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The Unlikely Adventures of King Kong

The 1933 classic “King Kong” inspired a number of strange projects, including two Japanese Kong films that are considered lost and a wealth of ideas ranging from a three-camera Cinerama remake to “King Kong vs. Frankenstein” by Willis O’Brien, the genius behind the original’s special effects. On this episode of “The Online Movie Show,” we look at these remarkable Kong projects with John LeMay, author of “Kong Unmade: The Lost Films of Skull Island.”

The episode can be heard here.

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Destroy All Monsters (1968)

By 1968, the sons o’ fun at Toho were running out of ideas on what to do with their monster movie franchise. In “Destroy All Monsters,” the studio assembled nearly all of their beloved Tokyo-stomping monsters and recycled earlier movie plots regarding extra-terrestrials using the monsters to conquer the Earth. The result was a noisy, raucous mess that will appall the serious cinephile and delight the inner 10-year-old cocooned within the most seriously cynical of adults.
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The Bootleg Files: Detective Felix in Trouble

BOOTLEG FILES 580: “Detective Felix in Trouble” (1932 Japanese amateur animated short).

LAST SEEN: A video of this rare film is online at the Japanese Animated Film Classics website.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The unauthorized use of the Felix the Cat character.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at this time.

Today, it seems that anyone with a video camera and a mania for popular movies can make their own fan film based on the latest multiplex hit. But the concept of the fan film is not new, by any stretch. The earliest known fan film was a 1925 short “Anderson’s Own Gang Comedy,” a South Carolina-lensed riff on the Our Gang series.

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