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A Tribute to King Kong takes place as part of the The St. Louis International Film Festival Sunday, Nov. 6 beginning at 6:00pm at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium. The first film screened will be the new documentary Long Live The King, which explores the enduring fascination with one of the biggest stars — both literally and figuratively — in Hollywood history: the mighty King Kong. Produced and directed by Frank Dietz and Trish Geiger, the creative team behind the award-winning “Beast Wishes,” the documentary devotes primary attention to the 1933 classic, celebrating the contributions of filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot, writer Edgar Wallace, and especially stop-motion innovator Willis O’Brien. But Kong’s legacy is also fully detailed: the sequel “Son of Kong,” the cinematic kin “Mighty Joe Young,” the Dino DeLaurentis and Peter Jackson remakes, even the Japanese versions by Toho Studios.

Talk about descriptive titles! This generic little indie, set in a Long Beach amusement park terrorized by an escaped gorilla, was one of only three 3-D productions released by 20th Century-Fox in the fifties. It benefits from an unusually good cast including Oscar nominee Lee J. Cobb (the same year he made On the Waterfront!) and contract player Anne Bancroft, who probably didn't include this one on her resume. George Barrows fills out the ape suit a year after playing the diving helmet-headed gorilla in Robot Monster.

The post Gorilla at Large appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Article by Tom Stockman

Though he may have been but an animated model given life through primitive special effects, King Kong, with his doomed loved for the beautiful blonde, has become one of the most beloved of all movie characters, revived in remakes, sequels and knock-offs. But Kong wasn’t the only massive simian to grace the silver screen. Here’s a look at the ten best giant ape movies.

Honorable Mention: A*P*E

The ad campaign for the 1976 Korean film A*P*E warned “Not to be confused with King Kong”. A captive giant ape, after escapes from a freighter and sets his destructive sights on Seoul, Korea where he falls for an American actress (Joanna Kerns ) filming a movie there. A*P*E was originally filmed in 3-D so there are countless shots of a man in a moth-eaten ape suit throwing Styrofoam boulders at the camera.

Monkeyshines! week begins at Trailers from Hell with director John Landis introducing "Gorilla at Large," notable as one of three 3-D productions  released by Twentieth Century Fox in the 1950s, and the only film of its kind where objects are thrown away from the camera.Talk about descriptive titles! This generic little indie is set in a Long Beach amusement park terrorized by an escaped gorilla. It benefits from an unusually good cast including Oscar nominee Lee J. Cobb (the same year he made On the Waterfront!) and contract player Anne Bancroft, who probably didn't include this one on her resume. George Barrows fills out the ape suit a year after playing the diving helmet-headed gorilla in "Robot Monster." ...

Before we called them MILFs or cougars – long before – there was only Mrs. Robinson. She was a mid-1960s adolescent fantasy come true; the sexy, available older woman/housewife next door with an appetite for young not-quite-men/not-quite-boys. She became so indelibly, boldly etched in the public consciousness that the name became a noun – and, for young males, a hope – and the referenced fodder for a thousand if-only-they-were-true Letters to Penthouse.

But the character in the movie The Graduate (1967) was no exercise in wish fulfillment, no Weird Science (1985) or Risky Business (1983) teen’s wet dream. Rather, Mrs. Robinson was a devouring suburban nightmare, a paean to unmoored youth and disillusioned adulthood and life-draining, soul-killing upper middle class ennui.

Over four decades later, the name still resonates, her portrait so deeply carved into the pop culture by Anne Bancroft’s letter perfect Oscar-nominated performance that Mrs. Robinson remains the proto-milf/cougar,...

Chicago – Along with sixteen restored 35mm prints of overlooked cinematic gems, the Music Box Theatre’s third installment of “Noir City: Chicago” brings two renowned film historians to the Windy City: Alan K. Rode and Foster Hirsch. Both men serve on the board of directors of the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit corporation aiming to restore rare noir classics for future generations.

In addition to serving as the co-programmer and co-host of the annual Noir City Hollywood film festival, Rode is also the charter director and treasurer of the Film Noir Foundation as well as the producer, programmer and host of the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs, California. He garnered acclaim for his book, “Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy,” which followed the titular prolific actor through the rise and fall of the studio system. His latest book, “Michael Curtiz: A Man for All Movies,...

So as mentioned before on S & A, this whole 3D craze has happened before back during 1952-54 when Hollywood, as it’s doing right now, believed that 3D was going to be the salvation of Hollywood. But the fad was short lived and despite brief revivals since that period, it hasn’t caught on until now. And how long this trend will last is anyone’s guess.

With that being said, here are a pair of trailers for 3D films during that early period in the 50’s. Besides I love these old trailers anyway. They always try to make the film, no matter how crummy it was, as if it was the most important film you could see in your lifetime.

