Queen Kong is a 1976 British-German comedy film directed by Frank Agrama. The film was never released theatrically in the UK, due to legal action by Dino De Laurentiis, producer of the 1976 King Kong remake. However, it received a limited release in Italy and Germany.
The film has a cult following in Japan. In the late 1990s, a troupe of Japanese comedians produced their own Japanese dialogue for the film, in a similar spirit to Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lily. A version of the film with the new Japanese dialogue was released on DVD in 2001.
The film is notable for starring several well-known names from the British exploitation movie scene. Confessions… series star Robin Askwith (Horror Hospital) plays Ray Fay, the object of King’s affections, and the film also stars Rula Lenska, Valerie Leon (Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb), Linda Hayden (Blood on Satan’s Claw, Exposé). Vicki Michelle (Virgin Witch), Anna Bergman, Felicity Devonshire and Vampyres star Marianne Morris, appear in small, uncredited roles.
The film also features a number of (dreadful) songs, but surprisingly – and contrary to what many people had claimed – is not a sexploitation movie, and has no nudity despite the presence of Askwith and others associated with the British softcore sex film genre.
Although the film was unreleased in the UK, it did have a widely available novelization tie-in, written by James Moffat – a rare example of the author, better known as Skinhead writer Richard Allen, using his own name.
Reviews:
“Make no mistake: this is unsubtle, juvenile comedy, not the works of Wes Anderson. But if you care to look (not that I’d expect most to do so), there’s a fair amount of interesting sexual and racial subtext here. It’s pro-feminist, sometimes surprisingly so… yet if ever there were an example of the “male gaze,” this would be it, with virtually every female character attractive and/or scantily clad.” B- Film Blitz
“The ape, complete with breasts and a hairdo, is clearly a person in a shabby costume clomping around the least believable miniature sets ever constructed. The lack of money did not seem to hamper the sense of merriment in the creation of this film, however, as everyone present (including the extras) often have trouble keeping straight faces.” Film Threat
“The film’s saving grace is that it takes nothing seriously so that it can get away with the odd joke in dubious taste and the generally ramshackle quality of the production. There are some terrible songs (including a musical number courtesy of Luce and her assistants that praises Germaine Greer), and dodgy stock footage of jungle animals and, for some reason, the Red Arrows being called out to combat Kong as she perches atop Big Ben.” The Spinning Image
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