King Kong (1933)

King Kong is a 1933 landmark black-and-white monster film about a gigantic gorilla named "Kong" and how he is captured from a remote lost prehistoric island and brought to civilization against his will. The film was made by RKO and was originally written for the screen by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman, based on a concept by Merian C. Cooper. A major on-screen credit for Edgar Wallace, sharing the story with Cooper, was unearned, as Wallace became ill soon after his arrival in Hollywood and died without writing a word, but burger Cooper had promised him credit. A novelization of the screenplay actually appeared in 1932, a year before the film, adapted by Delos W. Lovelace, and contains descriptions of scenes not present in the movie.

The film was directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, starred Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong and Bruce Cabot, and is notable for Willis O'Brien's ground-breaking stop-motion animation, Max Steiner's musical score and Fay Wray's performance as the ape's love interest. King Kong premiered in New York City on March 22, 1933 at Radio City Music Hall.

## Plot

The film starts when Carl Denham, a film director who is famous for shooting animal pictures in remote and exotic locations, is unable to hire an actress to star in his newest project and so wanders the streets searching for a suitable girl. He chances upon unemployed Ann Darrow, as she is caught trying to steal an apple. Denham pays off the grocer then buys Ann a meal and offers her the lead role in his latest installment. Although Ann is apprehensive, she has nothing to lose and eagerly agrees.

They set sail aboard the *Venture*, an old tramp steamer that travels for weeks in the direction of Indonesia, where Denham claims they will be shooting. Despite his ongoing declarations that women have no place on board ships, the ship's first mate Jack Driscoll is obviously becoming attracted to Ann. Denham takes note of the situation and informs Driscoll he has enough trouble without the complications of a seagoing love affair. Driscoll sneers at the suggestion, reminding Denham of his toughness in past adventures. Denham's reply outlines the theme of both the movie he is making and the one in which he is a character: "The Beast was a tough guy too. He could lick the world, but when he saw Beauty, she got him. He went soft. He forgot his wisdom and the little fellas licked him."

After maintaining secrecy throughout the trip, Denham finally tells Driscoll and Captain Englehorn that they're searching for an uncharted island. Denham says that the skipper of a freighter gave him the only map that shows its location, having received it in turn from a native of the island who had been swept out to sea. Denham then describes something monstrous connected to the island, a legendary entity known to the islanders as "Kong". As the *Venture* creeps through the fog surrounding the island, the crew hear drums in the distance. Finally arriving at the island's shore, they see a native village perched on a peninsula, cut off from the bulk of the island by an enormous wall. A landing party, including the filmmaker and his leading lady, goes ashore and encounters the natives, who are about to hand over a girl to Kong as a ritual sacrifice. Although Denham, Englehorn, Jack and Ann are hiding behind foliage, the native chief spots them and approaches the troop. Captain Englehorn is able to understand the native speech, and at Denham's urging makes friendly overtures to the chief. When he gets a clear look at Ann, the chief begins speaking with great energy. Englehorn translates this as "look at the golden woman!" The chief proposes to swap six native women for Ann, an offer Denham delicately declines as he and his party edge away from the scene, assuring the chief that they will return tomorrow to get better acquainted. Back on the Venture, Jack and Ann openly express their love for each another. When Jack is called away to the captain's quarters, a stealthy contingent of natives captures Ann, takes her back to the wall and presents her to Kong in an elaborate ceremony. Kong emerges from the jungle and is revealed to be a giant gorilla. The *Venture* crew returns to the village and takes control of the wall; half of the crew then go after Kong, encountering an enraged plant-eater and a territorial thunder lizard.

