KONGA - Gerard Schurmann - "I Was A Teenage Gorilla" (1961)

Welcome to redux Wednesday, and a movie I wrote about the first year I did this blog back in 2007!! I usually leave these up to Tabonga, but his "Konga" DVD wouldn't play, and since I had just recently scored one at Big Lots for $3.00, I volunteered for the job! Back in 2007 I wrote: "Michael Gough can be a devilish soul, &  in "Konga" he probably plays his best role of a really 'not nice' guy. His assistant Margaret loves him; she's so lowly, she doesn't even have a last name and he treats her like crap. Sandra Banks adores his intellect, but has no clue that he's just a dirty old pervert after her bod, not her mind. He has his big monkey kill anybody that pisses him off, and he's growing giant phallic-looking, meat-eating plants in his greenhouse." And that pretty much sums it up!

So where do you suppose they possibly derived that name from?

Michael Gough is Dr. Charles Decker!

First question, why is Konga such a goober? He looks like he could have been the fourth stooge!

The Doctor is completely mad, but his assistant loves him dearly! This ain't exactly a love story!

Michael Gough's character is such a two-face slime dog, I thought this transition shot captured him perfectly!

The Dean of the school that Dr. Decker works at should have kept some of those uncomplimentary remarks he made about Dr. Decker's research to himself!

This famed scientist wanted to collaborate with Dr. Decker, but finds out too late that Decker doesn't like any competition!

Now we get to the fun part! There's a guy here who is named Bob Kenton, and he is Sandra Banks' boy friend. Bob knows that there's something dishonorable how the professor is acting just a little too friendly with his girlfriend, and he doesn't like it!

Bob Kenton was played by a popular singer of the day, Jess Conrad! Although the

little bit of jazzy music written by Gerard Schurmann they have in "Konga" is very cool, it would have been a lot neater if they would have had Jess perform a tune or two! That would have catapulted this movie into the cult hall of fame!

As you can see, Jess was no slouch, sharing the bill with the ever popular Brenda Lee! Jess Conrad also has the distinction of having at least 7 songs like "This Pullover," "Why Am I Living," and "Cherry Pie" on The World's Worst Records list compiled by DJ Kenny Everett, but you can take that with a grain of salt, because also on that list is one of my personal favourite songs of all time, "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus!!

Not a very nice way to treat an innocent teenager back in 1961, Dr. Decker has Konga dispatch poor Bob! He never even saw it coming!

Dr. Decker can't seem to keep it together, it's no wonder his scientific experiments are going haywire, he obviously has his mind on something a little more primitive!

Sandra Banks tries to get through to the Doctor that she's not interested in him, but he doesn't get it, and the fact that you might say she's just a little dense doesn't help matters either!

Oh, My! This lobby card doesn't appear to be doctored up at all! That's exactly how the movie looks!

I don't know how much Herman Cohen spent on special effects, and I guess it was okay back in the 60's when you only saw a scene like this for a couple of seconds in a theatre, but these days when you can stop a DVD on any given frame, it's so bad, I think the movie would have been a lot better without this doll scene!

This effect didn't come across much better, and Konga actually looks dumbfounded by the whole thing!

In this shot, Konga does his best impersonation of Barney Google, the man with the goo-goo-googley eyes!

It's doubtful that anybody could do a better job than Michael Gough at pretending they were getting squished by a giant gorilla hand! I love this shot!

Talk about timing, it just so happens that this coming weekend is the Annual Fundraising Ball for The Grand Order Of Water Rats of which Jess Conrad is currently The King Rat! If you'd like to become a friend of The Rats, then head on over to HERE and join up! Good people, they raise money for everything from "The British Theatre For The Disabled" to The Multiple Sclerosis Society!!!