Evening star., 1933-01-22

r OLLYWOOD Calf, January Il.
-Hollywood's technical mas
terpiece, q picture which mas
been one and half years in
the making, will soon be re-
leased. 1t is King Kong" made oy
those two famous adventure-producers,
Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merriam G.
Cooper. The story comes from the
fertile Imagination of Edgar Wallace
the last tale he wrote before death
stilled the most prolific pen of the day.
From a purely technical standpoint
'King Kong" is the most difficult trans
lation of an idea into motion picture
structure yet attempted in HOLLYWOOD
The most startling point OF interest
about it is that the central character
is q monstrous ape so feet tall. The
film will show prehistoric monsters
fighting each other and will recreate
the sounds they made while living. It
Is rs per cent informed with sound.
The ape will be seen hurting auto
mobiles at New York's Stock Exchange
building, tearing up section OF the
Sixth avenue elevated railway ana
making his last stand atop the tower
of the Empire State building Tnere
this giant anthropoid, with fragile
Young woman in his paw, fights
morselessly pumping bullets into its
body. A futile but magnificent gesture
on the apes part is when he plucks
plane out of the air and hurls 1t into
the street far below.
To make such a scene as the one
above described is one Of the most dill
ficult things ever attempted for the
screen. Most of the work in this pic
ture has been done behind locked
doors. All the initial work Of the tech
nical staff was kept secret from the
general staff on the lot because R-k-
o wanted to be certain that the secrecy
of their process was kept inviolate::
To give you some. small idea OF the
precise craftsmanship required. only
sixteenth of an inch of film could
be photographed at time and never
more than a total of 20 feet on the
best 1O-hour days work was made.
One of the greatest problems involved
was how to place the monstrous ape
in association with humans and ami
mate them all against the moving
background Of great city.
Many of the scenes-notably the one
In which the ape fights the air armada
were made up of seven distinct shots
merged into composite timed to
split second. A few years ago 1t would
nave UeeIl dll llllOOSSlpIC tiiiii6 w PAio-
tograph King Kong" An H. G..
Wells or an Edgar Wallace could have
made it live for you with words-and
q series of dore-like drawings could
have made 1t vivid to a certain extent.
But today no matter how fantastic the
idea or how difficult of accomplish
ment. mans mental Nightmares are
possible of naturalization by motion
picture technicians.
When Merriam Cooper and Edgar
Wallace got together on story so fam
tastic that the motion picture producers
laughed at them since they felt the
technicalities involved made its accom-
plishment impossible, their discourage
ment only whetted Coopers determine
ton to see the thing through.
Il knew there was nothing a man
could mentally conceive that the CAM
eraman could not recreate or excel by
any number of processes available"
Cooper told me when we discussed his
pet picture. Frankly, I didn't know
the details Of how we were going to
produce these strange prehistoric ami
mails and mingle them with real per-
sons in modern settings, because I am
not a technician. But to materialize
the story Wallace and I had construct
ed I found two men eminently fitted
for the work to be done.
"Schoedsack. who had made pictures
with me before, and Willis O'Brien.