Episode 22: The Ivory Ape (1980)

Welcome to Rankin on Bass, an offhand joke that became a long running podcast. I'm girls Mike White joining me as an ape who secretly a mother Chris Stashie. I too have what my wife so lovingly coined terra cotta face, the terra cotta faced apes, my orange face, white body with my long arms that hang to the ground as I walk around the forest arrassed by a child murdering. Jack Pounce. Also along for the ride is Great White Hunter Richard had him.

I didn't kill the alligator. I killed the boy. Jesus Christ, Ladies and gentlemen, I saw Jaws one too many times. On this podcast, we discussed the works of Arthur Rinkin Junior and Jules Bass, specifically some of their stop motion and animated work. But in this case, again we're diving into the live action well and we are talking about one of the last movies that they produced, this one, the Ivory Ape from nineteen eighty.

We got the Gang all here. We've got Tom katani is directing, William Overgard and Arthur rinkin Junior are writing. We've got more Laws in the music. Of course, We've got Bernard Hofferner also with him, we've got just the whole regular crew and Corson, and we have the return of Stephen Keats of The Last Dinosaur fame. Here he has the improbably named Baxter Mapes, kind of playing almost the same character really kind of.

Yeah, this is kind of a retread at the Last Dinosaur. This movie is a retread. Are you talking about his character or the movie? I started with character and then I branched out into movie. Yeah, though I have to say Richard Boone much more present than Jack Palance.

Yeah. This is like, you know, you go to a restaurant and it's like, oh, this is a smoked or something that's they waved Jack Palence over this movie. It's scented with like lacroise, with like the cherry. Cherry was waved over. The Jack Paalence is like three scenes.

It's a shame because the reason I was excited for this movie almost well almost singularly, other than the name being the Ivy Ape, was Jack Pallence his leathery face that is six inches forward five inches back. It wasn't ivory and ivory ape. That's true, guys, Can I get a word in oh sorry here it is oh Man coming in western sizzlin. Yeah, I mean, seriously, I feel freaking muzzled on this podcast. Yep, oh boy, all right, if you want to bring it, let's bring it out the microphone here.

I'm just saying that some some listeners have reached out, uh, and apparently some of them feel that I don't somehow I'm not talking enough, or or I'm struggling to be heard my my facile remarks breaking through the intelligent discourse of the two of you. I don't know what what what what exactly was said here, Mike, we are steamrolling you, sir. We still have no proof that this is not actually just Richard messaging Mike from a burner account. But again, my perception of all of this is that Richard, I don't I don't think you don't talk enough. I've never gotten that perceptive, honestly, if I do think about it like that, feeling two and a half we have podcast where it's you and I talking for two and a half hours.

So you agree with our listener who says that we're steamrolling Richard, that we need to give them, give him a little bit of a break. I don't know. I honestly, if I think about it on this show. No, I don't think so do you, Mike, do you really think we don't let Richard talking him? I don't know.

I don't know that he is he fighting for air? I'm yeah, no, I just I find it. Look to the listener. We love it when you guys get in touch. We love reading the reviews.

It was, but it was pretty hilarious when Mike sent me this one like screen grab of this comment, because I'm like, my thought was and by the way, it wasn't me. If it was gonna be me, it would have been three years ago for a joke. But I'm like, oh, oh, this has to be sarcastic, right. That was your first response immediately was this is sarcasm right, right. It's like, Oh, anyone who thinks I'm not getting enough airtime, they've got to be, as the buddhers say, taking the piss, right.

That's what I was convinced of, because again, like when I've had you on other shows, it's never been like, oh, Richard is not able to exert himself in the conversation, like you are not one of those people. It's very strange that that's not one of the things that typically comes up when people know me that I'm not talking enough soft spoken. Richard had him delicate flower A true A true man among Man, Mike, did you check it out? It sounds like you had like you actually had a back and forth with Oh, yeah, this is actually a friend of mine who said that, Oh you know who this is? Oh yeah, yeah, this is famed director Alan Alvin Nakarmakarma.

Yes, who directed one of my favorite movies in the world, Full Force. So he usually he's pretty good. So that's that's why I was serious when I sent it to you guys in the group text like, Man, are we actually doing this? Are we over talking? Richard?

