As stated previously, there isn’t much that I like about the Holiday season. The one thing I do appreciate however, are the movies. Hollywood studios, greedy for Oscar gold, always release their best movies in December. I still haven’t found a date to go see Syriana with despite the fact that it has been out for two weeks already in L.A. This weekend marks the opening of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I can hardly wait. Next weekend however is when the biggest film of the year will open up. Peter Jackson’s re-make of the 1933 classic King Kong. But…did you all know that Bollywood re-made King Kong in 1962? Would I lie to you? I give you Kong:

Unfortunately this one blurry picture is the only visual evidence I could find that the movie really exists (Update: Manish who unlike me can read Hindi, points out that this poster may be of a film called Shikari which also seems to have a giant ape??). It was a cached copy on a defunct webpage. I do know a bit more about the ‘62 version however (even if the above picture is not the King Kong movie poster). It was directed by Babubhai Mistri and starred Dara Singh:
Prolific Indian director Babubhai Mistri filmed a Hindi version of the simian classic that starred world-wrestling force Dara Singh. We were unable to ascertain, however, whether Mr. Singh played a human or Kong himself — this movie never made it to the United States because of the copyright infringement lawsuits that would have resulted. [Link]
Other websites I came across were also speculating whether Singh played the part of the hero or that of Kong (Update: A reader provides the answer). Is there anyone reading this that has actually been lucky enough to see this film? Ask your parents. I am simply dying to know whether the Bollywood version has the “Fay Wray” character and King Kong dancing and singing around the trees in the forest of that primordial island where they find Kong.
As an extra treat for all you classic Bollywood/Lollywood fans (I’m talking to you Turbanhead), here is the website which contained the cached copy of the Bollywood King Kong poster. There are a bunch of other classics there (click on each one) that deserve at last to see the light of day:

The most promising appears to be Zinda Laash (Living Corpse) (1967). It is a Lollywood re-make of Dracula:

The 60’s black and white production starts off with a clearly unstable mad scientist type (Professor Tabani) working profusely in his very Hammer-ish lab. Test-tubes bubble away furiously and while the distinguished professor pours himself a beaker of a very strange looking substance and proceeds to knock it back. The next morning an assistant finds the Professor’s corpse lying crumpled up and a note which explains what had caused it. After the professor is buried, the potion starts to take effect and he is abruptly woken from the sleep of the dead and returns to the animate world as the Living Dead.

Fortunately for him, he appears to have been buried in a coffin with a lid that opens very easily as he is out and about searching for victims within moments of reawakening. He finds his buxom accomplice (Nasreen aka Salma Agha’s mum) reclining and doesn’t waste much time in jabbing those fangs into her fragile neck and feasting on her blood. [Link]

Oooh. Kinky. As the site proudly proclaims: “In the 1960s, EVEN Pakistan was swinging.”