Return of the Ghost of the Son of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 12 - Konga

Leaving the Jungle we are going for a bit of “And the Scientists go Mad” Sidebar.

Whenever I hear the phrase Mad Scientist I find myself wishing that just once a strip like the far side had done something titled Mad Scientist where said scientist is yelling about who took his lunch or something like that rather than raving about some bizarre theory that he will prove to the world.

Well that said, today’s’ film is 1961’s Konga.

We start with the loss via plane crash over the jungle and then the return after a year in the jungle (after being presumed dead all that time) of Dr. Charles Decker – described in the film as a famous botanist. There has never been a famous botanist. As in ever. But it’s a movie so off we go some.

As noted he has returned after a year’s absence at the airport he is met by the press, he answers some questions declares that he’s made some amazing discoveries that he will share and then made a rather odd statement about human/plant evolution which honestly I couldn’t follow – the other odd thing is that he’s holding a baby chimp in his arms. This is Konga he says, he led me to the village when I bailed out of the plane. And didn’t grow in a year one guesses.

Anyway Charles (played with wonderful madness by Michael Grough best known to most folks as Alfred to the Michael Keaton/Val Kilmer/George Clooney Batman) returns to find his assistant Margaret upset that he never tried to get in touch with her to let her know he was alive, and since he came back he’s paid more attention to the monkey than her.  It’s obvious that she has very deep feelings for Charles. Charles shrugs all this off – and then sets about to grow the plants he found in Africa – they are meat eaters and very fake looking. 

Soon his mad plan is clear – liquid taken from the plant is injected into little Konga who turns into an adult Chimp – but all is not well – at class we see that Charles has the hots for a well endowed blonde student of his  named Sandra and later is called on the carpet by the dean about the airport interview – Charles decides that yelling at the dean is a good idea and is pretty much told they will be asking for his resignation.

Back at the lab Charles injects Konga again – and Konga turns into a man in a gorilla suit. It’s not as bad a suit as say the suits in Bride of the Gorilla was but it’s still an obvious suit – for one thing the stunt man stands bolt upright the whole time. Not knuckle walking for Konga no sir ree bob.

And the other part of the discovery that Charles made in Africa was that animals injected with this plant stuff can be controlled by the will – or something. Anyway we have the I am your master speech and then Charles drives Konga in a big van that he has for some reason – to the dean’s office Where Konga kills the dean (well what else?)

The police are baffled. Margret is not very quickly putting two and two together (huge ape in cellar, Charles has fight with Dean, Dean killed by someone with enormous strength) but doesn’t turn him in she’s too in love with him (why she’s so attached to the cold fish is beyond me but hey we’ve all made bad choices) Charles agrees to marry her at the end of the term but to keep the engagement a secret.  M, kind of graphing a straws here, agrees. My dear he just siced his gorilla on a Dean that was in his way.  At some point you’d have to think my dear that  you’re going to be on the monkey’s hit list.

And so the film progresses – Charles keeps finding people to kill – one a fellow scientist who is working along the same lines as him and not wanting to be second has the ape kill him.  Then on a field trip a student Young Bob is a bit outspoken about the creepy attention Charles is playing Sandra – ending in a fight.  So of course shortly after than – just before he gets on his scooter (I ride a vs scooter with my hair cut neat) he is changed into dead meat.

M is by now concerned that the police will eventually show up see the big ape in the cellar and pretty quickly figure out what is going on. Charles agrees, they will destroy Konga and head for the wild but first we should have that poor Sandra over for dinner.  M agrees (not the sharpest knife here our M)

After dinner Charles puts the moves on Sandra –(it’s a creepy scene and hard to watch really) M sees this, then heads to the cellar – reprograms Konga (using a flashlight) and then for good measure injects him with more make the ape bigger juice.

The Konga then becomes huge( in the process killing M and setting the lab on fire) and the special effects become awful – seriously Dr.Who of the same era did better.  At any rate Konga grabs the good doctor. We leave poor Sandra with her arm caught in the clamps of a very large and fake Venus flytrap looking plant which was rather unfair of the film I thought – still they had been advertising the carnivorous nature of these plants all film – they had to put the chomp on someone.

Added to this is the arrival of the Fire Department – who in a pretty funny scene go about their work of putting the fire out ‘I want a two inch hose here and a one inch stream on the windows”  until one of the happens to look up and see the huge ape standing there.

Konga now pretty big – hard to get a real sense of scale here – wanders about London – as ape rampages go it’s not much – he just walks and the folks panic. No buildings wrecked nothing.  Charles keeps saying let me go but Konga his own ape now. The close up of the ape as the suit wears eyes shift back and forth are among the silliest parts of the film.

The army is then called out and by Big Ben – stand in for the Empire State Building – Konga is riddled with bullets – one notes there was no ‘wait we might hit the man he’s holding in hand’ Nope acceptable losses bring the ape down.  Reeling from a hail of bullets Konga hurls the doc at the troops then dies himself.

Upon death he reverts to his original size leaving the authorizes to wonder what the heck happened.

Silly film worth watching for Mr. Grough’s wonderful portrait of a real nutcase scientist.

Enjoy with fruit and nuts.