Sleazy promoter Max O’Hara (Robert Armstrong) travels to a stage-bound Africa in search of special acts for his new nightclub. He finds Mighty Joe Young, a giant gorilla, and his teenaged human friend, Jill Young (Terry Moore). With a little fancy talking, he persuades Jill to come to America where he uses her and Joe in various degrading theatrical shows until Joe’s had too much and runs amuck. Jill’s falls in love with cowboy Gregg (Ben Johnson) and the two try to save Joe.
Mighty Joe Young is the juvenile version of King Kong, and as such, it isn’t bad entertainment for the under six crowd. For anyone older, it wanders between insulting and frustrating. In Kong I was sympathetic to the great ape, but didn’t want horrible things to happen to the humans involved. This time, I wanted Joe to rip the arms off of everyone he runs into and was irritated that he never did.
Much of the King Kong team is back: director Ernest B. Schoedsack, writer Ruth Rose, co-writer/producer Merian Cooper, stop motion animator Willis O’Brien, and actor Robert Armstrong, who is playing essentially the same character. The one significant addition is Ray Harryhausen, who, working under O’Brien, was responsible for almost all of the effects. Harryhausen would go on to become the most important figure in cinematic effects history.
It would have been nice if that group had come up with a few new ideas, but Hollywood was a different place then. With no DVDs or video tapes, people didn’t have easy access to classics, like King Kong, so films could be made without the audience being able to easily compare them to previous efforts. Why not dust off a past success? Of course then why not keep the scope, the mystery, and the grandeur as well? Mighty Joe Young feels small, and I don’t just mean that the title character would only come up to Kong’s knee. The sets are claustrophobic and there is no grand adventure to inspire a generation. There’s just unappealing people and a jerking ape. Kong was a magnificent beast. Joe is all sweetness and light. This is a gorilla made for children. Not only doesn’t he kill anyone, he saves orphans from a fire. Orphans? I was waiting for Shirley Temple to show up carrying a sick puppy.
It isn’t a complete bust. Joe is the height of late ’40s special effects. He doesn’t have the realism of today’s CGI beasts, but his slightly halting movements are not a detriment. They lend him an air of fantasy he desperately needs. The film keeps up a reasonable pace and the final act, with car chases, gunfire, and a red-tinted building fire, is almost exciting. Also, I’m always amused by changing social morals. You don’t get a lot of movies now where a thirty-something guy ends up with an under aged girl.
Ray Harryhausen’s other features are The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), Mysterious Island (1961), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The First Men in the Moon (1964), One Million Years B.C. (1966), The Valley of Gwangi (1969) ), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), and Clash of the Titans (1981).