Mighty Joe Young

Beautiful Dreamer

Mighty Joe Young
USA 1949 Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
Argosy Pictures/HMV UK Exclusive 
Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Complete story spoilers from early on in this review.

Just revisited this classic movie, the original Mighty Joe Young (I still can’t bring myself to watch the modern remake) which I suspect is out on US Blu Ray courtesy of Warner Archives, being that it’s an HMV exclusive Blu Ray here in the UK and they tend to cherry pick from the Warner Archive releases. This one is very much in the ‘Kong’ family, as it were. Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, who helped produce and direct (uncredited) the original 1933 spectacle that was King Kong (reviewed here), not to mention directing The Most Dangerous Game on the same sets and with some of the same actors in the evenings, as the original Kong. 

It also stars Robert Armstrong as Hollywood showman Max O’ Hara, pretty much the same way he played Carl Denham in both King Kong and Son Of Kong... he could pretty much be just a continuation of the same character if it weren’t for the name. Also along for the ride is the original special effects genius who brought Kong to life, Willis O’Brien but, he was more of an adviser and had a crew of stop motion technicians working on this one for him and, if you’re wondering why the animation still looks amazing on this, this is the first screen credited feature length effects work... about 80% of the film effects, apparently... of his enthusiastic apprentice (so to speak), one Ray Harryhausen. So, yeah, another future Hollywood legend was indeed learning his craft and also mastering it on this one. 

It’s a simple tale but Mighty Joe Young is an absolutely charming and emotionally heart warming movie which is kinda like King Kong but turned on its head. Young girl Jill Young, lives on a farm in the jungle and buys/trades things to buy baby Joe from two natives. 12 years later she’s grown up to be played by Terry Moore and she and Joe, who has grown to giant size (although, to be fair, the scale of him kinda changes up and down throughout the movie) are living a happy life until Max O Hara and his new cowboy wrangler Gregg (played by Ben Johnson), see how she and Joe have a rapport and how much Joe can be calmed by the song Beautiful Dreamer. Max signs her and Joe for a big Broadway style revue but, after a while the glamour wears off and, when a bunch of idiots ply the giant gorilla with wine and are cruel to him, he smashes the place up and the police are ordered to put Joe down. But he escapes with the aid of Jill, Gregg, Max and a few others and Jill, Gregg and Joe live happily ever after in Africa... stopping on the way during their escape to have Joe rescue children from a burning orphanage. 

This is such a great film and I don’t know why it wasn’t better received at the time. Indeed, there was to be a sequel teaming up Mighty Joe Young with Lex Barker as Tarzan but, due to the expense of animating the titular giant ape versus the disappointing box office receipts, this didn’t materialise. But it’s a truly great film with superb animated sequences and real emotional depth to the simple story. It’s also great for spotting way too many famous character actors to name. Indeed, I only spotted a handful myself but it was nice seeing Frank McHugh (who I remember best from The Roaring Twenties, reviewed here) as Max’s agent and also the great Nestor Paiva playing the drunken nightclub customer who gets Joe so riled up in one of the nightclub sequences. More eagle eyed watchers than me may also be able to spot, if they’re lucky, the presence of both Carol Hughes, the second incarnation of Dale Arden from Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (reviewed here) and Donald Kerr, who played Happy Hapgood in Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (reviewed here) in the nightclub scenes... among many others. 

And I can’t say enough good things about Mighty Joe Young. Harryhausen’s talent at imbuing a stop motion mannequin with a real spirit of warmth and humanity shines throughout and it’s all backed up with a beautiful score by Roy Webb, which you can buy in a very authentic re-recording from those wondrous people at Monstrous Movie Music, at https://www.mmmrecordings.com/index.html packed onto a CD with the score for another Harryhausen classic, 20 Million Miles To Earth (reviewed here). 

The Blu Ray edition of this has the usual interesting extras about the film and also, I’m glad to say, keeps in the red and brown tint sections for the ‘fire at the orphanage’ sequence near the end of the picture. It also looks superb and, where you can sometimes see the joins and changeovers from the live action footage to the model work, it still looks better than it ever has before and this purchase was a no brainer for me (now if only they’d sort out a UK Blu Ray release for Son Of Kong, please). One of the all time great movies and something that should be on every cinephile’s radar, as far as I’m concerned. Such a great movie.