By Christian ShapiroEven the mildest, sunken-chested Milquetoast among us harbors a raging beast deep within his heart. Envision this common scenario: A pair of female haunches saunters mere yards beyond the flared circumference of your active and vigilant nostrils. That ladylike bundle of flexing buns passes perhaps no further from your olfactory receptors than the distance across a major metropolitan boulevard. The roiling action of this rump causes the rear cheeks to engage in a near magical friction that agitates the creation and distribution of powerful and primal, microscopic womanly effluvia known as pheromones. Those buttocks are in effect pumping out a trail of airborne female essence. That busy urban boulevard separating you from the juice wafting off those nates might as well be a trickling Congo tributary. Take a deep sniff of animal attraction, thump your breast, howl, grunt once or twice, then check your racing pulse. Are you prepared to deny that a ferocious animal beats within the fragile cage of every man's twiggy ribs?
Of all the arguments a Darwinist might advance as proof that city-dwelling Homo sapiens evolved from jungle-cruising simians, none is so compelling as the fact that we all go a little ape when presented with the prospect of engaging in a bout of monkey business. Although one virulent and vocal school of fundamentalist thought seeks to deny that the higher beings responsible for creating and implementing the Hubble Space Telescope are even remotely related to hairy, knuckle-dragging louts who sit about all day picking and eating bugs out of one another's fur, much evidence exists to the contrary. For instance, look at the zit-picking, chip-dipping man and mate ensconced upon a folded futon. This couple is typical, legion, and ubiquitous. They have been lounging in the same position for an entire weekend. Slack jawed, looks of amused bewilderment upon their semi-sentient faces, their demeanor alternates between long stretches of satiated inactivity and bursts of irrational, shrieking emotionalism. As often as physically possible this couple will engage in sexual congress, the perverse nature of which would shock any Christian family that might happen to view such aberrant copulation at the local zoo. Individually, each member of this basic couple evidences an abiding fascination with the properties of his or her own feces. Sound familiar, Magilla?
Our human specimens are at their most natural while nesting in the accustomed habitat and watching movies on TV. They activate their entertainment system's remote control with avidity and expect the same results as a laboratory simian hitting the lighted button that delivers an extra ration of dried fruits. The man and his mate watch all sorts of informative diversions, everything from Animal Planet to Sex and the City, but never is the viewing pair more aligned in their enjoyment of this primal bonding experience than when screening a fictional drama that combines two basic elements of the evolutionary imperative: a naked or slightly clothed chick with an agitated monkey or ape nearby. The female in the audience, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps contrary to her will, becomes undeniably aroused by the atavistic magnetism of the hairy brute. The belching sophisticate with his opposable thumb pressing the remote can't help but feel and benefit from identification with the lower primate, while simultaneously experiencing a jolting propagative urge triggered by sight of a comely actress in some stage of nudity.
If any further proof is required that the naked ape has ascended from the hair-suited variety, simply view one or more of the following anthropological findings.
King Kong (1933)
Gorilla Gal:Fay Wray (Picture: 1 - 2)
The Skinny:King Kong is the granddaddy of all motion pictures that explore the instinctual affection of our uncivilized and brutish distant relatives for the delicate objects of desire that are closest to our own hearts. The mighty eponymous ape doesn't quite acclimate after forced relocation from the darkest heart of Africa to the concrete jungle of Manhattan. The towering beast holds Fay Wray in the palm of his hand, but it is she who has him wrapped around her finger. Confronted with Fay's heaving bosom and subtle slip of nip, what stand-up simian among us would not be at the lovely's beck and call?
The Beast That Killed Women (1965)
Gorilla Gal: Gigi Darlene
The Skinny: A giant gorilla terrorizes a nudist camp and is captured on film in The Beast That Killed Women. Prior to the invasion of the primate, this naturalists' retreat is a perfect nudist camp: The men are all required to wear shorts. The flick's overall effect is heavy on the nudism, somewhat light on terror. The gorilla appears to be a human male within a monkey costume. Some guys will go to any lengths to infiltrate the ranks of sun worshipers. Did the sneak not stop to think that an easier route might have been to simply strip off his clothes--except for his shorts--and gambol free of the sweaty confines of that hairy getup? Shuffleboard, volleyball, and other nude activities are interrupted when the fellow in the primate costume chases a woman around and is brought down by the local constabulary.
