Comments on: Gorilla at Large (1954)

By: GalaxyJane

GalaxyJane — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:43:45 +0000

Andrew, I never had the Captain 20 membership card, but my younger sister might have. She was a faithful WOW fan. Being the older sib, I much preferred the Captain in his Count GoreDeVol persona, who may have even hosted this movie, but my adult memory tends to mix a lot of the childhood horror show bits up.

Sadly, my den is decorated in movie posters AND my personally autographed Count GoreDeVol photo has pride of place!

Living all the way down in Lynchburg, we only got the Captain on cable, so I don’t remember Captain Chesapeake at all.

By: James Lee

James Lee — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:31:40 +0000

“The film includes a brief but nice discussion of Barrowâ€™s gorilla suit work. It was from this that I ascertained that Barrows played Konga.”

Actually Barrows didn’t play Konga, but his costume was loaned to the film. Barrows was angry when he got it back because the British stuntman playing Konga had poked breathing holes in the suit, and had failed to groom the fur.

Hope this helps!

By: turkish spock

turkish spock — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:35:09 +0000

I, too, saw this on TV in one of those ‘pick up your free 3-D glasses at your local wherever’ deals. I loved it then, and I love it now. In fact, I don’t think there’s a horror movie with a circus setting that I don’t love.

By: Jack Spencer

Jack Spencer — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 01:10:21 +0000

I started reading this, and then I realized that I OWN THIS MOVIE as it was part of a Midnite Movies boxed set I picked up a month ago, which included “Konga” another giant gorilla flick I had seen when I was a wee tyke and starring Michael Gough. Good Lord, was that man ever young?

In any case, I think I’ll go see the movie first. :-)

By: BeckoningChasm

BeckoningChasm — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:44:52 +0000

“Mystery on Monster Island” boring? Yikes, more like excruciating. Someone stole the worst “Scooby Doo” script of all time and decided to change all the characters to avoid lawsuits (I’m speculating).

I was entertained by “Gorilla at Large,” though. At least it was extremely colorful and had good production values.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:50:58 +0000

GalaxyJane I recall when DC20 had the 3d fetish as well. Though I recall going to the 7-11 to get glasses to watch Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Since you dredged up all those WDCA memories, did you have a Captain 20 membership card? Mine was taped to the side of my black and white TV. (Of course, living between DC and Baltimore, I was torn between Captain 20 — doing his Star Trek shtick– and Captain Chesapeake on channel 45.)

By: Sandra

Sandra — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:45:25 +0000

I don’t think the tv series based on Greatest Show On Earth “bombed and was quickly cancelled”. I remember it being on for at least a couple of years. OOps, betraying my age there. I was a small girl at the time, of course :-D

By: Roger Hylton

Roger Hylton — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:19:47 +0000

I was curious to find out who played the white gorilla monster on Star Trek. I was pleased to discover that the equally prolific Janos Prohaska also played the childhood favorite “cookie bear” on the Andy Willliams show.

Thank you internet gods for facts like that and Ken (^_^)

By: Ken Begg

Ken Begg — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:11:09 +0000

Barrows indeed had a pretty good ape suit, and like a lot of ape suit actors, he constantly tinkered with it. I’m sure it’s the same body suit he used in Robot Monster.

As for Toho’s Kong movies, the still cap of the other ape suit is far closer to the mark.

By: Zandor Vorkov

Zandor Vorkov — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 03:56:02 +0000

This came on TV when I was a kid and there was a huge fuss over it. “GORILLA AT LARGE … AT LARGE … AT LARGE …” I already had a pair of 3D glasses that, I think, came with some Nintendo game or another. Unfortunately, they were red and blue and the movie was shown in red and GREEN. I don’t remember much about the movie, except that it hurt my eyes to watch, what with being red and green. Is it just me, or does the gorilla suit’s face not look much worse than the ‘76 King Kong? I would go so far as to say it looks better than Toho’s unfortunate Kong suits …