I stumbled upon a copy of the 1976 King Kong and realized, since I had the original and the 2005 Peter Jackson films, that a retrospective of the run could be fun. Kong is such a major landmark in the history of monster movies, with only 1931’s Karloff’s Frankenstein and Lugosi’s Dracula predating it. There were horror films before this but many are silent and have become more of academic interest (with such films as the silent version of The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari and Murnau’s Nosferatu (both 1920). Kong stands tall among these early black & white classics.
The original treatment for King Kong was written by adventure-thriller writer, Edgar Wallace, who has been largely forgotten but in his day was one of the big ones. (Flags were dropped to half-mast in England upon his death.) Hollywood pulled him away from his Mysteries and Jungle Adventure stories to write Mysteries and Jungle Adventures for them, including the tale of a giant ape. Much of the fantastic nature of Skull Island can be attributed to Wallace. He died suddenly of undiagnosed diabetes while writing the treatment. The script was written by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose.
Watching the film again I was instantly entranced. Though the characters are not subtle they are intriguing, with Faye Wray playing a likeable and bubbly Ann Darrow well and Robert Armstrong is enjoyable as feisty producer, Carl Denham. Bruce Cabot as love interest and salty ship’s mate, Jack Driscoll, is pretty standard Hollywood leading man material but he gets to stretch his legs a little in conversation with the Chinese cook, Charlie, and his boss, Denham.
The special effects are dated, of course, but hold up surprising well for 1933. They were cutting edge at the time. The amount of action and adventure in the film was stunning along with the novelty that it must have had back-in-the-day. All the remakes will have to contend with the legacy of this film, and try to bring something else or something more. I finished the entire film without the usual boredom I experience from movies I’ve watched repeatedly.
Kong Kong (1976) was a Dino De Laurentiis blockbuster that I remember well. In 1976 I was 12 years old (the perfect age) and I can recall the massive ad campaign and the film’s appearance in theatres, much of which was linked to the bi-centennial, which also affects the look of the film’s climax. I remember how after the film finished the giant robotic Kong was placed at Universal Studios and all the kids wanted to go to California to see it (and Disneyland, of course.) Like Evil Knievel, the poster for King Kong appeared on the backs of more comic books in 1976 than just about anything. I can recall the controversy surrounding the making of the film when Dino promised a giant robot and delivered Rick Baker in a monkey suit (a very good monkey suit, but still…)
I tried to put all that aside and watched it with fresh eyes. I tried to see it as a 1970s film, which it certainly was. I tried to see it as a pre-Star Wars films, which it was. I tried to be fair to it as a separate filmwork, but ultimately, I failed. Because the 1976 Kong is disappointing. First off, the characters are unlikeable. Jessica Lange as “Dwan” comes off like the worst kind of bubblehead for the first half of the film, and only becomes relatable once she shows empathy for Kong. Jeff Bridges plays his part well, but his hippy hair and pro-environment beliefs seem shaky and calculated on the filmmaker’s part (gotta get the teen-agers in, you know) and worst of all, Charles Grodin’s Fred Wilson, Petrox Corporation goon, has none of the spirit of Carl Denham. Instead he is an icon for 1970s greed. Appropriately, Kong steps on him and kills him. (We are supposed to cheer.) We will see the same kind of parable-style-characters in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), a film that owes some of its spirit and look to Dino’s King Kong. (He even includes the vessel S. S. Venture in Lost World: Jurassic Park as an in-joke. Strange he didn’t have the Petrox Explorer?)
The biggest crime this film commits is the special effects. Not the robotic arm by Carlo Rambaldi, which was the precursors to the robots used in Jurassic Park, and not Rick Baker’s gorilla suit (and acting, for which he did not get near enough credit), but the rest. The scene where Kong knocks the men off the log and they fall into the chasm looks like something from a low-budget baddy like At the Earth’s Core (1976) and is less believable than the 1933’s version. And crime-of-all-crimes, no dinosaurs! Kong only fights a giant snake. Where are the stegosaurs, the pterodons and most of all, the T. rex? Monster fans would not sigh such a blast of disappointment again until 1982 when Conan enters a crypt and the skeleton falls apart, not jumping up in a Ray Harryhausen style fight. (Boo!) The monsters’ film-time is replaced with tacky scenes of the giant ape trying to sexually assault Jessica Lange.