Because I would feel terrible if I was Mike, I feel like you should have led with I know who this is because this would have affected it might have affected my opinion a little bit, because I'm not to say that. I don't think someone who would reach out to the podcast doesn't know what they're talking about, but I will say maybe their expectations are a little different on one end of the spectrum versus our end of the spectrum, the creation of the product versus what product ends up on the other side. Do you know what I mean? Hey, not, Now that I know this guy's a you know, well respected, clearly intelligent, a man of letters. Now, I couldn't agree more Richard.

So we need to back off of Richard, give him a little bit more of the spotlight here, all right, thank you. Now, when it comes to the Ivory Ape, I got nothing to say. I was waiting for it. I was fucking waiting for it. I mean, I don't want to talk about Gorilla Dick.

I mean, that's one of the very first scenes in the movie is talking about Gorilla Dick when we've got Oh, I'm sorry ahead, when we've got I got excited. No, No, you were describing something. Please, Well I was just saying, I mean, I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But just that the one of the very first conversations in the movie between Steven Keats and I'm trying to figure out I guess it was Tricias Sambara, who's only in two things, including this one. Vita have Ameyer as her name.

She's the woman who is dubbed the entire way through, much to my distraction, because every time she speaks it is a different person's voice coming out of her mouth, and she is really giving him a hard time about how can you tell the difference between the male gorillas and the female gorillas and really just basically like, oh, is that the only difference, like basically tell me about some hot gorilla dick please? Yeah, that that character was pretty much just sexual energy. That's it. But what's hilarious is that this whole movie then hinges on gorilla dick. Like in the very end of it, we learn spoilers, we learn that the ivory ape is actually a female ape.

It was there the whole time, from the very first conversation, a female ape protecting her young. Yeah. What a surprise that the humans are betties once again? It to the people, are we the betties again? Again?

Humanity once again reinforces that we are sacks of shit and can do no wrong in murdering poor animals. I mean, you have to kill people, but you know, hey, natured, you know nature does, but nature does Nature's metal is fun. Well. I don't know about you, Chris, but I have a T shirt that says, the most dangerous animal is man. It's true, most dangerous game of all is man.

Um. Look, you know, I'm I'm typically extremely patient and I don't want to say, patient and indulgent, but I will with some of these live action ranking and bass projects, um and I can usually find something to enjoy one way or the other, and I did find some things here. But I gotta tell you, I mean, it's it's not that the movie is bad. It's just that it's like vastly under budgeted, not particularly well thought out. That acting is I think could be generously described as unhinged, oh boy, and literally no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

But besides that, it's not bad. I mean the true opening of the movie. This movie opens in Africa, after we get the amazing Hush Little Baby, Don't You Cry theme song, which is not quite the banger that The Last Dinosaur is, which I can still get stuck in my head if I think about it. But the acting of these people that are in quote Africa unquote, who are speaking perfect English even though they're like way deep in the bush. Oh my god.

There are several times where the acting in this movie is just amazingly bad and just what are you doing? Like how could you even let that take go? That's how bad this is. At times, I had the best time watching this movie, not as much as I did with The Last Dinosaur, but I was having a pretty good ripperar in time, especially being a fan of Jaws and just watching this movie follow those Jaws beats. There was a moment where it occurred to me that they only filmed the rehearsals and then cut because you have Stephen Keats, who, by the way, I bizarrely really enjoy Oh yeah, you mentioned that last time when we talked Last Dinosaur.

I am fascinated by his acting style. Actually, I think his performance in Last Dinosaur was wash. I don't know, it's hard to say better, but it was sort of like more coherent, way better. Yeah. Here, it's like I'm still enjoying watching him, but I'm like, wow, I don't know what's happening.

Is he like, like, is he on cocaine or did did he just receive some really great news before every single take? You know, when they say it looks like they had fun filming it, it looks like he had a lot of fun filming this movie, but to the point of like like no one spoke to him and said, do you just want to kind to bring it in a little you know, You're you're like bouncing off the Walls he and um one of the characters I think it was. I think it was the one you were just talking about, the woman whose voice was dubbed Fida. Yeah. Yeah.

As they're walking away, he's you could hear him going, we're strolling, We're strolling as they're walking away from the camera, and I'm like, what is happening? Was being filmed right? No rehearsals. I don't know it was. I mean, you know it, And that was always so odd about it.

