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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash !...Part 5...Things are getting a little Hairy !

July 6, 2013, 8:10 pm
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Hiya Gorilla Gang,
As we continue Chris's amazing build-up gorilla, we are now moving off of the skin for a while, and we'll turn our attention to the fur !

Back to Chris Walas !...

Now I'm going to glue the basic fur onto the head. I'm using the fur that was on the original mask to the cheap suit and it's not a lot of work to adapt it.
But first I'm going to glue on a section of 1" foam to the back of the head to add size and also to make the mask fit snugly enough that no straps will be necessary… I hope.

It worked out well and the mask is a nice, snug fit. I may have to make adjustments later for whoever winds up wearing the suit, but hey, that's show biz.
Normally I would cut the fur into more sections for easier assembly, but the existing fur was already fairly close to what I needed, so I merely cut it into two sections: a front and a back.

I glued the back on first and carried the leading edge just up over the crest line. I only glued this piece down along the side and top edges, about a two inch band. This is in case I need to make any adjustments later on down the line, I'll have access to the center section to add or subtract as needed.

Here's the back already on and the forehead section about to be glued down. This entire section is glued down to help stiffen this part of the mask. So I've started at the top and I'm going to work my way down the sides next. A lot of the faux furs available use a white thread in the backing that shows horribly when it's cut, so I just use a black sharpy and darken it before gluing. In this next photo, the upper edge is as cut and the lower edge has been Sharpied.

Now the tricky bit: The upper edge of the cheek fur must be glued only along it's leading edge. This is to leave room for some movement in the jaw as well as allow access under the fur to replace the rubber bands when necessary.
With that much of the fur glued, the mask looks like this:

The fur on the lower jaw still needs to be glued, but I need to allow for the opening of the mouth. The simplest way I've found to deal with this is to prop the mouth open at least as far as it will be able to be opened by an operator and then glue the fur solidly in place right up to the edge of the lip.

I've done this a number of times now and almost always, the fur finds the right place when the mouth closes:

So the above shot is where I'm stopping on the head fur. There's still plenty of work to be done, but I prefer to wait until I have more, or even all, of the rest of the costume together to do the finish work. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do on the forehead and brow; whether to shave the fur down short, leave it long, fur the brow, leave the brow bare. I'll figure it out later.
Just to help me visualize the proportions of the suit, I threw the existing suit around the base of the head to get an idea of mass:

I'm beginning to think this guy may turn out OK!

Next time, we set the head aside and start all the other work, so get ready!
 
You heard the man Gang !
Be here next time when we "Get a Grip".
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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash !....Part 6!!!! Get Your Stinking Paws On !

July 11, 2013, 3:20 pm
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OK gang, we've got the head and mouth shaping up nicely now. We'll take a break from his fearsome face, and move onto the hands!
As you've already seen, Chris Walas is an absolute master of his craft, one of the best in the world in fact.
We, are so very fortunate to have Chris share this amazing project with us as a tutorial, and we can't thank him enough for his generosity !

But lets not delay a minute longer, and we'll rejoin the master !


Hands are a lot of work, regardless of whether you sculpt them or build them up. It's a lot more area than a face and there are two of them, so realize that a pair of hands will potentially take longer than a whole head.
I've picked an old pair of garden gloves and stuffed the fingers with heavy paper. the pare allows for a slight amount of possibility and I'm giving the fingers a little bend to work with.

I want these hands to be on the big side as this character will be interacting with other characters a lot and the larger hands will be more intimidating. I'm forming the hands out of polyfoam and once the rough size and shape looks good, I razor a slot out of the palm side of the finger so that it will sit over the existing glove finger.


The fingers should completely cover the glove fingers on three sides. As I don't want to add too much to the thumbs, I've only added some mass at the base of the thumb.

I'm doing both hands as much at the same time as I can so that I can keep a better eye on matching.

Next, I wrap the hand in 1/2" foam on the back and palm sides. What I don't have a picture of is some foam padding I added on the outer sides of the palms to make them larger.

Then I added some knuckles;
 
 
While it's not necessary, I sliced a few lines into the palms of the hand as guides;
 
 
To keep the finger I'm working on from sticking to the finger next to it, I've simply rubber banded the next fingers together.

It doesn't really matter where you start, but I chose the little finger to begin the batting/latex coat. I used two sections of batting, the first covered the under- or inside of the finger and the outer layer was layer over that. I tried using some latex sheet as fingernail material, but I wasn't happy with it and only used it on a few of the fingers before I switched to just forming the batting as nails. This is not the finished finger!

Just in case there's anyone out there who is not familiar with cotton batting, it's one of the materials quilters use inside a quilt. It's almost like a very soft, thick felt in texture.
 

After the little fingers, I did the thumbs and the base of the hand.

Yes, those gray Vans will become the feet. You'll notice that I have brought the work all the way down to the wrist. This is because I want to be able to glue the base of the glove to the inside of the forearm foam form later.

A little bit more work and the entire hand has its first coat.

Once this is dry, I'll add another entire coat of latex and then an additional coat on areas that will get more use. Then they will be ready to attach to the forearms and get furred!
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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash......Part 7...A change of mood !

July 16, 2013, 2:31 pm
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Reworking the face.

I think of build-up techniques as the finger painting of monster making. Just as in finger painting you can smooth colors around, add more paint, scoop some off, etc., build-up allows you to do a very high degree of reworking.
Now the face that I had done was just fine for the character and there was really no need to redo any of it… however, Drying latex on the hands gave me "waiting" time. I get terribly impatient waiting and so I decided to play a little more with the face on Mogo. It started when I decide to trim down the hair on the top of the head like a lowland gorilla. I found that I had a big empty spot over the brow. Well, I decide the make the brow stand out a little more by sinking the area just above it, so out came a section of latex and foam.




Once I had reworked the top of the brow, it was too late. I was having too much fun so I decided to make some other changes. I chose to sink the entire eye area and bridge of the nose and to add a little more to the center bottom of the brow, again to add a little more menace. So I just hacked out a whole area.



A bit of foam under the brow and it was onto the batting.






I think the changes help and the folds under the eye are a little more balanced and natural.




It may not be that much of a difference, but I think it helps and it kept me busy while I was waiting.


 
As you can see, Mogo now looks extremely angry. Take note of the more realistic folds under the eyes also. Compare to the mask, from two installments before.
Mogo was still angry, but not nearly as grumpy as he above.
 
 
 
 

  

 

   Up next, Chris will tackle Mogo's monstrously muscle-y forearms !

 

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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash !!! Part 8...Fearsome Forearms !!!

July 26, 2013, 12:39 pm
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OK gang, Lets rejoin Chris Walas in putting together some massive monkey forearms !
 
 
Finishing the arms.

So we have the hands done and now all we need to do is attach them securely to the forearms. The forearm foam form is a simple tube. I've done detailed, muscled forearms and the detail was completely lost once furred, so a simple tube will do. The tube should be a good, snug fit so that it holds firm even when you're covered in sweat.