Night of the Bloody Apes (1968)
Gorilla Gals:Norma Lazareno (Picture: 1 - 2), Gina Morett (Picture: 1 - 2), Norelia Noel (Picture: 1)
The Skinny: Medical science serves Satan in Night of the Bloody Apes. A brilliant but bedeviled doctor desperate to revive his fading son super-charges the boy's circulatory system with a gorilla heart and ape blood. No layman among us is surprised or disappointed when the altered boy turns into a hairy, carnal beast whose basest and most-often-realized desire is to attack, shred the clothes of, maul, and murder female wrestlers. These ladies are fatally formidable animals themselves. One fighting floozy kills another, putting the cops on her tail. Primate mayhem complicates the police work. Prepare yourself for actual footage of a heart transplant and a scintillating surplus of Mexican buns from the leggy likes of Norma Lazareno, Gina Morett, and Norelia Noel, a few of whom end up naked, dead, and gory.
King Kong
Gorilla Gal:Jessica Lange (Picture: 1 - 2)
The Skinny: If a theme is worth overdoing, it is surely worth overdoing twice. There is a fine line between milking a premise and updating a classic, and King Kong is way over on the side of triumphant breakthrough re-envisioning, largely due to the pulse-stirring presence of deliciously blonde Jessica Lange in the role of romantic foil to the massive banana-eater. Going the original Kong a bounce better, the monkey actually displays the horse sense to peel off the covering of Lange's left lung ornament at the one-hour-and-twenty-one-minute mark. Thanks for driving us ape, you big gorilla!
Queen Kong (1976)
Gorilla Gal:Rula Lenska
The Skinny: Due to legal hassles from owners of the King Kong copyright, this quirky missing link of a film was never released theatrically. The flick's tag line, referring to the titular lady ape, reads, "She's in one of her moods again!" All male and female roles of the original Kong classic are reversed in what is either a sly women's-studies manifesto or a shrewd marketing ploy. Ripely plush Rula Lenska plays feminist filmmaker Luce Habit. The Queen Kong beast resembles a sixty-foot-tall stuffed animal with a boob job. "When I'm feeling mighty spunky, I want to do it with my hunky monkey," sings the theme song. The movie crew runs into a tribe of jungle Jills and their high priestess. All the native ladies are adorned in bikini-like outfits; an aficionado would expect no more and no less.
A*P*E* (1976)
Gorilla Gal:Joanna Kerns
The Skinny: A thirty-six-foot-tall gorilla escapes from a freighter off the coast of Korea and manages to reach shore and the vicinity of an American actress--Joanna Kerns, mom from Growing Pains--who is shooting a film on location there. Following ape logic, the big gorilla kidnaps the fair lass and lays ravage to Seoul. Entire platoons of crack antiterrorist forces are powerless to diminish the wreckage. The monkey revels in giving the finger to the entire universe, and so does this flick, in more ways than one.
The Mighty Peking Man (1977)
Gorilla Gal:Evelyne Kraft (Picture: 1 - 2)
The Skinny: If celluloid were a form of cheese, then The Mighty Peking Man would be a piquant, full-bodied, soft, and unpasteurized slice of solidified goat's milk that slightly bites back and pops your taste buds erect in a wash of anticipatory saliva, prepared for the next nibble. Slippery-nippled blonde Evelyne Kraft provides the fixation of attraction for a tremendous, towering beast found in the Himalayan jungles. The fur-bearing monster, at the urging of director Meng-Hwa Ho, does to Hong Kong what King Kong wanted to do to Manhattan.
