Last year, I posted an article called
All About Godzilla . It's only fair to do the same thing for King Kong. Giant monsters are definitely my thing. Godzilla has always been my favorite, but Kong was the very first giant monster I remember seeing when I was a kid. The 1933 and 1976 versions of
King Kong were played on TV a lot during my childhood years and I watched them every time I got the chance (in Pre-VCR days). I remember wanting to stay up extra-late one night long ago to watch
King Kong Escapes, and when I was told no, I got up out of bed anyway and sneaked into the living room to watch it. I got in a heap of trouble for that, but I regret nothing. For some reason, giant monster movies always seemed to be aired after midnight on school nights. This made it increasingly difficult to follow the 9 pm bedtime rule. Ahhhh....memories....
Back to King Kong...he's a giant gorilla, or ape of some sort. He's been described as being anywhere from 20 to 150 feet tall, but usually clocks in around 25 ft. He has no special powers, like Godzilla's atomic breath or Mothra's silk webs for example; he's just big and strong and has a soft spot for human women (especially blondes). Sometimes he's played by a guy in a monster suit (as in the DeLaurentis and Japanese Toho studios films), sometimes CGI (Peter Jackson's 2005
King Kong) and also as an incredibly ahead-of-its-time stop-motion model (the original and still the best). Usually, the studios will use a combination of techniques to have the ape interact with the human actors...apparently you can't make a Kong movie without a huge rubber hand for the lead actress to sit on...
There's no real explanation ever given for Kong's enormous size, other than that he hails from a 'Lost World'-type setting on a remote island somewhere very very far away - some say in the Pacific, some say the Indian Ocean.... Once we get to see him wrestling dinosaurs and wrecking stuff, nobody cares how he got that big.
He's been in a good number of films, and there's been a staggering amount of rip-off giant ape films out there too. I'll start with the 'Official' King Kong films, and go from there.
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KING KONG (1933)
The original, and in my opinion, still the best (Pete Jackson's 2005 version being a close second). This must have absolutely blown people's minds when it hit the theatres in the 30's. Not only does it have a great story with the whole Beauty & the Beast thing going on, but we get to see a gigantic monster demolish New York and climb the (then) tallest building in the world. King Kong features amazing stop-motion effects scenes of not only Kong himself, but also a lot of prehistoric creatures like the T-Rex, Stegosaurus and Pterodactyl. It sometimes seems pretty dated, but I think it's a nice snapshot of a bygone era that I otherwise would know nothing about.
We all know the story of this one, but if you don't, go
here. I can't be bothered to write a full description of a film that 99% of the people I know have already seen. If you haven't seen it....what the hell's wrong with you? It's KING freakin' KONG!
SON of KONG (1933)
I didn't know a lot about this movie until a relatively short time ago...I knew of its existence for a long time, having seen a picture in a King Kong children's book in my school library...but I just recently bought it on DVD. There's a review of it in a previous post -
Rapid-fire Movie Reviews, AUG 23 .
I won't bother to go through it all again, but let's just say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. Released in the same year as the original, it also has great stop-motion animation, albeit on a tighter budget... The story drags a bit in the beginning, but the last half of it is pretty entertaining. Kong himself isn't actually in this one at all, just the aptly-named 'Little Kong'.
Exactly how Kong came to have a son without any kind of mother anywhere in sight remains a mystery for now.... this same dilemma occurs in Son of Godzilla...
.....and speaking of Godzilla,
KING KONG vs GODZILLA (1963)
This film is, to my knowledge, the first time King Kong was portrayed by a live actor in a monster suit. Although this seemed to work perfectly fine for Godzilla at the time, the patented Kaiju 'Suit-mation' doesn't translate so well for Kong. Regardless, this is still an awesome film. It's even cheesier than you'd expect - but that's the fun of it all, am I right?
As if the horrible rubber Kong suit and the Toho interpretation of his island home (replete with Japanese actors painted up to look black) weren't cheesy enough, the American studio intercut the Japanese version with supposed 'global news report' scenes featuring a handsome caucasian anchorman and some of the worst 'science' that you'll ever see in any sci-fi movie. I said before that Kong had no special powers, but in this movie, he apparently gets stronger when exposed to electrical energy.
Toho studios also made him larger in this one, somewhere around 150 ft tall, presumably so Godzilla and all of the miniature scenery that Toho specializes in didn't have to change scale. This is the tallest King Kong appears in any of the films. Strangely, his hand (when holding the damsel in distress) seems to be pretty much the same size as in every other appearance...
Overall, it's pretty funny to watch if you've got the stamina for horribly-dubbed rubber monster movies. Not a lot of people do.
KING KONG ESCAPES (1967)
If you thought
King Kong vs Godzilla was far-fetched, wait until you see this one.
King Kong Escapes is just one of the dozens of giant monster (ie;
kaiju) movies produced by Toho in the 60's. Again, this one is made using the 'suitmation' technique which, although improved somewhat since Kong's last appearance, still looks pretty unconvincing. I think that Kong stands about 70 ft tall in this one, so he appears to be shrinking...
That being said, we are treated to an excellent 'Kong vs Dinosaur' battle near the beginning, and perhaps best of all, we are introduced to Mechani-Kong, the robot version of KK.