I would give you measurements for this, but yours will almost certainly be different. Just put one of the gloves on and measure the distance from the base of the hand to the very end of your elbow. Now glue the base of the glove to the inside of the tube and glue the bottom of the hand foam to the top of the foam tube.


You'll notice the outer side of the hands stick out over the tube. This is where I'm widening the hand, so I add a section of foam to make the tube match the hand. Then I cut a wide open dart in the wrist. This will be covered with fur and the opening will allow easier wrist movement:



After that, I do the batting/latex down over the joint between hand and wrist. This adds a little more strength to the joint.



I'm using two cheap suits to build one slightly less cheap suit here. Not surprisingly, the arms of the suits are too small in diameter to work so I'm forced to use a section of the legs of one of the suits. (I'm going to be so upset if I run out of cheap suit!!). I marked the pattern on the fur piece in chalk first. I'm going to be gluing the underside of the forearm first so that the very last bit of the top section overlaps the lower section for a more natural look. I'm also allowing a good inch or two of extra fur at the bottom so that the fur can be tucked and glued over the elbow edge and into the tube to help disguise the joint. I won't be doing this , though, until I have the suit together, just in case I need to make any emergency changes. You'll notice in the photo below that I also trimmed the bottom of the tube to round it off.



I'm using an industrial grade spray adhesive for the larger areas of fur, but I like to glue down all the edges with a strong contact adhesive.
Just glue carefully and slowly if you need to, especially at the overlap sections. If all goes well, you're hands/arms should be done (except for paint!)




Next we'll move on to the feet and hopefully get a start on the main suit itself!





 

  

  

  

  

  

  

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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash !!!.. Part 9...Time to face...Da Feet !

July 30, 2013, 3:16 pm
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Holy Ape suit Gorilla Gang !
If you've been following along thus far, Academy Award Winning, Special Effects Make-up Artist Chris Walas has taken us through a step by step process of constructing a build-up gorilla suit.
With the head, Hands, and lower Arms out of the way, it only makes sense to take the next steps into some gorilla feet !

Now, without further ado...Mr. Chris Walas !!!


The Foots.

The feet are pretty straightforward and if you are attempting to try this yourself, you should be at a point that you feel fairly comfortable with the build-up technique by now. I won't be adding much detail of the bottoms of the the feet as I really want the base of the shoe to be hitting the floor, not a layer of foam padding.
I start with a rough outline of where I want to go with the feet. Normally, a gorilla stands and walks with his/her "thumb toe" straight out, or perpendicular to the side of the foot. This gets a bit clunky when wearing big rubber feet so I'm making the concession of angling the toe in a bit.






I'm cutting the toes out in blocks rather than build them up individually as I did with the fingers. Chances are there won't be a lot of close-ups of these feet. In fact, they'll likely never been seen in the intended use. I draw out the basic approach on a block of foam for the toes;






I trimmed this out and made sure it roughly fit around the front of the shoe.






I'm doing both feet at the same time, largely because I'm in a rush to get these done to clear space for other projects! But also to keep better tabs on matching them. Both sets of toes are formed to the same level of finish.





Once they are glued on, I add a piece of 1/2" foam to fill in the top of the foot.





Here's what they look like from the bottom, I've already added a coat of contact cement to the sole of the shoe so that the next coat will adhere even better.






On to the batting. I'm trying to cover as much as possible on the bottom in one piece. This is to keep it even. Lumps in the batting will be felt when wearing the feet, so I'm working from the bottom tot the top.



For the sake of speed, I'm covering the entire foot with batting so I can speed up the latexing.







First coat of latex goes on and some detail is drawn in;





Most of this will actually disappear under subsequent layers of latex. Feet get a lot of wear and abuse , so it's going to take a number of coats of latex to get these soles thick enough.






The top will take a bit more detail and I'll be adding toenails later.


Once the feet are dry. I simply use some batting to form cuticles for the nails.


Once they've been latexed and dried, I add some batting cut to shape for the nails.




I used a spatula to apply and smooth the latex for the nails, then drew in a crack or two.


I've been adding many layers of latex to the bottoms all along and now it's time to do the furring.


I like to use two overlapping pieces of fur on feet like this. The first piece covers the back of the foot.


While the second, larger piece covers the front half of the foot and overlaps (but is not glued to) the back section of fur.




This technique allows non-stretch fur like this to be brought up higher and closer to the ankle than you can normally do. And it also allows the fur to be folded over to make putting the feet on quite a bit easier;


SO… now we have a head, a pair of unpainted hands/forearms and a pair of unpainted feet for this gorilla.


So much for the easy stuff. While doing the mouth is the most demanding in many ways, the main body of the suit is certainly the most cumbersome and awkward to do.
So that's what we'll do… next time.
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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash !!! Part 10.....Body Building !

August 4, 2013, 4:31 pm
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Now that we've got a foot in the door, next we'll work up our best Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation, and tackle a little "Body Building."

Back to Chris Walas !....

Now that we have a head, a pair of hands and a pair of feet, all we need is a body to attach them to. I should make it quite clear here that I would not normally make a suit of any kind in this manner. I'm doing it this way as an illustration and a personal exercise. I've challenged myself to use was much of the Craigslist foam as I can and I committed to making use of the two cheap Halloween gorilla suits I found. Even if I was to do this as a build-up again, I wouldn't use polyfoam or pre-existing suits. I would use open cell foam and buy higher quality faux fur by the yard. The open cell foam (known as Quick-dry, Dry-Fast, Fast-Dry, etc.) is used in upholstery for outdoor cushions and such. It's lighter and stronger than polyfoam and lets much more air move through it. It's harder to shape and cut, but it's worth it.
Also, normally the suit would be carefully planned out and I would be working off of patterns to match side-to-side, etc. But I'm racing through this thing as I'm under the gun on other things, so I'm really just winging my way through it all!
Let's forge ahead with the body-building!


Here I've sewn the t-shirt to the sweatpants and sliced the T-shirt down the back. I was planning on putting two zippers on this suit: one on the T-shirt and one on the fur. But I decided that one strong zipper on the fur should be enough and make the suit easier to get in and out of. We'll see.

For now, I'm just pinning the back closed until I glue foam over it to hold it solidly.

I'm starting with a 2" thick former seat cushion as the chest piece. I've cut darts to shape it before gluing it in place.

Next, I added a belly piece lower down with open vents to help take up movement after the fur is applied. The mid section of foam between the top and bottom pieces is only 1" thick and glued to the outer edges of the other pieces. Hopefully this will also allow a little more movement. A simple collar ring was added as well.

In this next photo you can see that I've added another section to the belly to build it out further. I have to be careful as I have a limited amount of usable fur, so I can't make this guy too huge! I've added pectoral muscles, sliced a gap for movement under them and added shoulders. The shoulders work like epaulets and are only attached along the top of the shoulder, again to allow as much movement as possible.