On the positive side, there is one good point to be made about this film. The environmental issues it partly addresses and the bond between Dwan and Kong, which is more than in the original (Faye Ray would be quite happy to never see Kong again) will become the two most important themes in the final film, Peter Jackson’s three-hour version of King Kong. The 1976 film is forgettable in the long view, sold on hype, but remains a tacky 70s icon like Disco and Battlestar Galactica.
Which brings us to 2005. Peter Jackson’s three-hour epic is so filled with good stuff I have to look at each hour separately, for the film is a bit of a triptych. The first hour sets up the film, taking its time to present the world of 1933, Vaudeville, and Talkies and all the important characters. Jack Black as Carl Denham has energy while Jack Driscoll is no longer Ship’s First Mate but Jack Driscoll the writer. Carl Denham tricks him into staying aboard as he flees his producers and the cops. Best of all is Naomi Watts, who has everything we want to see, vulnerability, spunk, beauty and sparkle without appearing thick like Jessica Lange. Jackson even gives the bit parts time to develop, as we get to know the sailors and crewmen of the ship. Jackson has fun with some of the old props of the original, naming the ship’s registration as Surabaya, the port from which the S. S. Venture sails in the original. There are lots of these tidbits, like the scene shot on board with Ann Darrow and Bruce Baxter, taken word for word from the original. There is a joke about Carl Denham looking for a replacement actress and he wants “Faye” but she’s making a picture for RKO. The Arab proverb that opens the film is actually spoken by Carl Denham later in the film. These in-jokes I would have missed the first time because I hadn’t just watched the 1933 film twelve hours earlier…
The second hour is for the adventure fans, all those people who were disappointed with the rubber snake in 1976. Jackson has a big chore ahead because there have been three Jurassic Park movies before this and viewers want to be surprised. If three T. rexes aren’t enough for you, how about Kong fights all three while falling down a crevisse? The action is intense, the dinosaurs and monsters great, with a big scene that will never make you like crickets ever again. But best of all, the tiresome log scene that Dino made a farce of, even this has been done well, with more action but fewer deaths. Jackson has spent a lot of time letting you get to know these characters and he isn’t about to kill them off callously. As a small break from the fights, we do get to see Kong and Ann spend time together, forming a bond that doesn’t involve tearing off her clothes.
The last hour of the film (the one most people complained about) sees the logical end with Kong escaping in New York City. He gets to crash a lot of cars in Times Square then chase Jack Driscoll half way across the city. (I almost cried when I saw a newsstand probably filled with Weird Tales and other pulps destroyed by a crashing car!) This time we are spared the lengthy train scene and Ann finds Kong rather than the opposite. They climb the Empire State Building, share one last sunrise, and of course the planes come. Jackson does a good job of ripping our hearts out as we watch the inevitable unfold. This finale may have been a tad long for some but I appreciated the fact that it took longer than the original. (And that it wasn’t the Twin Towers!) The final conundrum of the film truly has time to set in. How can humans enjoy the natural world without destroying it? We can’t, and that’s sad, so the ending should be sad. Carl Denham’s final line about “Beauty killed the beast” seems unnecessary but hey, people expect it. I guess it’s pretty obvious I’m not like many critics who didn’t like the film. I think Jackson actually gave us a lot for our price of admission, a film that is part period piece, part adventure, part monster movie, a good love story and a message that can only become more and more relevant in today’s world. One of the few things that bugged me in re-watching it was the over-use of slow-mo. I suppose occasionally I would get a music riff or something that reminded me of The Lord of the Rings, but when you’ve seen it as many times as I have, it’s almost unavoidable. And we aren’t done with Kong yet, as a new film is to open in March 2017, Kong: Skull Island with Tom Huddleston and Samuel L. Jackson (He did Tarzan so why not Kong?) Another origin pic but with the idea of combining Kong and Godzilla later, as the Japanese films did. I don’t know how they will top Peter Jackson’s film but I’ll be first in line to see them try.
