Konga. *2 New clips. Official UK DVD restored release review/trailer/artwork/stills/lobbies. Available 13th May 2013.

Konga.

Starring Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon, Austin Trevor, Leonard Sachs, Jack Watson.
Directed by John Lemont.
Produced by Herman and Nathan Cohen.

Konga. Official UK DVD trailer.
Konga is an extremely enjoyable and effortlessly watch-able "Creature Feature" or "Mad Scientist" Anglo American science-fiction exploitation horror film from 1961, and no as you can see from the above official cover art it's not about a giant eel.

It has a brand new transfer from the original negative and is being released as part of "The British Film" series of newly restored and converted titles available on UK DVD for the first time.

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"Konga". The new UK DVD release review. 
While on an expedition to Africa, aspiring Botanist Dr Decker's light aircraft crashes in the jungle, to the rest of the World he is presumed dead. One year later he miraculously returns to London, when he arrives back in England, clutching a baby chimpanzee, he calls "Konga", he is met by the Worlds Press at the airport's lobby. He explains to them how he managed his survival and that he has also discovered a potentially wondrous new serum that would allow plants and possibly animals, to grow to incredibly large sizes and so being a possible way of feeding the ever increasing population explosion.

Dr Decker had brought back with him from his jungle expedition, many specimens and forms of carnivorous plant life, that he and Margaret his girlfriend, who also assists him in his experiments, quickly plant out in his large botanical greenhouse. These soon grow to mammoth proportions and are similar to "Venus Fly Traps" and "Pitcher Plants" in nature and appearance but of an extremely larger size. Margaret is very surprised if not shocked to see Dr Decker actually feed the plants meat at first and he warns her not to get to close to them or they may try to eat her.

Initially his intentions are for good but when he comes up against his superiors at his Academy about being able to continue his experiments but with animals this time, he is refused flatly and is ordered to cease work on the project immediately. This infuriates Dr Decker, so he conspires to continue his experiments but in secret at his home in his basement and Botanical Greenhouse, although he is still able to lecture the students at the Academy about his findings, he decides to remove any opposition that might stand in his way.

He sets about performing his experiments by injecting, his baby chimp, "Konga" with his new growth serum secretly, against the orders of the Academy's Head and then later he also starts to focus his crazy attentions on one of his young female students from his class, Sandra Banks, which really begins to get under the skin of her boyfriend, Bob Kenton. From this moment on Dr Decker becomes totally obsessed with his illegal experiments and the student girl, Sandra Banks with ultimately tragic and murderous consequences.

Konga. Official clip.
This was a supremely enjoyable and superior little horror film, produced and written by American "cult classic" legends Herman and Nathan Cohen who had been behind "I Was A Teenage Frankenstein", "How To Make A Monster" as well as many other instantly recognisable B-Movie classics, so produced and written in America but based and filmed in the UK, in and around Croydon, London in 1961. 

The first thing I noticed was the picture quality on this new DVD release. The vibrant colour contrast of the cinematography and the very stylish art direction for a sci-fi horror film are notably unique, especially for the time in particular, everything really stands out, from the quirky futuristic opening credits, to its sets and locations colour styling, it is beautiful film to look at and watch.

It has Michael Gough giving one of his finest and most inspired performances as Dr Charles Decker, the "Mad-Genius" professor of the story, nearly holding up the whole film and who is also in nearly every scene, his English gentleman "gone mad" portrayal of Dr Decker is outstanding and not to be be missed. 

It also has several other young actors and actresses who were to be "pivotal" to early swinging sixties British films, which addressed the "counter culture" of the "Beat Generation" of the time, those being and including Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon and an uncredited Stephen Berkoff, who sadly has no spoken part but has a small walk-on role.

Jess Conrad is Bob Kenton, the slightly disgruntled and somewhat "teen-age angst" confused boyfriend of Sandra Banks, who is played by the delectable, Claire Gordon. His Bob Kenton character is pretty stereotypical of a "beat generation" teenager in these kind of films, he's a young man who is hip and cool, into all the latest music, he has a Lambreta scooter and he wears a very cool up to date angora/mohair sweater, but sadly he's chasing the girl who is slightly more intelligent than he is. Sandra Banks (Claire Gordon) is of out of his league and he just can't understand why she is more into her studies of plants, insects and biology than him.

About half way through the film everything begins to break down really nicely as Dr Decker grows more and more insane, Margaret realises she could end up being bumped-off by him as he sends "Konga" out to kill his opposer's at the Academy and she notices all the sudden attention he is plying on his new young female student, Sandra.

Konga. Official clip.

So it's not just about a giant Gorilla on the rampage through London, although that does happen and is really charmingly executed with old school "Pre CGI Special Effects" of "shrunken" small scale "model set-ups" and plywood buildings getting trashed as a very definitely, man in a Monkey Gorilla "suit" runs amok in and through Croydon. There is a really nostalgic scene towards the end of "Konga", when he has grown to gigantic proportions, which is filmed in a real high street somewhere on location in Croydon, where you can catch a glimpse and a flavour of real 60's British life, as quite a few ordinary people as extras are lined up outside the old style local to that area shops, it is quite possible they are the actual residents and shopkeepers themselves.

So underneath all the fantastic photography going on there are some other quite deep and questioning scientific and social sub plots happening, like interfering with nature and the environment, "Playing God" with the new science and technology of early "Genetically Modified" plants and animals and of course everybody being a "square", from the young persons perspective.

It does actually try to ask some pressing questions, so over all it is exemplary example of late 50's "Cold War" sci-fi terror combined with a misunderstood youth culture theme, that marked the changing social, scientific and political horizons of the early 1960's.

Highly recommended midnight movie, quality entertainment, this new UK only DVD edition of "Konga", one of the first monster movies to be filmed in colour, is from a brand new transfer from the original film elements and is presented in it's original theatrical cinema aspect ratio, the DVD also includes the original theatrical trailer and a stills image gallery.
Available in the UK and on export from Network Distribution UK.

"Monster Monkeys Going Ape-Spit". 
Primates in Cinema: A Brief History.
Soon after the mapping of Africa and their discovery in the 1800's, Gorilla's and larger primates were thought of and conceived as, hugely dangerous scary monstrous animals to a developing Victorian society of the time and that were also very unpredictable and that also had an immense strength, so they featured quite regularly in "Penny Dreadfuls" and short horror stories and also to in the early days of horror cinema. 

Edgar Allen Poe had used the concept of a large ape in his short story "The Murders At The Rue Morgue", which was made into a film in 1932, followed a year after this by the classic, "King Kong", which was directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, the giant gorilla effects were animated by Willis O' Brien, his stop-motion effects were to inspire legendary special creature effects genius, Ray Harryhausen.

Unruly Apes or Gorilla's continued to be an element in early horror films right up until the 1940's with "The Ape", starring Boris Karloff and then later in 1943 "The Ape Man", starring Bela Lugosi. Though with the rise of new horror movie monsters like "Dracula", Frankenstein" and the "Werewolf", angry scary primates fell out of favour with horror movie going audiences, directors and the major studio's alike.

Angry frightening primates have figured in cinema since then though of course with, "Planet Of The Apes" and it many sequels. "King Kong" has had two remakes in 1976 and 2005 and he's even fought "Godzilla" back in 1962. Also there has been the low budget modern horror, "In The Shadow Of Kilimanjaro" 1986 with starving rampaging Baboons based on a "real life" event.

Konga was also converted to a long running comic series from 1960-65.