Bride of the Gorilla

An essay on recent world history, in the light of King Kong (dirs. Cooper & Schoedsack). “I sometimes feel as though I don’t even speak my own people’s language. Since I became an official, I—I seem to be standing outside their code of law.”

On his wedding night he departs for the jungle. “It walks in his hind legs.”

“Like a man?”

“No, like a beast that walks like a man. Oh, that terrible voice! Not only I have heard it, my friends here have heard it, too.” The South American jungle. “I wish I knew what he was doing out there.”

“Mrs. Chavez, the next time he goes into the jungle, why don’t you accompany him and find out? But if you should, be sure and go well-armed.”

From the author of The Wolf Man (dir. George Waggner) and Donovan’s Brain (dir. Felix Feist), the mind of the beast. “I—I heard something. Something I never heard before, something strange and beautiful. A voice—calling me. I couldn’t resist going out there, I couldn’t resist getting closer and closer. The next thing I knew, I—I was in a trap.” A reconciliation. “I—I’ll buy you clothes in Paris, and then we’ll go to London.”

“And I’ll buy you clothes in London.”

“All my life I’ve had to fight... the animals talk to me, I understand them, I understand them! They’re afraid of me, afraid of me.” A medical consultation. “He was rational up until a few days ago!”

“These natives have many ways of driving a man out of his mind... he has to be put away, he’s dangerous.”

Leonard Maltin, “terrible”. TV Guide, “extremely silly”. Craig Butler (All Movie Guide), “dull, dull, dull.” Halliwell’s Film Guide, “incredibly inane two-bit shocker.”