Oh....and he climbs up the Tokyo tower, which had apparently been rebuilt since
Mothra wrecked it six years earlier. Is all that cool enough for you?
KING KONG (1976)
I guess after seeing the Japanese sully the good name of Kong in the late 60's, Hollywood decided to strike back. With a relatively large budget, big-name actors and an 'improved' monkey suit, Dino DeLaurentis gave it a go in the 70's, adapting the original story to a contemporary setting. Instead of going to the island to make a movie and find Kong, the humans arrive on Skull Island looking for oil. Instead of climbing the Empire State Building, Kong climbs the World Trade Center and leaps from one tower to the next. Instead of rescuing the heroine from a dinosaur, he fights a gigantic snake. Other than these differences, it plays out pretty much along the same lines as the 1933 version.
King Kong looks a good bit better here than in the Toho versions, but not much more realistic. He is however, given a terrifying roar and comes off a lot scarier than he'd ever been before. I think this movie gave me some crazy nightmares when I was a kid.
Most of the movie was good quality for 1976, and the actors were pretty good - except for Jessica Lange as Dwan, who annoys the crap out of me every time I watch this movie. Jeff Bridges is good as hippie scientist Jack Prescott, the male lead who saves Dwan from Kong and falls in love with her along the way (although why, I can't imagine).
Not as good as the 1933 King Kong, but a worthy addition from the Ford/Carter era of the mid to late 70's.
KING KONG LIVES! (1986)
Like a lot of things, King Kong got worse in the Reagan era....
King Kong Lives serves as a sequel to DeLaurentis' 1976 King Kong. Apparently Kong survived his fall from the dizzying heights of the WTC, and after being kept alive in a lab for ten years, he needs a heart transplant. Linda Hamilton (post-Terminator, pre-T2: Judgement Day) portrays the surgeon who performs this medical miracle. Kong is back on his feet and destroying stuff in practically no time at all. In this movie, we also get to see Lady Kong, a female of the same species just recently captured in Borneo (or somewhere like that). The plot has a bunch of ridiculous twists and turns, and basically Kong and his new bride get it on and reproduce. In the end, both of the parents die and little Baby Kong survives.
It's all pretty silly, and the effects, even though 10 years later, are much worse than the previous film. This is the kind of film that actors and producers like to forget that they ever made. At least it seems that way, since it's pretty hard to find in your local video store. Still, it's a Kong movie, and no collection would be complete without it. This served as the last King Kong movie for a whopping 19 years, until...
KING KONG (2005)
Fresh off of the Lord of the Rings experience, Peter Jackson decided to do another big-budget adaptation. A lot of people trashed this movie and it was considered to be a box office flop. I enjoyed this movie tremendously, despite its tendency towards over-the-top action sequences (my one major complaint). The CGI is spectacular, and Kong has never looked better. The animators obviously went out of their way to make him look realistic and more like an actual animal than ever before. Visually, this is definitely the most impressive King Kong movie of all.
The acting and script are great, and I for one liked Jack Black as Carl Denham (I know some folks didn't care for him). It all flows pretty well for being over three hours long. I like how the movie seemed to capture a little of the spirit of the 1930's by throwing in a lot of small details, both in the scenery and dialogue. There's great emotion and character depth throughout.
What I didn't like about this film is probably what some thought were the coolest parts; the 3-on-1 T-Rex vs Kong Battle and the Giant Bug sequence, both right in the middle of the movie, one after the other. I think this was just WETA studios showing off their skills, but it actually lessened the impact of the movie quite a bit to see scene after scene of utterly impossible things happening until you just can't be impressed anymore... 'Too many cooks...' and all that....
Anyway, it's a fabulous movie either way, and you should see it. Don't listen to people who base their opinions on what everybody else says about something on the internet. You should know that I'm the only one you should listen to...especially when it comes to giant monster movies.
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Of course, with the continuing success of King Kong movies, it's only logical that there'd be about a million 'fake' Kongs out there from all corners of the globe. Here's a handful of them, some of which I had no knowledge of until I started researching for this article:
Queen Kong (1976 - UK)
A*P*E (1976 - Korea/US)
Mighty Joe Young (1949 - US)
Mighty Joe Young (1998 - US)
Konga (1961 - UK)
Kong Island (1961 - Italy)
The Mighty Peking Man (1977 - Hong Kong)
King of the Lost World (2005 - US)
This is just a few of the Kong knock-offs, and I'm sure there's even more out there. With the exception of the two Mighty Joe Young movies, I haven't seen any of them. I wouldn't mind checking a few of them out (especially A*P*E, widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made, starring the mom from Growing Pains). They seem to be right up my alley....
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There's also been a few animated Kongs:
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It seems that there's an endless array of giant gorilla-related entertainment out there, just waiting to be discovered. When I decided to write this article, I had no idea what I was getting into - there's just too damn much to write about.
Having now surpassed the 'longest post ever' mark, I think it's time to cut it off. Besides, Godzilla might be jealous if he found out that I wrote more about King Kong than him....
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Until next time:
May the Force be with you...
I will have prints of my homemade comic Everyday Heroes for sale - autographed for free if you like...