Up ahead in a jungle clearing, Kong places Ann in a high cleft of a dead upright tree, then goes back and confronts his pursuers as they are walking along the top of an enormous fallen tree trunk over a deep ravine. Kong shakes them all off into the ravine, with only Driscoll and Denham escaping. Driscoll, who had grabbed some vines and ascended the chasm, continues the chase while Denham returns to the village. Meanwhile, a meat-eater approaches a terrified Ann, whose screams alert Kong, who rushes back and confronts the carnivorous dinosaur. The violent fight between the two titans ends when Kong pries open the dinosaur's jaw until it breaks. Kong takes Ann up to his mountain lair, where a cave serpent emerges from a bubbling swamp and tries to strangle Kong, who kills it as well. Kong then inspects his blonde prize and begins to caress her, tearing off her clothing and tickling her. Jack interrupts the proceedings by knocking over a boulder. When the gorilla leaves Ann to investigate the noise, a Pterodactyl swoops from the sky and clutches Ann in its talons. A final fight ensues and the pterosaur is dispatched and is sent tumbling down the cliff face. While Kong is distracted, Jack rescues Ann and takes her back to the native village. Kong chases them, breaks through the large door of the wall and rampages through the village, killing many of the natives. Denham hurls a gas bomb, knocking Kong out, whereupon he exults in the opportunity to take the giant back to New York: "He's always been King of his world. But we'll teach him fear! We're millionaires, boys! I'll share it with all of you! Why, in a few months, his name will be up in lights on Broadway! Kong! The Eighth Wonder of the World!"

The next scene begins with those very words in lights on a theater marquee. Along with hundreds of curious New Yorkers, Denham, Driscoll and Ann are in evening wear for the gala event. The curtain lifts, and Denham presents a subdued and manacled Kong to the stunned audience. All goes well until photographers, using the blinding flashbulbs of the era, begin snapping shots of Ann and Jack, who is now her fiancé. Under the impression that the flashbulbs are attacking Ann, Kong breaks free of his bonds and escapes from the theater. He rampages through the city streets, destroying an elevated train and killing several citizens.

Kong finds Ann and carries her to the top of the Empire State Building. The military dispatches four Curtiss Helldiver biplanes to destroy Kong. The ape gently sets Ann down on the building's observation deck and climbs atop the dirigible mooring mast, trying to fend off the attackers. He manages to swat one plane down, but in the end he is mortally wounded by machine-gun fire and plummets to his death in the street below. Denham picks his way to the front of the crowd, where a cop remarks "Well Denham, the airplanes got him." Denham replies, "It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

## Creatures of Skull Island

### Hominids

* King Kong (Gorilla gigans)
* Natives (Homo sapiens)

### Prehistoric creatures

* Meat-eater (Allosaurus atrox)
* Thunder lizard (Stegosaurus stenops)
* Plant-eater (Brontosaurus excelsus)
* Cave serpent (Seeleyosaurus guilelmiimperatoris)
* Pterodactyl (Pterodactylus antiquus)
* Skull Island abyss lizard (Archosaurus rossicus)
* Scavenger raven (Cathayornis yandica)

### Dinosaurs

The dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals depicted on Skull Island are never identified in the film. O'Brien based his models on well-informed reconstructions, particularly on those of Charles R. Knight, which were exhibited in major museums at the time (American Museum of Natural History, Chicago Natural History Museum, etc). The reconstructions are surprisingly accurate for their time; paleontologist Robert T. Bakker has commented that despite their anatomical inaccuracies compared with 21st century knowledge, the depiction of the *Apatosaurus* coming out of the swamp and supporting itself on land, and the portrayal of the *Tyrannosaurus rex* as a swift, athletic predator, are actually more accurate than what scientists at the time were teaching.

## Significance

Although *King Kong* was not the first important Hollywood film to have a thematic music score (many silent films had multi-theme original scores written for them), it's generally considered to be the most ambitious early film to showcase an all-original score, courtesy of a promising young composer, Max Steiner.

It was also the first hit film to offer a life-like animated central character in any form. Much of what is done today with CGI animation has its conceptual roots in the stop motion animation that was pioneered in *King Kong*. Willis O'Brien, credited as "Chief Technician" on the film, has been lauded by later generations of film special effects artists as an outstanding genius of founder status.

At the end of the scene where Kong shakes the crew members off the log, he then goes after Driscoll, who is hiding in a small cave just under the ledge. The scene was shot using the miniature set, a mockup of Kong's hand and a rear-projected image of Driscoll in the cave. This is not the first known use of miniature rear projection, but it certainly is among the most famous of early attempts.