After that, I blocked in the upper arms and upper legs. The foam on the thighs extends just beyond the knee. Hopefully, combined with the lower belly, this will help suggest shorter legs.

Once I felt comfortable with the front, I blocked in the back. I would have built this out thicker, but again, I'm concerned about being able to cover it with the fur I have. Note that I have attempted to leave open sections uncovered by foam between areas wherever possible. Foam gets noticeably stiffer after it's been glued to cloth and fur, so any option for increasing movement should be taken.

I'm stopping the foam work at this point because it is the end of the day and I want to do the finish work on the chest so that the latex has time to dry overnight.
The top of the belly foam had an edge that I couldn't quite trim down enough with scissors, so I wound up having to sand it smoother. Yes, foam can be sanded, but it's not easy. Use very rough sandpaper and light strokes.

When it looked like it was good enough, I went ahead and added the batting/latex work.

Note that this covers the gap I cut between pecs and belly. In effect, this skin is loose over an open gap and should flex and fold a little when worn.

This morning I finished up the foam work, adding lower legs, more rear end and making sure that edges were glued down.

The black line up the back shows where the back will be sliced open and where the zipper will go. I'll probably fiddle with the foam a little here and there a bit more, but this is where we'll stop for now. Next time, we move on to my greatest fear on this whole project: making those crummy costumes fit this much larger form!
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Chris Walas's Build-Up Gorilla Bash !!! ...part 11...The almost Final Chapter !...sort of...

August 9, 2013, 8:38 pm
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Hiya gang, old Bongo here !
I've got to tell you, this has been an incredible honor having Chris Walas as a part of the HGM gorilla family. Chris has graciously documented this build up exclusively for the readers of Hollywood Gorilla Men, and with the help and support of our gorilla brothers at the Facebook Ape Suit Cinema group.
 
Before we start this "final chapter" let me first say that this will continue in the next segment with closing thoughts and an incredible alternate head Chris sculpted ! So don't miss out !
No lets get this madness started !....Back to the great Chris Walas !!!
 
LAST CHAPTER!!!
Finally we're at the last construction phase of our monster gorilla build-up suit. I'm not going to show you the process for combining two suits into one. It was just too darn confusing and difficult. Not worth it. I did it as a personal challenge, but if you ever build a suit, just go out and buy yardage faux fur. It's sooooo much easier!
One of the suits wound up covering the lower half of the suit quite nicely;

The top, on the other hand, was a bit of a nightmare and I struggled for a while to find a way to wrap the second suit around all that foam. I couldn't quite cover everything, but I got close. Only the lower upper arms weren't covered;
Being a less than joyful seamster, I decided to simply glue the missing lower sections on so that I could sew the main fur section to it later.
Once the top and bottom main sections were sewn together with heavy duty thread and a heavy duty zipper sewn in the back (I cut through the foam of the back to match the zipper line just before attaching the zipper), it was time for a test fit to see if it was really working at all. Remember that feet, hands and chest have not been painted yet.

The suit fit well and moved well, but I found that working on an old, beat up duct-tape dummy is not the most accurate base. The right shoulder had an odd angle to it and the shoulders were too square across for my taste, so I added more foam there to give it more shape and that seemed to take the curse off that issue. Here it is after additional foam and painting the feet, hands, chest as well as more paint on the face;
This looks very much like what I was after; a big, hulking, intimidating but still comic gorilla. Now that all the parts seemed to fit, it was time to attach the fur suit to the foam suit. It's not necessary to do so and there are numerous approaches to how to build a suit like this, but I opted for the quickest and easiest suit to get on and off, so I decided to glue the two suits together. But I don't glue every square inch of foam or fur. Glue adds stiffness and weight and I wanted this to be as light and movable as possible… considering the construction. In order to allow for as much movement as possible, the fur suit is glued down only where it really needs to be; the base of the legs, over main sections of muscles and along the zipper. I started at the base of the legs.
This process is tricky and critical. Mistakes throw everything out of whack, so I proceeded with great care and attention. So much so that I forgot to take pictures. Sorry. I first rolled the pant legs up to the knee to glue the lower foam muscles, then I rolled the entire suit down and worked my way up from there. Here's the thigh getting glued. It's older foam so I glued the entire outer surface for a little more strength.
Here's where I stopped taking pictures. Anyway, once the entire suit was carefully glued, I found I needed to add some length to the elbows. I added an inch to the forearms and cut a section out for the inner elbow to move;
Then I added a cupped section to the main suit outer elbow so that it would close up any gap that might form;

When all seemed right, it was time for an overall finishing pass. I went over seams and edges to make sure everything was where it should be. Any edges that hadn't been properly glued (I have raced through this, you know) received a dab of glue to hold it down. I make sure the glue catches enough of the fur itself to cover any of that horrid white base thread like you see here;

I had planned to do some paint work on the fur to enhance it a little, but this fur is so thin and flimsy that paint just makes it worse. Which is OK with me as I think Mogo looks better and meaner as an all black gorilla.

Next up will be some finished shot as well as a second head I did while working through all this!
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Chris Walas's Build-up Gorilla Bash...The FINAL chapter!!!

August 14, 2013, 3:30 pm
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Wow!
This has been one hell of a great run !
Hopefully we've all gained the skills and know how to, if not build a suit outright, to make pro quality modifications to your existing suit.
To give you his last word, here's Chris Walas...


IN SUMMATION.

It's been a fun little diversion putting this suit together out of leftovers and Craiglist finds. While I didn't wind up with a world class gorilla suit, Mogo will be great for his intended use; intimidating goofy hand puppets in a silly web series. I won't be covering the next phase, Mogo's suit of armor, as that's probably outside the realm of this site and also because I don't think I'll get to it for a while.
I did this suit using these particular techniques and approaches for two reasons: I needed a goofy gorilla suit and I didn't have the money to do it right. A quick glance back tells me that I only spent about $50 out of pocket, but that's only because I had or scrounged almost all the materials. A quick guesstimate of what you would pay if you had to buy all the materials would be around $700 more or less. If you used the materials I mention below, you can probably double that number. Still extremely cheap compared to a film quality construction where the fur alone would likely be $4,000 or more.


For anyone who's actually interested in attempting something like this, a few humble suggestions:

-Make sure you have plenty of good ventilation at all times. Glue fumes are horrible and faux fur sheds fine hairs that go down your throat.

-Have a good heavy duty vacuum on hand and use it often. I was vacuuming at least four to six times a day trying to stay ahead of the shedding fur.

-I glued a lot of this suit together, mostly due to time constraints, but sewing as much as possible is preferable. It's more time consuming but it's also less toxic, lighter and less stiff than gluing.

-Buy the very best fur you can afford. While I think the fur on this suit doesn't look as bad as it probably should, there are much, much better furs out there that will give you a far better look.


