Gorillas in Popular Culture - Examples of Representation - Film

Film

• The giant gorilla is a recurring theme in film, especially in the various incarnations of King Kong and Mighty Joe Young.
• Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, features a scene wherein a gorilla transported on a train meets 'Harvey', played by James Belushi, dressed in a gorilla costume. Later in the film, the protagonists Louis Winthorpe (Aykroyd) and Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy) are saved by the real gorilla when Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason) tries to kill them; Winthorpe and Valentine then dress Beeks in the gorilla costume, and the real gorilla falls in love with the costumed Beeks.
• Bride of the Gorilla starring Raymond Burr who changes into a gorilla and torments his wife.
• Congo
• Another 1950s classic is Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla a comedy featuring Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis clones, meet Béla Lugosi on a remote island who can turn people into gorillas.
• Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey was a drama which documented a scientist in Africa crusading for the rights of gorillas.
• Various non-human apes dominate the world in the Planet of the Apes novel and film series, among them gorillas, who act as the soldiers and laborers in ape society. Notable characters include General Ursus and Aldo.
• In the Marx Brothers movie At the Circus, Jeff Wilson, the circus owner (Kenny Baker), is robbed of $10,000 in full view of a gorilla on the train. In the last scene of the movie, the gorilla goes after the villain and retrieves the money, and counts it. "Is it all there?" Groucho asks; the ape signals Yes, it is.