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The Worst Film Ever

Such a frustrating disappointment

As Good As It Gets

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This film was made in 3D. Whether or not it looks better thus it certainly won't play any better. Rather than "Gorilla At Large" it should have the word turkey in the title, because that is what it is. There is evil afoot at the circus, two rather unpleasant individuals are murdered in quick succession, and the police are called in. We see a detective, a none-too-bright uniformed officer, the doctor/pathologist/coroner, and barely another. In a real life scenario, the place would have been crawling with police, and a suspect, albeit a weak one, would not have been permitted to take over the investigation!Something the censor seems to have missed, did that detective really use the word bollocks? And one wonders how many viewers have.

One of the "gems" from Anne's first stab at Hollywood. Drive in fodder would be completely forgotten if not for its cast. Anne Bancroft, looking sensational in Technicolor, is as good as the script allows-meaning she manages to keep a straight face during the ridiculous contrivances that the movie presents. Raymond Burr and Lee J. Cobb also put in professional performances, although Lee must have been longing for the days of the Group Theatre during production of this lulu. It's fun to see Lee Marvin just starting out as a clumsy cop. The whole thing is nonsensical but harmless unless you count the mystifying decision to make the usually brunette Cameron Mitchell a bleached blond, it does him no favors.

Although Goliath the gorilla in Gorilla At Large is not a monster like King Kong he does create a whole lot of mischief at the carnival he's a feature attraction at. Several murders are suspected of being pinned on the poor beast. But is a human hand behind it all.There are no lacking suspects in this film, the whole show is filled with intrigue of all kinds. Police detective Lee J. Cobb first suspects young Cameron Mitchell who is working at Raymond Burr's carnival for the summer. Wife Anne Bancroft who is a trapeze artist wants to get Mitchell in the act and she eyes him like a slab of beef. Her former husband Peter Whitney is the animal handler and the real friend of Goliath.Given the title I was really expecting some kind of schlock film, but Gorilla At Large is a very nicely done mystery with a really good cast of solid players. Lee Marvin has an unusual part for him, he plays a really dumb uniform cop under whose watch the gorilla escapes and wreaks havoc on any and all.The ending is a surprise, I guarantee you will not suspect who it is.

This semi-indie murder mystery from the fifties has a little bit of something for everyone. For one thing, it has an amazing cast: Anne Bancroft, Cameron Mitchell, Lee Cobb, Lee Marvin and Raymond Burr. It captures perfectly the tail-end of the amusement park era that was drawing to a close at this time due to television and Disneyland. Men dress in garish suits in this one, and smoke cigars, and there is, as always seemed to be the case with films with a circus or carnival setting, the air of an alternate reality just around the corner, in a sideshow or a funhouse. This picture was an oddity even when it was new, feeling at times more like an episode of Superman than a movie. The gorilla looks exactly like what it is, a man in a gorilla suit, yet somehow this is acceptable, the way painted backdrops in silent movies are acceptable. If the big ape were presented realistically it would throw the whole film off. Method actors Mitchell and Cobb deliver fine B movie performances that give no hints that they were in fact classically trained, not to mention that they had once played together as father and son in the original Broadway production of Death Of a Salesman. Miss Bancroft was a babe, yet restrains her natural talent to give the sort of Suzanne Pleshette performance her part demands. Raymond Burr, still a few years away from Perry Mason, draws on his natural and inscrutable saturninity. His occasional moments of smiling and bonhomie remind me a little of Peter Lorre at his most forlorn, as he comes off like a grim, serious man trying awfully hard to be a good sport, which in turn makes him a perfect red herring. Lee Marvin plays a dumb cop named Shaughnessy, a good indication of the cleverness of the script.Yet the movie works on its own terms. The color is well above average for this basically small-scale picture. Director Harmon Jones was a seasoned Hollywood veteran and knew how to slow down the action to create a sense of place, whether a policeman's office, a pier, a trailer or the ersatz jungle set, complete with trapeze. This sort of stylized, non-realistic movie was, like amusement parks, going out of fashion at the time it was made, and yet it has its virtues, notably a commitment to artifice rather than a representation of the real world, which freed the imaginations of the men behind the camera, allowing them to make little experiments with color, space and lighting. The movie is much better than camp. It's more like Edward Hopper Goes To the Circus.