-Better padding. If your budget allows, avoid the standard upholstery polyurethane foam that I used. It's hot and tends to be stiff, which can wear you down more quickly when performing in the suit. I did it to prove a point to myself about how cheaply I could do this, but I would much rather have used open cell foam. This is a more expensive foam that can be found under names like Fast-dry Foam, Quick-Dry Foam, Dry-fast Foam, etc. It's used a lot in exterior pillows and such. As it is open cell, it allows more air to move more freely than regular polyfoam. It compresses more easily and is also lighter. Another option is regular polyfill in sewn padding, which is a technique Chris Casteel will be covering in his great "cheap suit conversion".


- Start with a unitard. They're cheap and can be had for as low as $30. The suit will fit better and be easier to do the construction on.

-If possible, use a head cast of the performer and a good duct tape dummy of the same. The more accurate the basic form, the better the suit and head will fit and work.


-Take your time. If you haven't done any build-up before you may want to do a test patch somewhere first to get a feel for it. I find build-up to be fun and relaxing and I think it works exceptionally well for certain purposes, but it does take time.

-Buy or make a chill pack vest. These are available online or you can easily make them yourself with cold-packs. They will allow you to stay in the suit a lot longer and a lot more comfortably.

-Have fun. Really. Just have fun. Build-up is very forgiving if you make mistakes. Just cut away what you don't like and try again. You'll love it.

So ends my Gorilla build-up suit series. I hope some of you enjoyed it and I hope that maybe one or two of you out there might actually find it helpful in building your own suits.
Here's a few shots of Mogo in the back yard this morning;








Oh, and one more thing. I can't remember if I mentioned it earlier or not, but amidst Mogo's construction I got so "gorilla mad" with all the great conversation on the FaceBook Ape Suit Cinema page and emails between Chris Casteel and myself I decided to do a quick sculpted gorilla mask as a sort of more regular head for the Mogo suit. It's inspired by my gorilla man hero, Charlie Gemora, and while it's not a copy of any specific Gemora head, I was definitely going for some of the great feel he had in his designs.

And while the suit doesn't really fit with the head all that much, I think it still looks just fine and I'm amazed at how decent this really bad fur can look!

I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I did and thanks for tagging along.






On behalf of Gorilla Man and myself (Bongo), Thank you so much for your amazing work Chris !
As a member of our Hollywood Gorilla Men family, your amazing simian exploits will be followed intently on this humble blog...Thanks again my awesome gorilla brother!
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Gorilla in a Box

August 16, 2013, 11:28 pm
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          I think my fascination with make up special effects and gorilla suits may stem from the sad fact that I have been bespectacled since a young age and could never wear a simple mask or greasepaint without my corrective lenswear spoiling the illusion. In the spirit of make-your-own-monkey here's a little item I found on Ebay. The box for the KING OF THE GORILLAS boasts the involvement of Dick Smith, 70's Makeup Artist supreme of Exorcist and Little Big Man - whether this was a paid for plug or he had actual input into the kit, I haven't he foggiest. What I have picked up on from a brief internet trawl for info, is the excitement this kit and others (check the ad below) still generates in those raised during the 70's when mags like Starlog began to celebrate the art of sci-fi, fantasy and horror cinema. I would venture the kit dates post 76' following the KING KONG remake - hence the product moniker - but it obviously acknowledges the POTA makeups.

 

 

 


 

What truly staggers the mind is this last kit (apparently highly desired by collectors today), THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN - a makeup based upon a truly disgusting film about an irradiated astronaut who begins to disintegrate rather wetly upon his return to Earth.







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August 18, 2013, 8:14 am
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    In the early days of Gorilla Men, I was fortunate enough to catch the ear of writer/filmmaker Ted Newsom regarding his fantastic FILMFAX article on Steve Calvert. Ted was gracious enough to revisit his piece and expand it beyond what saw print, much to my delight. I am happy to welcome Ted back to Hollywood Gorilla Men and hope you relish his tale of revelation and ape suits as much as I did..
  Enjoy!
  Gorilla Man

   For some reason I didn't understand, I was always fascinated and spooked by guys in gorilla suits. Everybody has a bit of it, I think; certainly everybody who read this blog. With me it was gut-level. I never understood why, for about 30 years.
   When I was little, maybe 6 or 7, I described a scene to my mother: it's an old-fashioned circus, with the sight and scent of sawdust, a tent with daylight just beyond, and a colorful crowd. And a giant gorilla runs over and scares me. It didn't look like a "real" gorilla, not like a "real" chimp, it was a fake, a monster, a scary thing. Mom dismissed it as a dream, probably something I saw on TV.
   That made sense. Over the next five, ten years, I saw movies like the Marx Bros. AT THE CIRCUS and GORILLA AT LARGE, which had imagery similar to that vivid vision, and I accepted Mom's dream theory. No matter how un-gorilla-like the ape suit was in any given movie, I'd get creed out in an unexplainable way. The Crash Corrigan/Steve Calvert suit and face looks nothing like a gorilla, really. The George Barrows get up looks like a big fat guy in a hairy coat with a pinhead. Janos Prohaska never fooled me, even when I was little. Charlie Gemora's stuff was fun, but from the time I saw photos of real apes, even his relatively accurate suits were obvious costumes.
   Still, they creeped me out, especially the Calvert and Barrows appearances. It seemed they were scary not in spite of their unreality, but because of it. They weren't "gorillas," they were monsters. Big, hairy, snorting monsters.


   As an adult I got to know Steve Calvert well, and he was a sweet, gentle man with a subtle, observational sense of humor. Meeting him (the father of a friend of my ex-wife) and getting to know him took a tiny edge off the childhood fear I had of the monster in BRIDE OF THE GORILLA.
   Later still, I got to know Bob Burns, an equally sweet, fun man with a more impish humor. He knew how to milk the natural human reaction to a 6 foot tall, 300 pound gorilla. He told me a wonderful story about being hired by Hustle Magazine for a King Kong photo shoot which, I don't think ever was done Why? As a gag to sell the idea to then-publisher Althea Flynt, the guys asked Bob to suit up and come in.
   Having worked at Flynt Publications twice, I can say that Althea, in 1982-83, was not the most stable of women. Well, they talked to her for a couple of minutes, told her they had a great idea for a photo layout, and signalled Bob. He rumbled in, grunting madly, and poor Althea just shit. She started screaming hysterically, running into the corner. And of course Bob didn't make her life any easier, jumping up on a chair, waving his arms angrily, and staring at her. Althea turned the project down. I don't mention her to make fun of her. Her reaction was not unique.
Bob Burns and Ted Newsom making magic
   I asked Bob to do some comedy bits in a sci-fi spoof I made, originally titled "Attack of the B-Movie Monster," later "The Naked Monster." I knew Bob had excellent timing, having gotten such a kick out of the "Ghostbusters" series he did for Filmation, with Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker. Plus I had seen Bob in his eye-boggling suit at conventions. Prepping for his scenes, it was fascinating to watch him get suited up, with his wife Cathy assisting: one piece at a time, some black to give him raccoon eyes, so that his normal skin wouldn't show in the eye holes of the mask, etc.
We were setting up in an alley, our little four person crew mucking about with the tripod and Super-8 camera. I was watching them from Bob's position, standing beside him. With my head turned, I couldn't see Bob, since I was watching the guys, and when I started to turn my head, Bob saw that movement. The moment he knew he was coming into my peripheral vision, he SNORTED. Oh, God. I nearly crapped my pants.
   Flash forward several years more. I had traveled to Portland, my home town, for a wedding, a funeral, a reunion, something. After whatever it was, I ended up at my sister's house with family, nieces, nephews, at lest one sister,a brother, and my Dad and my aunt. As will happen, the elders started telling embarrassing tales about everyone else, and how cute they acted when they were little.
My dad said, "I remember once when Teddy was little, not even two, maybe eighteen months if that. Me and Bobby [his brother, my uncle] took him to an old-fashioned circus. It was one of those tent things, with sawdust and everything. We were sitting right down in the front row.
   "This guy who was dressed up like a gorilla came RUNNING over to us, scooped up Teddy out of my arms, and RAN around the circus ring. The audience just went crazy, screaming, laughing. Then he brought him back to me.
   "Like I said, he couldn't have even been two yet. Oh, he didn't yell, he didn't cry, anything. But his eyes were wide as hell, and they glowed just like the headlights on a Buick."
    And then I understood. I still love gorilla suits, but I'm no longer scared.
   Well, not usually...
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Western Costume Gorilla !