It's like the tone just kind of went from boring to ludicrous and back again. Well, it doesn't help too that we are cross cutting between at least three different stories throughout most of this movie, because we've got the Stephen Keats and um, the other lady though, the Tricia Sambara, We've got that storyline going on. We've got Cindy Pickett as Live Tyler or Lil Tyler, sorry, not Live Tyler. That's a totally different person, but she and it took me almost the entire length of the movie to realize that she is the ex wife or soon to be ex wife of Baxter Mapes. Yeah.

Sure, and she's this hardcore ecologist and she's kind of relaying information from Africa. I suppose two mapes about this white ape that has been captured. And then there's the guy who doesn't necessarily capture the ape, but he picks up the ape another great name Aubrey Range played by David Derek Partridge, and he entertains the natives with what's that Frosty the Snowman the Ranking and bass stop motion version of Rosty the Snowman. I was so happy about that before he takes the leader of the natives behind a car and just shoots the guy dead. Yeah, it's so great because the natives are watching this and they're all looking at each other horrified.

Yes, sound like a moment where they're all like, oh, this is great. I love it. Ranking and Bassett transcends language and culture. Everyone wants a talking snowman. No, these people are horrified, baffled, confused, and repelled.

They get one one person even just like sort of swipes their hand in the air like oh enough, and gets up and walks away. And I believe was that the guy who then was summarily murdered. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, hey, he didn't like Frosty. Didn't like Frosty A fan, not a Frosty fan. This is, without a doubt, I think, for me, the worst thing we have watched, this entire show.

It is the worst quality, that's for sure, one of the worst quality things I've ever seen for any podcast I've ever been on. You didn't like the Dutch subtitles on this VHS tape Dutch burned in subtitles from a VHS tape found in a gutter somewhere, because it looks like either a Beat or Hiams film or a VHS copy of a movie taped off of someone's TV in the fucking I don't even know where how this exists. I would love to know how this version, this copy we watched exists, because you can't find it anywhere other than pretty much YouTube. I know Criterion has not put this out yet, which I do understand or even I mean to not joke around, even just the Warner archives, because that's how you get a lot of these.

Now, That's how we got Bermunda Depths right right, yea? That? And I think, well, Bashita Blade had a pretty good release. You can find that one pretty easily. But then last Dinosaur, I think it's another what does it burn on?

Demand or whatever they call it. So but this one, No, can't get anywhere near this other than that weird YouTube copy that was ripped off of the Dutch vhs. And then you know, look, that doesn't help my ability to enjoy this movie. It actually hinders it. But I think to your point already, Mike, it really is a woefully derivative product of things much better than I mean, from King Kong to Jaws to all kinds of things in between.

This is just bizarre and pedantic in a lot of ways. It just feels just like, honestly, it feels like a lot of ways, the movie feels like a waste of time, like you know, well, so you had you know, you've got the Jack Palance story, which is the guy who was a hunter, who who has experienced a tragedy and will never hunt again. Um, a tragedy is a fucking mild way of putting it. Oh, my friend, A tragedy, A rich sure, a tragedy. Okay.

He tells a story about how you know he's he's a hunter. He and his wife have a child, a young son who's eight years old. He's with them on safari and during the night he hears noises, goes out of the tent and literally sees an alligator with his son in its mouth, something out to see and and so he raises his gun to I guess the idea is, of course, to kill the alligator. And maybe so you assume, but you know, but but whether he intended this or not, he hits his son, and I think he killed his son to put him out of his misery. It's like a very like what is it like from dusk till dawn?

Like Gail baby, like you know, yeah, I think he killed I read the scene as he killed his son to prevent his suffering. That's how I read it too. But I wasn't. I wasn't if I was reading it right. Um, so you know, Jack Palance delivers, you know, you know, to say it's an overwrought performance, is you know, boy one hour and eight minutes in, if you're looking to jump to this scene, which may be one of the few redeeming scenes in this film, one hour eight minutes in.

How do I know that? Because Mike have said that to us, and I was like, some bad's happening here. And then boy, when he was telling that story, I was like, oh no, I just kept waiting. I'm I'm like, I wonder, what could I mean? What?

Horrible? Surprising, offensive, hilarious, you know, But we found out it was kind of all of those things rolled into one. The great part, though, is the line, you know, as soon as he walks off screen, the next line that is spoken is so perfect because it's the guy listening says to the other guy listening, that's the worst thing I've ever ladies and gentlemen. The audience stand and Stephen Keats is like yeah, and he sort of says it like I've heard this story a number of times. How many times have you heard the fucking alligators story?

