Queen Kong (1976) d. Frank Agrama (UK)
With all the ballyhoo leading up to the release of Dino De Laurentiis’ King Kong in late 1976, it was no surprise that other studios decided to ride the wave of free publicity, with numerous low-budget giant primate movies hitting screens beforehand, including Hong Kong’s Mighty Peking Man, South Korea’s A*P*E, and this bizarre mishmash of British sex comedy, parody, and monster flick. (News of the innocuous UK trifle raised the ire of Laurentiis, who sought to stop the film’s release by claiming it infringed upon his intellectual property. Money talks, the injunction was granted, and Queen Kong went largely unseen for many years until Fred Olen Ray’s Retromedia released it to DVD in 2003.)
