King Kong vs. Godzilla is an eccentric departure from the Godzilla norm, featuring a man in a gorilla suit (King Kong), fighting Godzilla, freshly released from his iceberg enclosure from the end of Gigantis the Fire Monster. The film had its roots in earlier concepts for a new Kong feature put out by Willis O'Brien before his death. In the original proposed script, the gorilla King Kong was supposed to fight against a giant version of the Frankenstein creature. The Japanese studio executives swiftly replaced the Frankenstein monster with their own flagship giant monster, Godzilla. This was the first color feature for either monster. There is something of an urban legend about the possiblity of a dual ending, a victory for Kong in the American version, a victory for Godzilla in the Japanese one. This is mostly false, though the American version features inserted scenes and ends with a roar from Kong alone rather than both monsters, perhaps slanting an otherwise ambiguous outcome, but not a true alternate ending. The film is obviously a spoof of commercialism. Some critics also claim that Kong represents the resources of the Pacific Islands and Godzilla reprises his symbolism as the United States.
Trivia: The Davy Crockett, a portable rocket system for launching as small nuclear or conventional warhead, appears in the movie while still classified.
Toho, 1962
