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Yes, I prefer Voyage to Prehistoric Planet for the reasons I stated above. I prefer that element of mystery and not having everything known to the audience plus it is apparently much closer to the original film which I still need to see if at all possible (believe it has been released to DVD in Russia)...

Re-watched the following last night (continuing on the Sci-Fi Classic 100 Pack)....

Kong Island (1968): Former mercenary Burt Lawson (Brad Harris) wants revenge for a double cross that nearly left him dead. His search for his enemy Albert Muller (Marc Lawrence) gets him involved in the attempted rescue of a kidnapped young woman named Diana (Ursula Davis). In reality, it's all a plot by Albert, a mad scientist who's been experimenting with ape mind control technology, to try and capture Burt and subject him to his experiments. Along the way, Burt meets up with another potential target of Albert - a jungle girl living in the wild nicknamed "the sacred monkey" whom Burt names Eva (Esmeralda Barros).

This is pretty out there in terms of a plot (ape mind control, jungle girl, mad scientist also keeping girls in cages) and features a surprisingly high ratio of betrayal with numerous double-crosses by characters out for their own ends. There is a lot of appealing cheesecake on display here though and the actresses are stunningly beautiful especially Adriana Alben whom we see in a bikini early on not to mention the lovely Ursula Davis and Esmeralda Barros. For the ladies, Brad Harris also takes off his shirt and shows off his muscular physique. That said, this doesn't make up for all the dull, dragged out scenes in this film including way too much walking and/or just traveling from here and there, not to mention too many poorly inserted, sometimes poorly chosen stock footage of jungle animals. The gorilla suits are laughably unconvincing too. I'll give this Italian action/sci-fi mish mash 2 stars, one for the lovely cheesecake on display and one for Marc Lawrence's over the top mad scientist. ** out of ***** stars.

Bride of the Gorilla (1951): Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) is a man willing to go to extreme lengths to get what he wants and what he has his eyes on is the plantation owned by his boss Klaas Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh) and Van Gelder's lovely young blonde bride Dina (Barbara Payton). Unfortunately for Barney, his actions lead others to place a curse upon him that turns him into a jungle gorilla beast killer that roams and stalks the jungle at night.

The cast for this movie is actually quite good and very talented. Also on hand is Tom Conway as the Van Gelders' Dr. Viet and Lon Chaney Jr. as jungle police commissioner Taro. It's too bad the material they have to work with here is so corny. This is basically a low budget jungle take-off on The Wolf Man only with a less memorable monster and much less sympathetic characters. It doesn't help that the gorilla suit looks ridiculous and it disappears from the action for long periods of time. I think had they actually had the gorilla more involved in outright terrifying villagers and other cast that this might have been a tad more effective. As it is, it's more akin to a man who quickly loses interest in the woman he's won in favor of roaming the jungle at night like a wild man. The guilt theory put forth by Dr. Viet actually does seem to have some merit in some ways in how this is presented. Still I liked the cast and their performances so I'll give it *** out of ***** stars.