad scientist Dr. Hu (or possibly Who) decides he needs a creature like King Kong to mine a radioactive element, so he builds a life size robotic replica.  But when the replica fails, he decides to capture and use the real one.  And of course, this being a kaiju, the robot and the original end up fighting....

The Bottom Line: Two of the most popular giant monsters in movie history eventually go WWF on each other.  Silly, childish, inconsistent, but never boring.  Watch it alone for fun, or with friends for even more fun.