Many shots in *King Kong* featured optical effects by Linwood G. Dunn, who was RKO's optical technician for decades. Dunn did optical effects on *Citizen Kane* and the original *Star Trek* TV series, as well as hundreds of other films and shows. In the 1990s, Dunn co-invented an electronic 3-D system now used for micro-surgery in hospitals and in the military, as well as co-inventing a video projection system with better resolution than 35mm film that is used in modern cinemas.

During the film's original 1933 theatrical release, the climax was presented in Magnascope. This is where the screen opens up both vertically and horizontally. Cooper had wanted to wow the audience with the Empire State Building battle in a larger-than-life presentation. He had done this earlier for his earlier film *Chang*, during the climactic elephant stampede.

## Deleted scenes

The first version of the film was test screened to an audience in San Bernardino, California in January 1933, before the official release. At that time the film contained a scene showing what happened to the sailors who were shaken from the log by Kong, showing that they were eaten alive at the bottom of the ravine by a Giant Spider, Giant Crab, Giant Lizard and an Octopoid. The spider-pit scene provoked many members of the audience to scream, leave the theater and even faint. After the preview, Cooper cut the scene. However, a memo written by Cooper, recently revealed on a *King Kong* documentary, indicates that the scene was cut because it slowed the pace of the film down, not because it was too horrific. According to "*King Kong Cometh*" by Paul A. Wood, the scene did not get past censors and that audiences only claim to have seen the sequence. On the 2005 DVD, nothing is mentioned as to the sequence being in the test screening. Stills from the scene exist, but the footage itself remains lost to this day. It is mentioned in the 2005 DVD by Doug Turner that Cooper, the director, usually relegated his outtakes and deleted scenes to the incinerator (a regular practice in all movie productions for decades), so many presume that the spider-pit sequence met the same fate. (Doug Turner: "It was probably burned. Cooper had been known to do that on other films where he didn't want film to be used.") Models used in the sequence (a tarantula and a spider) can be seen hanging on the walls of a workshop in one scene of the 1946 film *Genius at Work*, and a spider and tentacled creature from the sequence were used in O'Brien's 1957 film *The Black Scorpion*. Director Peter Jackson and his crew of special effects technicians at Weta Workshop created an imaginative reconstruction for the 2005 DVD release of the film (the scene was not spliced into the film but is intercut with original footage to show where it would have occurred, and is part of the DVD extras). The scene is also recreated in their 2005 remake, with most men surviving the initial fall but having to fight off giant insects to survive.

*King Kong* was released four times between 1933 and 1952. All of the releases saw the film cut for censorship purposes. Scenes of Kong chewing on people or stepping on them were cut, as was his peeling of Ann's dress. Many of these cuts were restored for the early 1970s theatrical re-release after it was found that a film editor had saved the trims. An uncensored print of much higher quality was discovered in the United Kingdom and was the print used to create the 2005 DVD, although it did go through much restoration before being transferred to the latest format.

Other than this cut scene, additional scenes were planned, some even partly shot but were never put into the final development:

* Kong battles three *Triceratops*. Partially filmed but scrapped.
* The *Brontosaurus* violently kills three sailors in the water.
* A *Styracosaurus* chases the sailors onto the log. Filmed but cut afterwards (this was also included in Peter Jackson's Spider Pit sequence reconstruction).
* Extended scene of Jack and Ann's escape from the lair, including Kong climbing down the cliff after them. This was cut by Cooper for pacing reasons even though the painstaking stop-motion animation had been completed.
* Kong breaks up a poker party in a hotel. It's unknown if this was filmed or not, but the reason for it being dropped was its similarity to an almost identical scene from *The Lost World*.
* A shot showing Kong's body from above as he falls from the Empire State Building. This was cut because the special effects did not look realistic enough; Kong seemed 'transparent' as he fell to the streets below. Peter Jackson used this shot in the 2005 remake in memory of the original scene.
* The script initially called for Kong to be displayed at (and escape from) Yankee Stadium; this was changed to an elaborate theater for the completed film.