Yeah? Oh this again? Come on, Mark, do you have to tell us the story again? You know, first drink, you're fine, Second drink, no problem. He hits his third drink.

You're here in the alligator story, whether you've heard it or not. And I shot him, I shot my son. Oh my god, yes, boy overacted. Just such a fucking mess, just a mess. And then you have to question because he was not in that much of the movie and he did.

I mean, look that that story had a conclusion. Um, But but of all this, it's like, okay, so you've got that, then you've got I guess, just the story of the bad guy and and and his relationship is sort of unseemly relationship with Jack Palance's why and that adds a little you know something, I guess, And then the other thing is just I guess. We're just kind of following Stephen Keats's love life to find out which blonde he ends up with, the dubbed one or the one who I actually thought was pretty good. Why wasn't she a yeah? And the other blonde?

There were three blondes, three non blondes. One might even say, well, I mean she had kind of a Meg Ryan kind of vibe to her. Yeah, you n who she is? She's a Ferreys Bueller's mom. Yep, Oh wow, this is a prequel to Fareys Bueller.

Oh is that okay? Yeah, that's where I thought. You meant. I can see that she was also of course in son in Law and gosh, what else did you start? Six?

I want to say I looked at us last night, because but as soon as I saw Ferrys Bueller's I was like, oh yeah, I can totally see her from that role. And that was only what six years later? I can't remember. Yeah, Ferris Bueler was eighty six, so this was pretty close to that. I just want to point out Deep Star six is a good one.

Oh boy, that movie. Have you seen that? You must have seen them? Oh. I go through phases where I watch all of the underwater exploitation films that were coming out in the eighties, So like that one.

Leviathan never seen the Deep Oh boy, Yeah, there was a whole string of them, and for whatever reason, I saw a bunch of them in the theater. Which is funny because the Ivory ape really fits into the previous subgenre, which was like the ape sploitation films where you've got you know, Robot Monster and King Kong versus The Mecca Kong or whatever that he watch remember, or Bella Leghostie meets the Brooklyn Gorilla or just all of these movies that have these ape costumes in here. And then I mean, because this is ladies and gentlemen, We've seen pretty good ape costumes by this time, Rick Baker is around, but you get this ape costume and this is right out of like Tanya's Island. I mean just that the mouth never moves ever.

It is hilarious. Because this ape is supposed to be very emotive at times, and its nose, he goes, it's it's just like my wife mentioned Terra Cotta face, because its face looks fucking strange. It's like it's face is made up of like play though, because it's just like looks lumpy, and it's like, I don't know how you light it? Well, yeah again, our VHS copy may not be helping, but the lighting on the ape's face when they do the unnecessary close ups, like my god, oh that's the thing. They are giving it close ups like yeah, like hey, come look at look, come look out good this is It's like, no, it's not good.

Shoot that from over there. Put it in a shallow gray. Oh god, yeah, I do not get close to this thing. For those of you who may not have seen the movie, you picture a like a circus peanut. That's been more.

I picked up a lot of lunch and now give it arms and legs. Right, Yeah, it's orange. It's fucking strange looking. It's how do you fuck up a monkey? Like that's the question I've got here, not how do you fuck a monkey?

I don't have that fucking question. How do you fuck up a monkey costume? Is that not like the most off the rack of off the rack costumes one could get. Well, that's the thing is almost all of them. You can see the eyes, but there's no facial movement.

It's just a static face. And this is the exact same one, right, But yet they show close ups of it. It's like they would never show close ups. None of these other movies are showing close ups of the static mouth ape. Right.

But also this movie cost a dollar exactly right, right, I mean, honestly, Chris, this almost looks like they took the ape costume from King Gong versus Godzilla and just died at White Yeah. Also, a great band named Richard had him and the static Mouthed Apes. I'd go to that show. I would watch the ship out of that the static mouth apes. I love you know, Mike.

I was looking through some old culture casts over the vacation I just took, and I remembered Kong Skull Island came out in twenty seventeen. Wow, right, that makes me feel old. But I was thinking about that movie and how much I really liked that movie, yeah, and how much I really didn't like this one. Yeah, Skull Island was great, and then the very next one I was so excited about was borderline unwatchable. So yeah, we're talking about cong versus Godzilla.

