In these days of big-budget superhero and sci-fi movies with built-in appeal among young geeks, it’s hard to imagine that movies like “King Kong Escapes” once epitomized the pinnacle of monster movie making.

Okay, well maybe not the pinnacle. But they were our bread-and-butter monster movie in the 1960s.

Released in 1967 in Japan and 1968 here in the U.S. and re-released seemingly endlessly until it showed up in local TV station movie packages, “King Kong Escapes” was directed and produced by many of the creative folks behind the “Godzilla” movies in a puzzling 30-plus-years-after-the-fact attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the original “King Kong” and its sequels and follow-ups.

In other words, guys in suits grappling.

The movie’s story told how a maniacal mad scientist named Dr. Hu (pronounced Who!) needs King Kong – living peacefully, other than an occasional dust-up with a dinosaur, on an isolated island – to try to mine the mysterious Element X.

Along the way, we get James Bond-inspired shenanigans, American actors shoehorned into the plot, the most patently fake helicopters ever and a robot version of Kong that, inevitably, fights the real Kong.

The movie is of the “so bad it’s good” genre, particularly in its awful dubbing, unintentionally hilarious “cold” acting in a freezing jail cell and a performance that’s supposed to be stalwart from 1950s sci-fi actor Rhodes Reason as the American leading a team to bring the evil doctor to justice.

I’ve noted here before that genre entertainment can be marked “before” and “after” a few landmark films, including “Jaws” in 1975 and “Star Wars” in 1977. 

Even though it looks like it was made for the cost of a single set from a Spielberg or Lucas production, “King Kong Escapes” was the finest the genre had to offer just a few years before those films.