I remember seeing The Maze many years ago on TV and if you want to know what the big shocking twist is at the end it’s…it’s…...

Actress Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar for The Miracle Worker and a place in pop culture history as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, died Monday of cancer; she was 73. The wife of comedian Mel Brooks, Bancroft died in New York at Mt. Sinai Hospital. One of the most popular actresses of the '60s, Bancroft's career started off dubiously in the '50s with a number of B movies for 20th Century Fox such as Gorilla at Large and Demetrius and the Gladiators. The studio also renamed the young actress, who was born Anna Maria Louise Italiano and originally went by Anne Marno; given a list of names, she chose the dignified Bancroft. However, fulfilling roles for the versatile TV and movie actress didn't follow, and Bancroft left both big and small screens for Broadway in the late 50s, winning two Tonys, for Two for the Seesaw and The Miracle Worker. When Hollywood came calling to adapt both films, Bancroft lost the role in the former to Shirley MacLaine. However, when studio heads wanted a more glamorous actress for the role of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, director Arthur Penn put his foot down and refused to budge. Then faced with a minimal budget, Penn created a gripping black-and-white film which won Oscars in 1962 for both Bancroft and co-star Patty Duke (as Helen Keller). That role was followed by another Oscar-nominated performance in The Pumpkin Eater and the acclaimed The Slender Thread and 7 Women. In 1967, however, Bancroft did a total 180 from her saintly persona as Annie Sullivan and donned leopard-skin lingerie for her role as the wily Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, which nabbed her another Oscar nomination and permanent enshrinement in film history. By then, she had seduced not just Dustin Hoffman but the filmgoing public as well, and for the rest of her career she was pretty much able to call her own shots. She worked almost non-stop through the '70s and '80s in both comedic and dramatic films, including The Turning Point (another Oscar nomination), The Elephant Man, To Be or Not To Be (directed by her husband), Agnes of God (her last Oscar nomination), 84 Charing Cross Road, and Torch Song Trilogy. In the '90s Bancroft took a number of character roles, most notably as a mysterious old con woman in Malice, a menacing senator in G.I. Jane, a comedic matriarch in Home For the Holidays, an elegant trainer of a young assassin in Point of No Return, and an updated Mrs. Havisham in Great Expectations; she most recently appeared in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Bancroft is survived by her husband, whom she married in 1964, and their son, Max. --Prepared by IMDb staff...

Actress Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar for The Miracle Worker and a place in pop culture history as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, died Monday of cancer; she was 73. The wife of comedian Mel Brooks, Bancroft died in New York at Mt. Sinai Hospital. One of the most popular actresses of the '60s, Bancroft's career started off dubiously in the '50s with a number of B movies for 20th Century Fox such as Gorilla at Large and Demetrius and the Gladiators. The studio also renamed the young actress, who was born Anna Maria Louise Italiano and originally went by Anne Marno; given a list of names, she chose the dignified Bancroft. However, fulfilling roles for the versatile TV and movie actress didn't follow, and Bancroft left both big and small screens for Broadway in the late 50s, winning two Tonys, for Two for the Seesaw and The Miracle Worker. When Hollywood came calling to adapt both films, Bancroft lost the role in the former to Shirley MacLaine. However, when studio heads wanted a more glamorous actress for the role of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, director Arthur Penn put his foot down and refused to budge. Then faced with a minimal budget, Penn created a gripping black-and-white film which won Oscars in 1962 for both Bancroft and co-star Patty Duke (as Helen Keller). That role was followed by another Oscar-nominated performance in The Pumpkin Eater and the acclaimed The Slender Thread and 7 Women. In 1967, however, Bancroft did a total 180 from her saintly persona as Annie Sullivan and donned leopard-skin lingerie for her role as the wily Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, which nabbed her another Oscar nomination and permanent enshrinement in film history. By then, she had seduced not just Dustin Hoffman but the filmgoing public as well, and for the rest of her career she was pretty much able to call her own shots. She worked almost non-stop through the '70s and '80s in both comedic and dramatic films, including The Turning Point (another Oscar nomination), The Elephant Man, To Be or Not To Be (directed by her husband), Agnes of God (her last Oscar nomination), 84 Charing Cross Road, and Torch Song Trilogy. In the '90s Bancroft took a number of character roles, most notably as a mysterious old con woman in Malice, a menacing senator in G.I. Jane, a comedic matriarch in Home For the Holidays, an elegant trainer of a young assassin in Point of No Return, and an updated Mrs. Havisham in Great Expectations; she most recently appeared in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Bancroft is survived by her husband, whom she married in 1964, and their son, Max. --Prepared by IMDb staff...