Mistress of the Apes (1979)
Gorilla Gals:Jenny Neumann (Picture: 1), Barbara Leigh (Picture: 1)
The Skinny: Fluttering blonde Jenny Neumann is the Mistress of the Apes. Desolate after a gruesome miscarriage, Neumann undertakes a jungle safari in search of her missing husband. Aside from being an eyeful of firm, fair flesh and winsome, wondrous face, Jenny is an anthropologist. She salvages her husband's lost camera and develops his last roll of film, revealing photos of a tribe of monkey men. Scientific curiosity and denied maternal urges combine to pop Jenny's girl bone for these missing links, and she dedicates her life to preserving them. Evil poachers and rival researchers will stop at no lengths to foil the sweet researcher's do-gooder instincts. Look what the pale-skinned brutes do to brunette bather Barbara Leigh! Their carnal barbarity is enough to make a monkey blush.
Tanya's Island (1980)
Gorilla Gal:Vanity (Picture: 1 - 2)
The Skinny: If not for the film's intrinsic value as a circulatory aid--a single viewing guarantees at least a three-hundred-percent increase in blood flow to the typical male's lower extremities--Tanya's Island might be seen as a vanity project for mocha-skinned super-fox Vanity. On Tanya's Island, the former Vanity 6 singer and celebrity hanger-on graduates from mating with smooth little Prince to entrancing a hairy big monkey. In this fantasy feature, Vanity (a future born-again Christian) frolics in her God-given skin. Near constant buns, breasts, and bush populate Tanya's full-color daydreams, intending to tease and punish her overbearing boyfriend. The lout is so insensitive that he even intrudes in Tanya's fantasy and crassly screws her! Little does the hairless beast know that a jealous gorilla watches this make-out session and determines to slay the man and claim the woman. The males battle as only man and his most remote forefather can.
Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981)
Gorilla Gal:Bo Derek (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3)
The Skinny: Despite the misleading grammar of its title, Tarzan, The Ape Man does not actually concern the adventures of a super hairy, dark, and muscled human. As played by future B-movie stalwart Miles O'Keefe, Tarzan is not really a hybrid of lower and highest primate, but only an Irishman in a loincloth. World-renowned connoisseur of stunning blondes John Derek directs stunningly blonde then-wife Bo Derek as Jane in a campy jungle classic that includes hostile savages, snake wrestling, a hidden sea, and the widescreen spectacle of Jane's boobs repeatedly slamming into view. Chimps ride elephants and applaud wildly when Tarzan and Jane consummate their physical bond. Tarzan, The Ape Man conclusively proves that a naked woman wrestling playfully with a monkey provides innocent fun to some and a fur-raising thrill to the rest of us.
Link (1986)
Gorilla Gal:Elisabeth Shue (Picture: 1)
The Skinny: Many objections have been raised to using monkeys as guinea pigs. The cute little fellas resemble old bosses, old boyfriends, and older siblings in many physical and behavioral ways, which can lead to emotional attachment. These sentimental quibbles pale in the face of the real-life danger uncovered by Link. At an isolated research facility, beyond the supervision of any wise and cautious regulatory agency, the misguided experiments and hypothetically perfect physical attributes of scientifically sound Elisabeth Shue (or is it body double Jayne Grosvenor?) bring out the superhuman evil in a nasty-minded orangutan. Putting a genie back in a bottle is a piece of banana cake compared to luring a horny, hirsute animal back into his cage.
Play-Mate of the Apes (2002)
Gorilla Gals:Misty Mundae (Picture: 1), Darian Caine (Picture: 1), Anoushka (Picture: 1), Sharon Engert (Picture: 1)
The Skinny: Long after all man's arguments of religion, economics, and social responsibility have been decided, the wisest, most refined minds among us will continue to debate whether Play-Mate of the Apes is best described as a spoof, an update, or a wholesale improvement. This skin-rich offering from Seduction Cinema features diminutive delight Misty Mundae as one among a squad of distaff astronauts who, due to being distracted while licking one another's lower lips, crash land their craft into a landscape that is more similar than dissimilar to that of the Planet of the Apes series of movies. Captured by the primates who reign supreme upon this hairy-freak planet, the crew of clothing-optional cuties works in a strip club, ogled there by monkey men and their dates. The hair-free freaks are purported by the monkeys to have no souls, a condition evident in their inability to dance. Counting imaginative outtakes and extras, the DVD offers two and a half hours of shadow-free, girl-girl nudity with waxed privates galore from professional monkey-businesswomen Darian Caine, Anoushka, and Sharon Engert.