Yeah, you're in the wrong. It was good. I don't know why it was even as I was watching and I'm like, why am I so not into this? I actually like, usually, look, I mean, anyone who's heard me for five minutes, you know, I mean, I I just you know, you know, super analyze everything. But I was having trouble figuring out why I could not hook into King Kong versus Godzilla.

I knew I was actually weirdly more involved in this because there's there is that sort of weird, you know, just sort of you know, gruesome interest of like what are they going to do next? What could possibly be on the minds of the filmmakers next? Ah, good question. There's so many questions, like like you could even say, did like did Stephen Keats at a certain point think if I make my performance uncuttable, but literally, if if I behave in such a way that you almost can't edit scenes together, will they refuse to ever release this? Like at a certain point did he decide, Oh, this was a big mistake?

Like I did one of these, but now I'm doing two of these. Is this one after? Was this one made after the one? I think? Yeah, I'm trying to remember one of the ones that we watch.

I would want to say it might have been Bushida Blade was shot at one time and then released at a different time. But yeah, this one was a TV movie from nineteen eighty and Last Dinosaur I want to say seventy eight. Yeah, it really it felt like Stephen Keats was sort of like, I'm just gonna do what I want. I'm just gonna I'm gonna try to be funny. I'm gonna try to be charming.

I'm just gonna make this into a romantic comedy and and and I'm not gonna worry about the integrity of the movie. The scenes that I'm in, I'm whacked out. I'm arguing with some hot chick, or I'm making out with a hot chick, or I'm saying funny lines to a hot chick, and those are my That's all I'm doing. I mean, I know you didn't enjoy this one, Chris, but my god, did I have fun. I had fun.

It's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just it's not a good movie. It's it's what I've my issue kind of it stems from something else. Last Dinosaur and Bermuda Depths were entertainingly bad for this one verged not. And again I think there's obviously some just kind of presentation issues that go along with that, which I think really hurts this movie. But again, that's why we talk about so much about making sure that things do get fucking released and things are available, because yeah, YouTube is not a good I mean, YouTube's here's the problem.

I couldn't even suggest someone watch this because the quality copy is so bad. Like it right, even if this was the best movie I'd ever seen, if the only option is watching it on YouTube with a Dutch burned in copy, like, that's just a problem. But outside of that, I just I guess, I wonder when you talk about this kind of trio of live action movies and I'm leaving Bashida Blade out, but Bermuda Depths, Last Dinosaur and this, I think we would all agree are tonally consistent in a lot of ways, and they're talking about the same things, and they're almost especially with this and Last Dinosaur, very similar movies. I just wonder what was there thinking, like in the end of the seventies going into the eighties, becausebe comes down eighty.

Is there a push for this? Is this popular? Was this the weakest of the free and that's why it came out the latest because that's what it feels like. It feels like this was the decision that was made, like you said, Richard, to just be like, if this one doesn't come out, fine, but you know what, let's push it to the end. Yeah.

I think I think it was a deal where like if you if you could line up Richard Boone or Anthony Perkins like the Sins of Dorian Gray or Jack Palance for this one, if you could get just a name to show up and do a few days, and then you could get a theatrical release overseas for sure. And they maybe they had some clause in there, if you'll pardon the pun, a clause in their deal with Abe. See it's like Mother Efforts. If you want the Christmas specials, then you're going to air the Ivory Ape and Bermuda Depths. Just pick your least favorite night of the year and put it on.

And they did. I mean this was in April of nineteen eighty This was on ABC. Yeah, so maybe that was part of the deal. And it's like, I mean, if we can say that, because there's always this thing if it airs on American television that gives it almost like a like a legal contractual contractual advantage that allows it to be released theatrically overseas and they can say this is an American you know, hit movie, blah blah blah. They can sell it and make some I mean, how much could they have spent they had to make their money back on this?

Oh God. Yeah, I know it's easy for people to say this, very easy, but I will say it again because I very much feel this. This feels like it would be perfect for classic MST three K. Yeah. There were so many times where things were going on on screen where I'm just calling them out in my living room and just laughing my ass off, and I'm like, if somebody with a lot more talent had access to this film and could write better jokes than I could, I think it would be an amazing episode.

I agree. I would say almost more so than anything else we've watched, this one lends itself even more so to being kind of sent up because it is just so fucking strange. It's the setting is strange, the try stories, three stories going at once, it's strange. Well it's all shot in Bermuda, so we've got that whole thing. Yeah, of was it ranking I think was just like once they shot Bermuda deps, Who's just like, I'm going to live here for the rest of mine life.