## Reception

The film received positive reviews on its first release, although Joe Bigelow of Variety claimed that the film was a good adventure if the viewer is "willing to suspend disbelief and after the audience becomes used to the machine-like movements and other mechanical flaws in the gigantic animals on view, and become accustomed to the phony atmosphere, they may commence to feel the power." The New York Times found it a fascinating adventure film: "Imagine a fifty-foot beast with a girl in one paw climbing up the outside of the Empire State Building, and after putting the girl on a ledge, clutching at airplanes, the pilots of which are pouring bullets from machine guns into the monster's body".

Susan Sontag, in her 1964 essay Notes on "Camp", includes the film as part of the canon of Camp. It should be noted, however, that this is not necessarily meant to denigrate the film; Sontag considers "Camp" a sensibility detached from content, and thus many works of high camp, even intentional camp, can be considered good and worthwhile art.

More recently, Roger Ebert wrote in his Great Films review that the effects are not up to modern standards, but "there is something ageless and primeval about King Kong that still somehow works."

King Kong currently holds an average score of 100% "Certified

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills #12

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions #24

AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores #13

AFI's 10 Top 10 #4 Fantasy film

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes #84 "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast."

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #41

## Re-releases

*King Kong* was re-released for the first time in 1938, but suffered from censorship cuts. The Hays Office, in accordance with stiffer decency rules, removed a few scenes from the film that were considered violent or obscene. These included:

* **The Brontosaurus biting sailors to death in the swamp.**
* **Kong peeling off Ann Darrow's dress and sniffing his fingers.**
* **Kong's violent attack on the native village.**
* **Kong biting a New Yorker to death.**
* **Kong dropping a woman to her death after mistaking her for Ann.**

*King Kong* was re-released again in 1942 to great box office success. However, it was altered again by censors as various scenes were darkened to minimize gore. The film saw its most profitable release to date in 1952. Not only did it gross more money than any of its other releases, but it brought in more money than most new A-list pictures did that year. Due to this success, Warner Brothers was inspired to make a giant monster film of its own called *The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms*.

The film was released on DVD in 2005, having undergone an extensive restoration process by Warner Brothers. The source for the DVD material was a well-preserved nitrate copy of the film found in the United Kingdom; it also had all censored scenes intact and a new camera negative of the film was produced to replace the original, which had been destroyed.

## Home video releases

A colorized version was created in 1989.

The film was released officially for the first time on DVD in the US in November 2005, after being available only on VHS and bootleg DVD releases.

Warner Home Video and Turner Entertainment have released the film in a two-disc special edition that has been released both with regular DVD packaging and in a Collector's Edition featuring both discs in a collectible tin which also includes a variety of other printed extras exclusive to the Collector's Edition. As of 2006, the US Special Edition has not been released in the United Kingdom, where only a single disc package can be purchased.

The film was also part of the film colorization controversy in the early 1980s when it and other classic black and white films were colorized for television. In recent years, the colorized version has become highly prized among Kong collectors, despite its poor colorization work, and there have even been bootleg DVD releases that have appeared on eBay. The colorized version is also available in a Region 2 box set containing the black and white version, the colorized version, *King Kong vs. Godzilla* (1962) and *King Kong Escapes* (1967).

## Trivia

* Each model of Kong built for the island scenes were only 18 inches high. When producer/director Merian C. Cooper decided Kong needed to look bigger while in New York, a new 24-inch armature was constructed, thus changing Kong's film height from 18 feet on the island to 24 feet while in New York.
* Special effects genius Willis H. O'Brien, who earlier used stop-motion animation of dinosaur models in *The Lost World* (1925), had created several dinosaur models for his unfinished production *Creation* (1931). Producer Merian C. Cooper sold the idea for *King Kong* to RKO executives in New York by showing them a test sequence using O'Brien's models. The executives were stunned, never having seen anything like it, and green-lighted production of *King Kong*. O'Brien also used many of his *Creation* models in *King Kong*, including the Allosaurus and the Pterodactylus.
* The project went through numerous title changes during production, including "*The Beast*" (original title of draft by Edgar Wallace in RKO files), "*The Eighth Wonder*", "*The Ape*", "*King Ape*" and "*Kong*".