August 22, 2013, 2:46 pm
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Hiya gang !
No, were not talking about a gorilla in a cowboy outfit, but rather a gorilla suit made and sold by the world famous Western Costume in beautiful Hollywood.
Western Costume made literally 10's of thousands of costumes of every variety throughout the course of them being in business. Everything from Sci-Fi to comedy...Horror to epic biblical films!
You get the idea.
Western also produced gorilla costumes..Now these weren't the quality of our legendary gorilla men, like Charlie Gemora, Crash Corrigan, Bob Burns, George Barrows and so on...
This didn't stop film producers from putting the Western gorilla to good use, both as a "reel" gorilla, or as the set up for a long time gag as old as gorilla movies have been around.
In a nut shell:
The movie has a "real" gorilla, played by one of our legendary Gorilla Men.
There is also in the story a "fake" gorilla. This is a human character in the script who dons a gorilla suit, usually to frighten the other characters for some reason.
The gag is that eventually the "real" gorilla shows up and is confused for the "fake" gorilla.
In most cases of this gag, comedy ensues. Well most cases...
The thing that makes this gag work, is that in order to make you buy into the idea that there is a "real" gorilla, the "fake" gorilla has to be noticeably less realistic.

This is where the Western Costume gorilla steps in.
While it's much enormously better than the crappy Halloween gorillas we find today, the Western gorilla was a poor substitute for a real Gorilla Man suit.
A very good example is the movie "Gorilla at Large".
Master Gorilla Man ,George Barrows plays the role of Goliath, the biggest, fiercest gorilla ever in captivity.
At one point in the story, Cameron Mitchell is called upon to don a gorilla suit to substitute for Goliath. You guessed it...The Western Costume Gorilla !
 
The difference in the suits really drives the point home, that Barrows was a "real" gorilla.
The Western Gorilla has been used as a "real" gorilla on occasion. One time that comes to mind is the classic Jungle Jim and the Lost Tribe. There is a sequence in the Lost Tribe were there are nearly a dozen gorillas on the screen at one time. The bulk of the gorillas were suits owned by Ray Corrigan, and Steve Calvert. Charlie Gemora's incredible suit from "The Monster and the Girl" also appears in this giant simian  battle against the villains in the picture.
In order to flesh out the huge contingent of gorillas, there is a Western Costume Gorilla in the mix.
The producers probably intended to use it in the background, but there a several quick shots of it that are fairly clear.
The Western Costumes Gorilla was also sold to the public, and found it's way into dozens of Magic shows, Carnival side shows, live Spook Shows and the like.

One interesting side note, back in the late 70's after the release of Dino Delaurentis"s King Kong remake, (featuring Gorilla master, Rick Baker as the King), an elderly gentleman named Carmen Nigro came forward and claimed to have played the Original King Kong in 1933 !
Carmen also claimed to have starred in movies such as "The Ape Man", Nabonga" and several others of the same era,
The sad fact is that all these film were well documented as to who played the gorillas in them. (Emil VanHorn, and Ray Corrigan, respectively.)
It is also well documented that the 1933 King Kong was not a man in a suit, but rather an 18" stop motion animation puppet.
Carmen Had photos on himself posing proudly with his "Kong" suit, and once again, it was a Western Costume gorilla.
Apparently Carmen wanted very desperately to have his moment of fame, and were it not for devotees of simian cinema, his word may have still been taken as the truth.
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Howdy Neighbour!

August 25, 2013, 8:43 am
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Another lame gag from BEHIND THE APE BALL but the pic is a good one. I think we are looking at Gemora in THE UNHOLY THREE - I believe that's Harry Earles of the Lollipop Guild and FREAKS  without the fur.
Have a super Sunday!

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So you want to be a Gorilla Man...Part 2...Me and my BIG mouth !!

September 4, 2013, 6:15 pm
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Hiya gang !
 Old Bongo is back with more Gorilla building madness! After Chris Walas's brilliant series (which I urge you to read!) I thought it best to take a breather in the suit building tutorials.
Now that we've caught our respective breaths, We will return to the series I started here : http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/2013/06/so-you-mant-to-be-gorilla-manpart-1.html

That first part covered modifying an off the shelf mask to fit your eyes nearly seamlessly.

Now we turn our attention to the next most dynamic feature...the mouth !
I must first state the following; this is a very individual process.
Each mask has it's own contours, and sizes, and shapes that determine the outcome of this tutorial.
Some masks may not work as well as others, and that's a matter of the original sculpture.


The mask I am using is fairly "middle of the road" in terms of shape.......But it was still a phenomenal pain in the ass.
This  is difficult from the standpoint of...You don't build OUT from the wearers face..You build IN from the mask face. If the mask is fairly small and tight to your face, you way be extremely limited in how for you can take this.

OK...Enough sniveling. Lets get this ugly monkey some molars ! After part one of the series we left off with this warped lower faced mess.
In order to determine the shape it needed to be, I cut a strip of EVA foam about 1/2" wide in an arc.
( EVA is the same foam those gray floor mats are made of. It is also the same stuff you get from craft supply stores called Craft Foam. You can get it in many colors and thicknesses.)
 
Using a Q-tip or throw away brush, put a coating of contact cement on the outer edge of the foam and inside the upper lip of the mask.
Let this dry a few minutes and working from the center,carefully press the foam into the inside of the upper lip.
Now the main distortion should be pulled out by the tension of the EVA foam, and it looks like this...more or less.
OK, moving on...Now take a piece of paper of any type. Put the paper into the mouth as far as you can. Trace the opening of the upper lip onto the paper. This will be your pattern for cutting out the lower jaw.
Trace the pattern onto the EVA and carefully cut it out with sharp scissors.
With your scissors, trim away the edges on one side of the foam to make the rubber skin of the mask snug against the foam.
Test fit the foam to see how it looks.
Make any adjustment necessary to make the lips look the way you want them to.
 
