Review of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) by Jonathan B — 29 May 2014

This is more like some kind of ludicrous WWF contest than a monster film and is clearly played for laughs and aimed at the more juvenile end of the market. The two leviathans are pitched against each other for no apparent good reason other than, well, because they can be.

Kong in particular looks very ropey and flea-bitten and strangely ginger. It's as though the Kong suit was designed by someone who had never seen a photo of a gorilla and had had one described to him down a particularly crackly phone line.

There are also some scenes that make the modern audience wince with discomfort as a couple of explorers hand out cigarettes to badly blacked-up Japanese "natives", one of whom is a child. It all feels rather cheap and nasty and fails to hit the mark as either a comedy or a thriller.