mondomark

Anyone who’s seen The Son of Kong knows it’s a huge disappointment; it’s a missed opportunity to develop further adventures of the Kong franchise because of a low budget, what feels like an unfinished script, and a deadline to deliver a finished film for a Christmas 1933 premiere date – the same year that began with the original King Kong.

You can blame RKO for wanting a sequel to a hit film (and maybe producer Merian C. Cooper was equally guilty of going for a rush job), but come on: not in the same year!

The easiest parallel of blundered franchises for current audiences (well, those from the nineties) is Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) that broke box office records, animation technology, and featured now-classic sequences in a film with a fascinating hook about the cloning of dinosaurs – creatures that were also present on Skull Island, the locale where King Kong lived before he was rudely whisked away to appear in chains in front of upper class NYC snots.

The idea of taking a missing link back to civilization wasn’t explored in Jurassic Park, but it made up the finale of the 1997 sequel, The Lost World (which is an amusingly chosen title, since Kong’s animator, Willis O’Brien, gained fame for his stop-motion dinos in the 1925 adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyles’ same-titled story of missing link creatures).

Spielberg’s first sequel was simple: dinos eat lots of people, but then it turns into a ‘Godzilla in L.A.’ satire with the T-Rex rampaging through streets, backyard pools, Blockbuster Videos, and coffee shops.

The next film, Jurassic Park III (2001) was no different than Son of Kong: half-cooked script, poor special effects, a rushed release date, and a hastily concocted ending (although in fairness to Son of Kong, its ending was better than the tacked-on army and tanks on the beach finale, butt-cut onto Jurassic III).

The parallels between the Kong and Jurassic franchises are important because they proves how little things change when it involves money. It doesn’t even have to be a Hollywood or American production. The German slasher Anatomie (2000) was hampered by attention-deficit editing, but the story more or less worked, and made sense; its 2003 sequel was, with the exception of Marius Ruhland’s score, rubbish, but like Son of Kong, it featured many of the same talent involved with the first production.

The lesson learned is if you make a sequel, you need to focus on the characters or conflicts that people wanted to see developed into further logical stories, not a rehash, not a crackhead plot, or just a mess designed to fill theatres and/or video rental shelves.

Son of Kong starts out well and is notable for trying to dramatize how Kong’s arrogant promoter, Carl Denham, deals with failure and the responsibility of Dada Kong’s horrible demise, but then the script’s rough edges show, and things get stupid, which I’ve somewhat itemized in the review [M].

When Cooper made Mighty Joe Young in 1949, it was a better planned film with a simple story and superb stop-motion animation integrated into some elaborate action sequences.

The story, however, has one serious flaw – something covered in the review [M] – but the film is still beloved by old kids for its fairy tale story (the big monkey lives!) and by animators for the effects supervised by O’Brien & largely executed by Ray Harryhausen (who could do anything he wanted after this perfect calling card).

Both The Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young were released on DVD back in 2006 by Warner Home Video, and flawed as they are, fans of King Kong can’t really skip either one because the former does dramatize an important emotion previously absent in lead character Denham – remorse – whereas the latter film is kind of fun for being a fast-paced, wonky little oddity.

And the Big Monkey Lives!

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

I don’t remember the first film I ever saw – most likely it was a Disney film, like Mary Poppins, No Deposit, No Return, or Bambi – but when I asked my father his first motion picture experience, it was King Kong, when he was maybe 10 or something.

That pegs the film’s release in India around 1942, which meant either it took a while to reach one of Britain’s biggest colonies, or it had enough legs after its first run that it remained a staple film for audiences a good 9 years after its debut in Hollywood (or maybe the theatre manager happened to be a huge fan of the big monkey movie).

The most important element in asking my father a fairly blah question wasn’t the answer, but the after-reaction, comprised of a smile and big eyes – a kid in a grown man, remembering an impressive creature and oddball romance between a beauty (man, Fay Wray had legs) and a beast on a big screen, not to mention a giant ape tearing apart a village & rampaging through New York City until a set of biplanes mowed down the mighty creature.

In reviewing Warner Home Video’s King Kong Blu-ray, I watched the film once, then rewatched it with the commentary, and then saw clips from the lengthy, multi-part documentary on its making and the dynamic personnel involved in transforming a stop-motion puppet into a living, breathing, caring, raging thing.

When Kong falls from the Empire State building, mortally wounded from the planes’ artillery salvos, it was a terribly sad moment because his final seconds of life encompassed a valiant stand against the planes, desperately holding onto its spire, as well as his dignity. The torment was everywhere – his eyes, his bleeding chest, and those weakening arms that were ready to give up their strength – and his tumble was a horrifying thing to see.

Re-watching the scene and clips of the fall, I noticed I had instinctively put my hand forward to block the view, which makes no sense since it wasn’t a bloody scene; Kong’s tumble to the street below is neither gory or detailed – it’s covered in a distant wide shot – but the emotional impact of seeing this amazing character die after being dragged to the Big Apple as a sideshow freak is profound, and it’s the chief reason this pioneering creature feature endures, and thrills movie audiences and transfixes special effects whizzes curious of Willis O’Brien’s legendary stop-motion animation.

King Kong the movie is a remarkable achievement, but Kong the giant ape is the centerpiece in a film whose special effects and characters were built around his persona, and in spite of two remakes with bigger budgets, the 1933 version is still best.

I’ve reviewed the BR, and will follow up with two of O’Brien’s other giant ape films - The Son of Kong sequel, as well as Mighty Joe Young – but one aspect of the film’s history that’s worth noting is its premiere at RKO’s Roxy Theatre (later renamed The Center Theatre).

The Roxy opened in 1932, and a year later King Kong premiered in the 3,500 seat movie palace (as well as Radio City Music Hall), and in 1934 it was renamed The Center Theatre and housed live plays, musicals, and ice shows before it was used by NBC for TV broadcasts. When it was clear the theatre wouldn’t earn major profits, it was demolished – the only section of the original Rockefeller Center complex to get smacked by the wrecker’s ball.

Apparently most images of this majestic Art Deco creation are out of circulation or heavily copyrighted, but a few pictures are available online, giving a good glimpse to the grandeur that was lost. Scarce glimpses are in a news short, a brochure, the mahogany lined foyer, and a hi-res wide shot of the auditorium.

Before checking out the King Kong review, take a peek at this amazing single screen movie palace that lived for a pathetic 21 years. You have to wonder: with all the expense and care that went into designing a giant palace capable of accommodating live venues – pretty versatile – how could it be razed to the ground?

It’s almost as tragic as the death of the giant ape, and maybe just as upsetting because the theatre was real.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com