The story is a basic one. A starving starlet is discovered by an old time-y Hollywood director who needs a hit and is setting out to make a jungle action adventure. Things get crazy when they find Skull Island, inhabited by natives who worship the 8th wonder of the world...the titular KING KONG!
The surprising thing is, how many modern fans of the fantastic, freaks for fantasy and sci fi and horror have actually never seen the original version, directed by Merien C Cooper and starring the lovely Fay Wray.
Director Cooper had been into gorillas as a boy, discovering the wonder of the primates when he read Paul Du Chaillu's "Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa". During the great depression, he conceived what we now know as KING KONG, but reluctant studio executives didnt want to spend the money to send him top exotic locals, and it was only when mogul David O Selznick made Cooper his executive assistant that the project moved forward. The first project focused on was THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, with KONG stars Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray, with a second project, called CREATION looming, about a bunch of people shipwrecked on an island of dinosaurs. That was shelved, but he'd found his ground breaking fx man, Willis O Brien...and work started on KONG in earnest, which (supposedly), prolific crime novelist Edgar Wallace, had written qa first draft for.
On Jan 1, 1932 that (again, supposed) draft was started, and on Jan 5th 1932 a script titled THE BEAST was delivered, depending on your source of information. Wallace ended up dying on Jan 10th, and Cooper claimed that Wallace, at that point, had quote "Not written one damned word".
In came screenwriter James Creelman, also concurrently writing THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Changes were made, big changes, but Cooper still wasnt happy. He then brought in Ruth Rose to polish and punch things up. The title was changed to KONG, and when the film rolled Cooper directed the FX scenes, while co-director Ernest Schoedsack...aka Mr. Ruth Rose...helmed the live action stuff.
My personal history with KONG is why i chose to make this my very first watch of 2015 (thanks to a suggestion by BONUS MATERIAL cohort Langley J. West!)
I was about 3 and a half, and I can still remember this all very clearly. I was running around the porch area of the apartment my mom and I lived in in Baltimore MD. I thought I saw a guy playing with a toy in his kitchen, and when I investigated, he invited me in, with my moms approval. It turned out he was recreating the empire state building scene from the end of KING KONG for his film making class. Stop motion model, miniature skyscraper, and an 8mm camera, all set up right there. His name was Woody, and that day he explained to me the concept of stop motion animation. Woody was a bit of a proto geek and an outcast. We quickly became friends and he took on the role of my “godfather”, Soon Woody and his pals were exposing me to stuff like Ray Harryhausen films, the classic Universal Monsters stuff, Corman's Poe cycle. Kaiju flicks, and pretty much everything that is now in my cinematic DNA.
It's an obvious testament to the staying power of O'Brien's 1933 original, that KING KONG has remained in my memory banks as the first recollection I have as a living human being. here's to hoping it stays in the hearts and minds of generations to come!
Sean Smithson
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