Now using your sharpest scissors, cut the mouth along the crease line in the lips and continue past the mouth about 2" and then straight down to remove the jaw.
With the lower jaw removed, brush in contact cement, inside the lower jaw, and the surface of the foam that contacts it. let stand 15 minutes and then carefully press together, once again starting from the center.
Follow this up with more contact cement to tack down any loose edges.

 This is the main construction part of this mod, and it's an important one. This will be the staging point for all the work to come. Now to continue...Take a few cotton balls and push on the centers to make them unroll into narrow strips.
 
Take the lower jaw piece, and using a Q-tip dab a good wet coat of liquid latex along the edge of the rubber lip you just glued down.
Take the cotton strips and lay them into the wet latex to cover the seam line between the EVA foam and the rubber lip.
Wet your Q-tip, and with it VERY wet, roll the Q-tip down from the center of the cotton piece towards the outer edges. This keeps the Q-tip from lifting the cotton back off.
As you can see, at this stage the cotton looks a bit rough. To smooth this out, tear (don't cut) small pieces of bathroom tissue into small irregular shapes.
 Wetting the surface again Lay down the tissue into the latex. Apply latex as you did with the cotton , then add the next piece.  Overlap the pieces as you go.
It should start to be looking quite a bit smoother, but maybe a little wrinkled. This  is OK. Just let the latex dry overnight then it will smooth out quite nicely with more tissue. Since this ape is supposed to be ancient, I left the wrinkles.
 
 This is the end of part one. Anywhere along the line, keep checking the fit against the upper half of the mouth.
Next time, we will start detailing the teeth and get this bad boy's mouth in order !
 
 
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So you want to be a gorilla man ? part 3...Monstrous Monkey Molars !

September 14, 2013, 11:05 am
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Hey my fellow monkey minions!
We're back with more suit modifying madness, this time to continue the moving mouth tutorial from part 2. One thing to keep in mind here, is that after EVERY step, and only when each step is fully dry, try the mask on to check the fit! If something won't work, either trim it back till it does fit, or remove it. This happened on this mask, but we'll address that when we come to it. Rather than make this a squeaky clean tutorial were everything is perfect the first time, I'll show you all the missteps and set backs...warts and all. This way you'll know what can happen, and how to address it if it does.
But what ever happens, DON'T GIVE UP !!!
OK, enough of the small print...Lets get back too it !

We left off with the lower jaw piece with latex and cotton blending. We covered that with latex a tissue to smooth it a bit.
Now take the heavy  canvas material we used to fit the eyes, and cut two two strips about 1/2" wide, and 4" long.
Fold it in half length wise and draw a line at the half way mark.(it should be 2")
Add contact cement and cover one half of the canvas strip from the line to the edge.
Now apply contact cement to the lower jaw where indicated so the canvas bonds hard to it.

Once the canvas is glued tight, put a layer of cotton and latex over it to lock it down for good.
 
Now turn the upper part of the head over. If the EVA foam you initially cut to fill out the upper lip does not go all the way to the back of the cut you made to remove the jaw, then cut two more pieces to extend it about an inch beyond the cut.
Be sure to apply contact cement to the parts where the parts of foam join together to form one larger piece.
Now using your sharp smaller scissors, trim the inside edge of the EVA foam until it's about the thickness of your pinky finger tip, and round it off to the back edge of the lip line.( leave the foam beyond the lip line thick and flat to re-assemble the mouth)
 
At this point you can use 100 grit sandpaper to smooth out the foam, followed by 220 grit to get it very smooth. I didn't spend much time doing the sanding because I'm trying to go for a nasty looking critter.
After you get it were you like it use your latex and cotton to smooth and blend it all together again.


 While this is drying, lets turn our attention to the teeth.
for this you can review Chris Walas's tooth step here:
http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/2013/07/chris-walass-build-up-gorilla-bash-part.html
 
For mine, I wanted to get the feel of Corrigan's White Pongo carved wooden teeth. To get the look I was after there was no sanding. I just used the scissores and left all the small facets.
Then I tacked the teeth onto the lower jaw very lightly, and checked it against the upper jaw for fit.
When everything worked correctly I used more contact cement to bond it down hard.
The latex still wasn't dry on the upper face, so I applied paint to the lower teeth.The paint is cheap acrylic paint from the craft store, with a little latex added to keep it flexible and not crack off.. The steps were the same as Chris Walas used, with the addition of a very dark reddish black around the teeth to make it look like there was a recess around the the teeth.



I would normally break here, but because my buddy Hal has his mask all taken apart, we'll keep going so he can finish up. ;)
I did make a full set of upper teeth, but attached to a separate piece of foam, sort of like a denture.






The teeth were made so the large canines would interlock like real teeth. The odd thing here is that on nearly all the classic suits, the lower canines were on the outermost position and the uppers on the inside. This is the opposite of a real gorilla.
In order to fit the upper teeth, we have to permanently attach the lower jaw. Apply a heavy coat of contact cement to the canvas strips we bonded to the lower jaw, and to the remaining exposed EVA upper lip at the back of the jaw.
You may have to make adjustment as I did here in order for the front of the lip to close  properly. I had to raise the rear of the jaw so I glued on an additional piece of foam to get it to fit right.
when all is well, apply your contact cement to the properly fitting EVA and glue the canvas strip down.
if you have a gap at the back of the jaw, don't worry ! This will work to our advantage later on.
Now laminate the cotton and latex over the canvas, mask, and EVA.
Allow to dry for at least a day We'll continue shortly while we get all of this figured out. As stated earlier, each mask is individual and presents it's own set of problems. I'm about to hit a monster setback on this one but we'll leave that til next time !
Don't worry gang, the steps up to here are pretty universal to all the masks and it's a matter of little tweaks along the way. The setback I had, was not caused by any of the assembly steps here so you're in good shape !
 
See you next time !
 
and I'll make it sooner this time Hal !

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Inside King Kong!

September 14, 2013, 7:49 pm
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My dear friend, Bob Burns emailed this amazing video to me.
Modern day gorilla man and creature creating super genius Tom Woodruff Jr. animated the original Kong armature in a way that's never been done before. The results are breathtaking, and beautiful.
Bob and Tom put tons of gorilla love into this, and it shows. So as a gift from two great gorilla men to all of you...I give you...Inside King Kong!
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So you want to be a gorilla man ?...part 4...JAWS!!

September 19, 2013, 5:20 pm
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All right folks, no drawn out intros, lets get down to business.

When we left off, we had just attached the lower jaw to the upper via the canvas strips we created.
These will be the hinge joint of the jaws, that will make the whole thing work.
The way it functions is this: When you open your mouth..The gorilla mouth opens.
When you close your mouth...the gorilla mouth just hangs open.....until we put the jaw muscles in!