Pretty much, here we go, Arthur. It had to be not a union, you know, Oh my god, you know, a bunch of fucking dudes out in the jungle with cameras. Yeah, yeah, do it for Arthur. Remember work eighteen hours, Richard, do it for Arthur when they were going to do for you fucking sit on his plantation in Bermuda, fucking off and eating pineapples. I don't know.

This feels like he like these movies are either this is what they always wanted to make, that was one of to make monster movies, or they're just like, we've got these Japanese filmmakers we work with, and uh, you know, we got American actors, so can we you scratch my back off? Scratchers, that's all this is. It's either one of the two. When I think it's probably the ladder yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this was um. I mean again, you know, not unwatchable, but but as close as humanly possible.

When they spend all this time, they basically it's basically the missus Kittner has offered a reward for the shark moment, and you get all of the guys going out in the bush and looking for the white ape, the Ivory ape, and rather than bringing back tiger shark, they fucking kill a cow. I was laughing my ass off. That was fucking amazing. It's just a cow. How did you all right?

How did you just sake a cow for the ivory ape? They're both white, they're both white skin. Did you notice did you notice that when the one guy has to go down I think he says like do I go up in the spooky attic or do I get to go down into the spooky tunnel? And he ends up getting to go in the spooky tunnel. Then it's a white cat that scares him down there.

And then later on somebody's in I think it's a barn and there's a white pigeon that got I'm like, oh, all of these animals are white. Oh, very symbolic here, Tom, That was a great moment where the where the actor you know, after they cut away from the bird, he doesn't exaggerated, right, folks on me, I got scared, But that was just a bird, which totally tells you he will be dead. I was waiting. I could not wait for the guy who was picking on the Ivory Ape in the cage. I'm just like, this guy's gonna die a great death.

And then when the Ivory Ape grabs his ass and rips the ass on it for his pants, Hey, oh at Ivory ape shows no mercy? No, I thought. Towards the end of the movie, it looked like the Ivory Ape had killed Stephen Keats. Did anyone else notice that where it like looked like he like ivery like grabbed him by the face. I was like, there he goes, But then he survived.

Did the Ivory Ape kill that kid in the car? People listening at home, there's a car accident and the Ivory Ape comes up to the car and there's a kid in the car, And I thought that he she I should say, almost like he reaches into the car and like is patting the kid. But then later on it's like, oh, when there's a kid and that's really the now it's personal moment for the Jack Palence character, like, oh, there was a child involved. They mentioned that they scared the ape off from taking the kid. I think it's okay they separated because I thought for sure it was going to come down to the ape holding the kid.

That's what I thought, right, and Palence was gonna be like, not again, please, oh cut. Yeah, he turns the gun on himself because they do it. This whole movie climax is at a church, which is kind of bizarre. Climax is there and it's almost like this reverse sniper, reverse JFK type situation because there's Palace and all of these people down on the ground and Palence has this bead on the ape up in this bell tower and he's looking up there, and then there's like he starts having like weird psychic flashbacks looking through the scope of his rifle and that eventually he notices that something up there, and I thought that something up there was Oh, he's got the little kid with him, so all right, and then someone runs up right, oh no.

Then he runs up to somebody else and goes, no, don't don't do it, don't take the shot. Don't shoot, don't shoot, and then the guys that are looks over at him, turns back and shoots, just like just like The Killer takes place at a church. There's a gun, there's a shootout, just like that movie who watched earlier this year, Mike, exactly like it. It's shot exactly Well, there's even the white bird in there. Yeah, yeah, see what I mean, I'm drawing all sorts of conclusions that definitely shouldn't be drawn between this and a better movie.

He just jumped to conclusions. Yeah. I do appreciate that they were like, well, we have to end in like an elevated tower again, because that's like the whole monkey story thing. Oh yeah, all very cang. I mean, when they take the the ape to Bermuda, I was just like, oh boy, I'm surprised they haven't put it up on display and they don't have big shining lights on it.

Right. I can't help but feel like the end of the movie is a little bit of a cop out though. They just shoot the monkey, like, god damn it, why are we always killing these goddamn the monkeys? And then and then of course I was just misunderstood. No shit, it was misunderstood.

