During New Years Day,I read a very interesting discussion about Ray Harryhausen's work on It Came from Beneath the Sea. With him in mind,I was pleased to find that the BBC was showing Harryhausen's first major credit,which led to me getting ready to find out how mighty Joe is.The plot:Living in Tanganyika Territory, Africa with her dad, Jill Young adopts a gorilla called Joe who she promises to take care of.12 years later:Wanting a big animal show for their new nightclub, Max O'Hara and his pal Gregg take a trip to Africa. After grabbing the tails of lions,O'Hara and Gregg catch a glimpse of what could be their main attraction:Joe. Crossing fire with the guys,Jill Young turns down all offers to take Joe to Hollywood. Trying to stay true to her beliefs,Young's money issues eventually got her to cave into a deal where she will get rich quick via going with Joe to Hollywood,which will allow the public to find out how mighty Joe is.View on the film:"Co-presenting" the feature,John Ford puts his mitts all over director Ernest B. Schoedsack's final full film,as the "African jungle" is given a breezy,sun-kiss atmosphere by cinematographer J. Roy Hunt that is much closer to the farmyard Western appearance than any jungle Adventure. Along with the jungle breeze, Schoedsack keeps Ford's touch prominent in the glamorous nightclub scenes,where a high-end club is smashed with bottles and clubs into a Western salon. Making a loss of $675,000 at the box office, (which stopped Joe Meets Tarzan from hitting the screens) Ray Harryhausen makes his debut work a towering success. Working with advance stop-motion animation effects for the time, Harryhausen gets to grips with a detailed character design of Joe over the two years of filming,with Joe's punch being given an excellent comedic edge in scenes which seamlessly blend the animation with live action events. Reacting to a stop-motion effect,the elegant Terry Moore gives a great performance as Jill Young,whose loss of her mum Moore keeps at the heart of Young's friendship with Joe,even as everyone starts to fear over how mighty Joe is.

No need to recap the plot. The movie's action galore. When I was a kid we all wanted to see it once the lavish promos started. But I guess I didn't have the money. Anyway, t finally caught up with the flick the other day. Okay, my viewing now wasn't with a 9-year old's eyes, but for this geezer it was still a lot of fun. Note (unless I missed something) that no one dies despite all the havoc in the nightclub. That's important because it allows Joe to go home without some kind of moral retribution, unlike Kong, for instance. (I suspect the Production Code applied to human-like simians as well as the standard human being.)Anyhow, apart from the matte backgrounds the special effects are great, even if Joe's size does vary as IMDb points out. Narrative and acting don't count for much here since they're not the draw. Plus the comedic efforts are feeble, to say the least. Nonetheless, the action sequences are riveting, while Joe-- or should I say Harryhausen-- manages a degree of human-like pathos. All in all, I'm glad I finally caught up with the flick even if many years later. And speaking of catching things, it was about 1949 when cutie Miss Moore caught bigger game than a thousand pound gorilla. That is, she managed to throw a matrimonial net over that elusive 10,000-pound bachelor, Howard Hughes. So move over Joe!

In Africa, the girl Jill Young trades a baby gorilla with two natives and raises the animal. Twelve years later, the talkative and persuasive promoter Max O'Hara (Robert Armstrong) organizes a safari to Africa with the Oklahoma cowboy Gregg (Ben Johnson) to bring attractions to his new night-club in Hollywood. They capture several lions and out of blue, they see a huge gorilla nearby their camping and they try to capture the animal. However, the teenager Jill Young (Terry Moore) stops the men that intended to kill her gorilla. Max seduces Jill with a fancy life in Hollywood and she signs a contract with him where the gorilla Joseph "Joe" Young would be the lead attraction. Soon she realizes that her dream is a nightmare to Joe and she asks Max to return to Africa. However he persuades her to stay a little longer in the show business. But when three alcoholic costumers give booze to Joe, the gorilla destroys the spot and is sentenced by the justice to be sacrificed. Will Jill, Gregg and Max succeed in saving Joe?"Mighty Joe Young" is a surprisingly excellent movie, with a story that entwines drama, romance and adventure and with awesome special effects for a 1949 movie. I bought this DVD a couple of years ago, but I was expecting a lame rip-off of King Kong based on the awful Brazilian title. However, the plot is engaging, with lots of emotions and many plot points and Joe's runaway is spectacular. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Monstro de um Mundo Perdido" ("Monster of a Lost World")

King Kong (1933) showed that giant apes could be excellent box office. Having misfired with Son Of Kong, the team of Cooper, Schoedsack, Rose, O'Brien and actor Robert Armstrong dipped the pail in the giant ape well one more time, and came up with this tale of an over-sized gorilla in the big city. The differences with Kong are major, though - Joe is big but not Kong-sized. Though most of the action takes place in the USA, Joe (gorilla) and Jill (Terry Moore, human) became close as youngsters in Africa. And Joe, though misunderstood, is essentially good hearted.Most of the story concerns Joe's misadventures as a quasi-celebrity and then on the run and, given that Joe is a sympathetic character, we care what happens to him throughout. Willis O'Brien, the man who animated King Kong, is in charge of the animation, but delegated most of it to Ray Harryhausen who puts his own stamp on his first professional job.Might Joe Young is somewhat dated, but is still an entertaining movie.