When Chris Walas did his jaw mechanism, he placed hooks outside of the jaws to attach rubber bands to.
We will do this a little different. We'll put them on the inside this time.
Why the difference, you may ask?..Go ahead....You know you want to....OK, I'll tell you.

I like to put them on the inside, so you don't have to remove any fur to change the bands....Simple as that. When you wear the suit a lot, like me. the jaws get a lot of exposure to heat, sweat, and mechanical abrasion from rubbing against the hooks.

The biggest thing is the bands just plain fatigue after a good workout and won't pull the jaw closed as effectively. With the hooks on the inside, you can simply throw on another band and your done.

OK, lets make some hooks.
For the hooks, I use the small 1/2" long "figure eight" chain from the hardware store. 1 foot will get you enough hooks for 20 masks. The chain I use has a black plastic coatind that will keep it safe from sweat. Your body's sweat actually has a corrosive effect on the rubber bands and metal !
 
To make them, simply insert the tips of needle nose pliers into one of the links where it connects to the next one. Pry outward gently to spread the link just a little bit more than it takes to remove the link from the chain.
If you do it correctly you will only have to open one side of each link. Leave the other side closed !
Now take your canvas cloth and cut 4 circles about an inch across, you can trace a quarter if you like.
You will also need a needle and thread, so get those.
Thread you needle and tie it off the the closed eye of one of the hooks.
Now sew the eye to the canvas as close to the center as you can. Do this for all 4, just make sure it's sewn very strong !
 
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So you want to be a gorilla man?...part 5...let the fur fly !

October 5, 2013, 3:30 pm
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Alrighty then gang, This will be the final step to the modification of our over the counter mask mod.
Now that we have our jaws munching happily, we'll finish trimming out the fur.

The first thing we'll do is remove the rubber bands from the hooks so the jaw will stay open.
This is so the fur will be glued down at the maximum distance the move will travel.
If it were closed and we glued fur down, it would keep the mouth from opening, see?
 I start by gluing down the fur that we peeled away from the mouth area when we cut the jaw off.
I used contact cement to secure the fur cloth and I carefully lay the fur right over the back edge of the open jaws.
 
I tucked the fur into the mouth to conceal all the work we did to the mouth up to this point.

 
When both side are glued and tucked, put the rubber bands back in to make sure the mouth still closes all the way. If it doesn't, carefully trim away the fur you tucked into the mouth. Trim from the sides and work inward.
 
A not so quick word about working with fur cloth: note that the fur has a nap to it. This means that the fur comes out of the cloth at an angle giving direction to the fur.
You need to be sure that the nap direction remains the same throughout the fur application or it will look like a mess.
The heavy black lines below represent the backing of the fur fabric. When you glue additional fur down, put the edges of the fur fabric as close to the previous piece as possible.
This way, when it gets brushed, the fur will appear seamless and natural.
Also you will want to overlap the fur as you apply it. Not the cloth backing per say, but the strands of hair.

 
Another important note about working with fur...DON'T CUT THE FUR !!!!
Cut ONLY the cloth backing ! Do this by cutting with the fabric side up, and slide the bottom blade of the scissors though the hair so it touches only the cloth backing and pushes the hairs aside.


Now cut pieces of fur to cover the areas you want to hide or customize. The additional fur can be harvested from parts of the suit that are too big. On the suit I am using, The sleeves hang open about 10 inches too wide at the wrist. Suits will vary.



 If you DO have a surplus of fur, at the wrist area, (additional width).you can do the following to harvest fur. Always TURN THE SUIT INSIDE OUT WHEN DOING ANY CUTTING OR SEWING !



Now you can sew the sleeves back together.
Now for the secret to success when sewing fur...a hair brush !
When sewing fur, either by machine or hand, ALWAYS brush the fur AWAY from the seam line !!!



This is the basics for all fur work. These techniques can be used in both Chris Walas's and this one. It will also be the proper technique for any fur project.
There you have it gang, the greatest secret to ape suit happiness in the known universe.

OK, that was a lot of info and a hell of a lot of work to try to explain. I'm hoping it all makes sense because we really want you to succeed with this project !

If you don't have any fur to spare, you should be able to find a standard black fur in any large fabric store There are different grades of fur, so be aware of that and try to find the closest match to yours.


Now, FINALLY back to our head.
OK, we've got our extra fur.. Find a photo of an ape suit, (or real ape if you want) whose fur you really like.  I really like the look of the great Charlie Gemora's white gorilla, so that's my objective.




First, cut shapes of fur, (using proper cutting technique, and noting fur nap, or direction) to approximate the hairline you want.


 
Glue these in place with your contact cement. Place the edge of the fur cloth as close the the edge of the cloth on the mask as possible. BE SURE THE NEW FUR LAYS ON TOP OF THE EXISTING FUR SO THE EDGE DISAPPEARS !!!
It should blend in with the pre-existing fur and look something like this.


notice how you can see the edge of the fur fabric.
 
Now we'll change up our adhesives. You can use either liquid latex tinted to the color of the skin, (as we used for the mouth)..OR..you can use rubber cement, like you find in the school supplies. (Borden's is a good brand) the rubber cement dries clear, and holds the hair beautifully.
We are changing glue, because we're done with the fur cloth. Now we're going to learn to lay hair.
 To start, we need to get the hair ready. To do this, use sharp scissors an cut off a strip of fur, off of the fur cloth. Cut it as close to the cloth as possible. be careful to leave it just as you see it in a tight row. Cut only a couple of inches at a time.



Now, brush the fur we just added, back away from the face, exposing the raw fabric edge. This is what we are hiding.
 paint a stripe of glue, fairly wet, along the front edge of the fur you just added.
Carefully pick up the strip of hair you just cut, and lay it into the wet glue, with the ends of the hair, laying over the fur cloth. press the cut edge of the fur into the glue with a Popsicle stick, or the edge of the scissors.
When finished it looks like this. The latex is still drying so it looks white against the skin color. It will dry down to the same color and disappear.
 
See how much better it looks?
If the glue doesn't quite disappear completely you can do a wash with a darker color than the face .
If your suit is black, use pure black acrylic thinned down with water. blot the excess paint with a paper towel. The acrylic will bond down hard to rubber cement, so it won't come off.
Chances are your gorilla will have a black face so we'll change directions a bit, and I'll use my own bongo head as an example of rendering a black gorilla face. I say render because while it looks black, it really isn't.
This is a shot of Bongo on the beach, catching some rays. See how you can see all the nice details of the face?