It's a wild fucking animal, Like, oh, what's so great is that they have the thing? And then suddenly there's this, you know, obviously a black furred little, you know ape, and and then and I'm watching, going wait, I'm a little confused. I think I know it's happening, but I'm not sure. And then the two characters have a long conversation explaining it. Oh yeah, it turns out that she was pregnant the whole time, right, and she came here to give birth to the baby that we saw just now that's right over there.

And it's tragic because it was a misunderstand and I'm like, Okay, well, at least they're explaining it. Well. It takes yeah, it takes forever. And then it also takes forever for them to leave that belfry because there's like these winding stairs. And first you get to see Sindy Pickett go down the stairs and she stops and looks because the ape is there in the foreground and she's in the midground.

And then Stephen Keats does the same thing, and he stops and then he has to have like his last lines kind of thing, and then he goes down. I'm just like, this end scene is taking forever. I'm how are they allowing this editing to not happen? You know, this is all one take that is happening here, and correct me if I'm wrong. Do we get anything tied up with Jack Palance's character?

Is he just fucks right off? He tells them I didn't order the shot, and I think that's his redemption, is that he gets to tell them I didn't order the shot, and then they walk off with the little gorilla baby like they're going to adopt it or something. Jack balance His final line was, I told Arthur he had me for two days. Yeah, and this is our gay love child. You don't want a situation on your hands.

I just think it a baby gorilla to other people. I'm sorry, Oh I they had just decided to raise it on their own. Know what. Well, it's like, look, I like Amy good gorilla, gorilla go away, ugly gorilla, ugly go away. Not that Richard Jesus Christ.

That wasn't in Congo or maybe this ain't Congo Triple Export and parody. Yeah, I don't know which one you saw. Congo to God, I would have you know what I wish we had watched Congo because Congo is a fun ape movie. Congo is a really fun movie. I don't know if you guys have seen it.

Rees Oh hell yeah yeah. I used to have all of the Collector's trading cards because there was a great collector's card of Bruce Campbell where it was like holding up something and looking at it and I had his character's name or underneath that. I always forget Bruce Campbell's in like the first ten minutes of that movie. Oh yeah, you need to watch that movie, Richard. Have you never seen it?

Never seen it? I read the book when it first came out because I was like in eighth grade or something, and I'm like, this is the greatest piece of U. I have never read the book. But the movie's insane. The movie is like if what if Jurassic Park had monkeys, like dumb, dumb monkey shit, Like it's just monkey's getting lasered in half, monkeys talking like then it's strange because Creighton then went and like one of his last movie or books was next, which was another monkey living with people type of thing.

It was like DNA monkey DNA or something right, and I I'm a song Hey, and now West World's coming back today. Your favorite show, Mike Michael Christ Yeah, yeah, I will tell you. I do like monkey movies a lot, you know, Congo, King Kong and everything. I appreciate what they were going for with this movie, but the Ivory Ape is not a ape of note noteworthy apes. It is not.

I guess we would have to say skip this one. Yeah, it's hard to find it. That's the problem. Like, that's just the one. It would be actually very very difficult in time consuming to not skip it.

If you can watch the Last Dinosaur instead, then do it. But if your only available movie is this, definitely for me, it's a definite watch because I had so much fun. Though I do have in my notes at one point this movie is fucking boring. But for the most time, that's like there's a boring boring movie. Actually it's like, you know, I'm gonna go check the spook how so I'm gonna check the spooky Tunnel.

Around that point, my notes are, this movie is boring as shit, and then the next note is a cow question mark question mark, question mark. Calthane was great. I'm telling you, these ninety minute movies are the longest movies of all time. Oh yeah, yeah, because any movie that is ninety minutes long is ninety minutes long because something didn't go right and so much had to be cut out that was just like literally literally unwatchable that it becomes very difficult to structure and pace a movie that actually clips along at ninety minutes. So at ninety minutes, yeah, this felt like half my adult life.

Well and again, like like I was mentioning, it's just it's just disjointed. It just feels narratively disjointed. Which that's what happens when I don't know. I don't want to say the people who are working on this don't know what they're doing, but I think they're better suited for other things. Because the other ranking and bass stuff we've watched, for the most part has been pretty good.

