Gorilla Men

The recent post GORILLA VS SINDIE VIRTUE got me hankering for more apes and jungle girls. There is a long lineage of jungle flicks revolving around pale fleshed, scantily clad beauties like SHEENA but comics also featured a variety of women in the wild.

In exquisitely grand detail, here's the poster from PANTHER GIRL OF THE KONGO (1955) starring Phyllis Coates (who is probably best remembered for her television role as Lois Lane). Steve Calvert filled out the fur for the serial though I imagine his appearance is a one-off encounter with the intrepid jungle heroine. The serial was also edited into a feature and retitled THE CLAW MONSTERS.
To view the massive scan in it's entirety, pop over to Flickr by clicking on the image.

Who wins - we do!

I became aware of El Desván del Abuelito a short while ago through some fantastic 50's Spanish Sci-Fi comics that were reposted at PCL LINKDUMP. Tracking back to the source of the pulpy four colour delights revealed a Spanish site that was avidly celebrating both imported North American genre entertainment of the past and the local product as well.
The site's purveyor Pedro dropped me a line back in early December but I haven't had the time to give his work a proper nod. In that email, Pedro shared with me his wonderful post featuring the apes.

There are some of the covers of an ancient Spanish comic character, Roberto Alcázar y Pedrín, created by Spanish artist Eduardo Vañó.
Roberto Alcázar was one of the most famous and popular comic characters between 1940 and 1975 (the long, long years of dictator Franco), with more than 1.000 comics published. He was a "Nick Carter" type, who, helped by the young Pedrín, fought a lot of fantastic enemies: gangsters, robots, mad doctors... and, of course, GORILLAS and killer apes.

Below are a few samples - head on over to El Desván del Abuelito to enjoy the rest.

GORILLA MEN's resident gorilla man, Bongo has managed to sniff out a pungent slice of the aforementioned ALL MEN ARE APES. The invaluable SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO has posted a cut on YouTube for our viewing pleasure - the ape is most certainly not Prohaska though I wonder if he would mind the shoddy treatment our amourous ape receives from his white goddess.
Happy New Year to all!

Strange that I have not heard of this one before, though it's possible that the ape on the poster (who looks to be Prohaska) does not actually appear in the film.

TOP TEN THINGS GORILLAS THROW

...PARTIES.
...RICE
...HISSY FITS.
...PUNCHES.
...CURVEBALLS.
...PIES.
...GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD.
...UP.
...ROCKS FROM THEIR GLASS HOUSE.

...FECES.

First and last time I do this - promise