 All the bumps, wrinkles, and creases are very visible, but yet he still looks black.
He isn't.
To render black that shows up as natural, both in real light and on camera, start with a base coat of black. Most likely the mask you bought is black, so we'll start with that.
You will need a small amount of foam rubber for this trick.
Take your black acrylic paint, and put a small amount in a Dixie cup. About an ounce. Now add about half an ounce of latex to it, and stir. The latex will keep the paint from cracking as the mask gets used..they take a beating. Pour off about half of that into another dixie cup.add a couple of drops of white paint to the black mixture. Don't add more than that! it will dry down to light if you do!
Now take a piece of the foam rubber that has at least one flat side, and dip the flat side in the mix. Blot it a few times on a plastic lid or an empty cup bottom as you don't want it too wet.
Now, lightly stipple the mixture over the mask, keeping it away from the hair. Don't push to hard because you don't wand the lighter paint to go into the wrinkles...you only want to hit the high points.
This is called stippling.
 
 Now go back to the dark grey mixture, and add another couple of drops...but this time use even less paint ,and even less pressure. stay on only the topmost parts of the face. this way you have 2 levels of high light. If you've kept it very subtle, it should look very natural and really bring out the details.
Something like this.
Here is a shot of Bongo that I color adjusted to help you see the stipple details.


 OK gang, That's how to do your head !
This has been a long post, and a lot of work, so I'll run a different post or two before we start on the body. It won't be long I promise !
You've seen the ferocious white gorilla from crap mask to full on gorilla monster.
Now gang, I want you all to make a head better than you could ever buy !
Next time on "So you want to be a gorilla man ?" we'll get into some mighty muscles !
 
See you then !
 
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Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! #13 ...The House Of Mystery !

October 19, 2013, 1:19 pm
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Hiya gorilla goblins! Old Bongo here, getting into the Halloween spirit as Gorilla Man and I count down thirteen days of the creepiest and scariest Monster Monkey Movies!
Like most any movie genre, there are different types of Hollywood gorilla movies.
The first type, is the wild, jungle adventure tales with rip roaring action and wild animals at every turn. The gorilla is usually  a temporary foe for the dashing hero to save a hapless damsel from.
There are also the giant gorilla films, King Kong being the most famous, but in terms of our Hollywood Gorilla Man study, we look instead at films like; Konga, The Mighty Peking Man, and The Mighty Gorga.

But there is another type of gorilla man film...my favorite type in fact...The kind that takes place not in a jungle, but rather an eerie mansion...Or a mad scientists lair.
These are the movies I love to watch during the Halloween season !
The Like many mad monkey aficionado's, I find myself very fond of the Halloween . there is something inherently fun about braving frightful things, and having the crap scared out of us !

That brings us to this countdown! We will count down our favorite creepy, eerie, and downright scary gorilla movies over the next 13 days....OK...maybe not that scary, but you get the idea.



To start off, I'll go with a real classic, House of Mystery !
Just like the title says, this is a mystery story, basically the "Old Dark House" formula.
Guest are invited to a creepy mansion by a mysterious figure who promises them each a fortune.
The hitch in all these scenarios is that the invitees are required to live in the house....live being the key term here. You see, the deal is that should any of the party die, his share will be split up among the survivors. Consequently, it isn't long before greed, suspicion, and bodies start piling up.

This is a really fun movie, with not one, but two beautiful gorilla suits ! The suits are identical and look fantastic. The creator of the suits is unknown, despite the best efforts of some of the foremost  historians  in the gorilla movie genres. The consensus is that they look like the work of the legendary Charles Gemora. Many of the details are consistent with Charlie's work, but for one obvious difference. The eyes. Rather than the customary two eye holes that Charlie used, these suits use only one much larger opening, similar to Emil VanHorn's mask. The gentlemen in the suits are unknown as well. The body language is unique to these fellows.
You can read the entire story below, from a write-up in Movies magazine.

The following pages were generously provided by Charles Gemora documentarian, Jason Barnett.







You can watch it right here gang, so grab your popcorn and a cold drink then kick back and enjoy the show !





















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Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! #12...The Monster Maker !

October 20, 2013, 5:59 pm
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OOGA BOOGA!
Gorilla Man here...
The beauty of lists like these is the reminder that you have some fabulously freaky films buried in that closet full of DVD's.
For my initial entry on the lucky 13 countdown, I selected a film where our hairy menace is not the focus of the flick but manages to have a striking sequence in the pic. THE MONSTER MAKER (1944) was a cheapie PRC release directed by Sam Newfield who directed WHITE PONGO the following year (also featuring Crash Corrigan as the titular ape). The limited budget is obvious but the wild plot and deliciously slimy Carrol Naish more than makes up for any production shortcomings. When Naish tries to woo a pretty young gal and her father lets the unwanted suitor know he ain't welcome, the spurned scientist-type injects the dad with acromegaly (Google time!). Every research lab wouldn't be complete without a savage simian in the corner and Naish deploys his angry ape to dispose of a disgruntled employee late in the film.
The film is a great Halloween flick that would bear multiple viewings - even without a crazed Corrigan going maw to paw with Ace the Wonder Dog.




















                                  
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Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! #11...Who Killed Doc Robbin

October 21, 2013, 1:50 pm
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Boo ! Old Bongo here, and we're continuing the countdown with a classic for fans of the "Our Gang", and "Little Rascals", Who Killed Doc Robbin!
Who Killed Doc Robbin was produced by Hal Roach, who did not only the above titles, but also Laurel and Hardy Comedies. The kids are called" Curly and his Gang".
Curly (Larry Olsen) is basically a re-imagining of Spanky of the "Our Gang "series.The other members of Curly's gang have similar counterparts as well.
One note for the faint of heart...If you have a strong belief in politically correctness, don't watch this movie.
Like the "Our Gang/ Little Rascals" films, this is very much a product of it's time, and the racial stereotypes are in full swing. There are two black children are named "Dis and Dat". The younger boy, Dat, looses his clothes to a kleptomaniac chimp, and while the chimp is wearing Dats clothes, the kids can't tell the difference.
Other stars include genre veterans,Virginia Grey, (Target Earth,Unknown Island) and the great George Zucco.
Who Framed Doc Robbin is wonderfully atmospheric, with the haunted mansion and mad lab.
The story is fun, and moves at a fairly good pace, and the kids aren't overly annoying...well there is one...never mind.
But the best thing, my manic monkey minions...is you get to see the great Charles Gemora, in his best gorilla suit, (Monster and the Girl) and in brilliant Cinecolor !
Charlie has a large part in Doc Robbin, as he stalks the kids while lurking through secret passages, sliding panels, and every other old dark house gag. Charlie plays it straight for the most part, and is quite menacing while pursuing the kids. You also get to see many great close-ups of Charlie in his amazing suit. If you like the Little Rascals, and haunted housed with gorillas, you'll love Who Framed Doc Robbin !

Curly and friends !
The brothers, Dis (top) and Dat, (bottom).
the savage gorilla stalks through the secret passages !

                                         A fantastic close-up of the great Charles Gemora !
                                               The gorilla prowls the haunted mansion !
                                            A classic case of "Don't Look Behind You " !

                                    Nothing says Halloween to me like Mansions and Monkeys !
                                                              Enjoy the show gang !
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