This is one of honestly, what's funny Richard and you you kind of you know, this is the first time you haven't brought it up a long time where you're like, hey, you know this fuck, I'm sick and tireds fucking show I wanted to end. I think we could agree for the most part, most of the things we've watched for this show have been pretty good. We haven't watched like direct for the most part, I think we've watched more or less quality entertainment from Ranking and Bass. Well, I mean we're coming at it from a certain angle of like, wait, what is this stuff? So it's stuff for sure, Yeah, I mean it's It's not like I mean, that's the thing.

With all of your options today, it would be hard to say, skip a lot of other movies and watch you know, the Bermuda Depths or something. I mean again, unless you just got some weird obsession with cheap seventies movies starring you know, Burrel Lives or you know whoever. M But but even from that point of view, it's like, Okay, there are things to recommend these movies, and clearly there was, you know, somebody was excited about doing them. They're not crass. It's not that they're not exploitative.

It's not like, oh, they made a movie with it was just all topless women. Okay, asshole. Clearly you were you know, going for the drive in crowd and you were being exploitative and trying to make a buck. It was like, no, they were trying to do something. They were trying, right, and again that's you know, for me, that's kind of I don't know what the hell they were going for.

I think they were trying to make an exploitation movie. Like you said, Mike, I mean, there's lots of things that this is very similar to. Success is kind of in the eye of the beholder. So miss you know more, Jack Palance is what I would have preferred, just waxing poetically about having to murder what we have come so far from ranking in best and now we're talking about child murder? I know, right, Mike could not.

I don't if any one of us had said, get to child murder in your Ranking and Bass podcast. I not even fucking like a character admitting to murdering a child in a Ranking and Bass film. Child Yeah, yeah, it's oh child, Yeah, from from from a Rudolph to this what what? What? It was his fucking Jaws moment black As it could do Disas, It's that moment.

It's that moment. Just but Jack Mallence, what are we talking about next time? Mike? So next time we're going to talk about the last of these live action films, which is called Marco. As in Marco Polo.

I was waiting for somebody to say Polo and that came out in nineteen seventy three starring Dizzy Arndez Junior. So we'll see how that goes. U. But yeah, until it's a musical, Mike, you didn't mention it's a musical, baby, you think the music is gonna be good? Or guard?

Do you think it's actually gonna be good? This one looks like it's going to be tough to find because right now I'm seeing a DVD on Amazon that is forty dollars and I don't want to bite the bullet guys. So maybe we can find this on YouTube. Oh, that would be good. That would be good.

Maybe it's on Prime Video. They have all sorts of random shit, don't they. Oh, and it's always very high quality too. Yeah. I mean, hey, just like YouTube.

I mean when you watch movies on YouTube, you never know what you're gonna get. Could have Dutch burned in subtitles? God? Yeah. Until then, though, I want to think my co host Chris and Richard.

So, Richard, what's happening with you? Sir? I am deep in the middle of producing Season four of Titans on HBO Max. We're gonna premiere in August. I think it's the last week of August and we're we're getting ready to film the finale, the season finale, So there's some good stuff coming.

Cool and Chris, what's happening at the Culture Casting with the rest of your shows over the Culture Cast talking about Rutger Howard movies. So that's a thing. If you're into that. Cool. If not, I don't know, go somewhere else.

Go to Mike's show, The Projection Both, that's a better show. Anyways, Let's just let's just keep the candor open and honest, folks, you want you want something good, go listen to show. You want to listen to them chuckle fox yokel on about movies. Come on down to the Culture Cast and listen, because you know what you're gonna get Richard Adams there and I'm not steam rolling them on that show. I get my say on that show.

You know, between you and me and Colin, I'm doing fine. But you, Mike, what's going on over at your show that people actually listen to, Well, it's a whole lot of different things going this month. We've got the Conformists, the night Porter, Wise Blood, Black Lizard, and right in the middle of that, we're talking about the Gumball Rally and the Cannonball Run with you, Chris and with Father Malone, our co host on the Well midnight viewing Dreams for Sale, and he usually stops by the Culture Cast, so it's true it'll be a fun time. I'm looking forward to it me too. Until then, I want to thank everyone for listening.

Thanks to the two people that have given us reviews over on iTunes, Thanks to the Great Octopus for our theme song, and once again thanks to you guys, Richard. I hope we didn't steamroll you too bad this episode. No, I felt pretty good. I feel like my voice was heard. But hey, folks out there, keep those cards and letters coming.

We want to know who you think is talking too much, who you think is talking not enough, and who you think is talking just right.