LONG LIVE THE KING – We Are Movie Geeks

SLIFF 2016: Tribute to KING KONG Nov. 6th – Here’s a Retrospective on the 1933 Original

A Tribute to King Kong takes place as part of the The St. Louis International Film Festival Sunday, Nov. 6 beginning at 6:00pm at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium. The first film screened will be the new documentary LONG LIVE THE KING, which explores the enduring fascination with one of the biggest stars — both literally and figuratively — in Hollywood history: the mighty King Kong. Produced and directed by Frank Dietz and Trish Geiger, the creative team behind the award-winning “Beast Wishes,” the documentary devotes primary attention to the 1933 classic, celebrating the contributions of filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot, writer Edgar Wallace, and especially stop-motion innovator Willis O’Brien. But Kong’s legacy is also fully detailed: the sequel “Son of Kong,” the cinematic kin “Mighty Joe Young,” the Dino DeLaurentis and Peter Jackson remakes, even the Japanese versions by Toho Studios. Among the legion of Kong fans interviewed are “Simpsons” writer/producer Dana Gould, director Joe Dante (a former SLIFF honoree), and artist Bill Stout. This will be followed by the original KING KONG, the 1933 classic that introduced the giant gorilla to the awestruck world. Directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack helped pioneer the documentary form with “Grass” before edging toward narrative with the hybrid “Chang” (1927) and moving fully into fiction with “King Kong.” In the film — assuming any benighted soul actually requires a refresher course in its plot — hubristic wildlife filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) journeys to Skull Island in search of a legendary creature and finds even more than he hoped: a jungle teeming with prehistoric dinos and a monstrous ape. Capturing Kong and hauling him back to New York in chains, Denham intends to put the beast on display. To considerably understate the case, his plans go disastrously awry. Celebrated especially for the astonishing work of stop-motion innovator Willis O’Brien, “King Kong” quickly ascended to cinematic heights commensurate with those reached by its star on his climb to the top of the Empire State Building. Among the film’s many honors is the No. 43 spot on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movies of all time. The event will be hosted by We Are Movie Geeks’ own Tom Stockman. Ticket information for the event can be found HERE.

The big guy once known as ‘The 8^th Wonder of the World’ is now 83 years old. A landmark accomplishment in cinema and fantasy, KING KONG still holds the power to astonish and inspire, so in honor of its 83 years, here’s a look at the movie’s groundbreaking production and significant legacy.

Article by Tom Stockman

Carl Denham, who brought Kong from Skull Island to New York, was an adventurous, globe-hopping filmmaker and the same was true of Merian C. Cooper, the mastermind behind the movie King Kong. Born in 1893, Cooper had been an aviator and hero in the First World War. He began his movie career in the mid-1920s at Paramount Pictures where he teamed up with Ernest B. Schoedsack, a pioneering motion picture photographer and news cameraman who would become his filmmaking partner. Their first successes were a pair of ambitious anthropological documentaries inspired by the success of Nanook of the North (1922). Grass (1925) was about the migration of a Persian tribe that blended footage shot on location with staged sequences. The follow-up, Chang: a Drama of the Wilderness (1927). a fictionalized look at life in the jungles of Southeast Asia, featured footage of wild tigers, snakes, and leopards. A highlight was an elephant stampede that destroys a village. That sequence and many others, filmed at close range from camouflaged shelters and pits placed near animal trails and drinking holes, were clearly dangerous to film. In 1927 Cooper and Schoedsack journeyed to Africa to film an adaption of A.E.W. Mason’s colonial warfare drama The Four Feathers starring William Powell, Richard Arlen, and dark-haired Canadian actress Fay Wray. There Cooper, who’d held a lifelong fascination with gorillas, got the idea for a film about a giant ape inhabiting an island alongside prehistoric monsters. Back in Hollywood, Cooper pitched his project to the MGM and Paramount brass but neither studio was willing to risk the costly and impractical project.

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack

In 1932, Merian C. Cooper accepted an offer from old friend David O. Selznick as production head at RKO, a studio nearing bankruptcy, hard-hit by the depression. One of Cooper’s first tasks was to evaluate Creation, a proposed epic about a group of men who encounter an island of prehistoric creatures. Creation was a project conceived by special effects wiz Willis O’Brien, whose specialty was animating scale models, one frame at a time, to create the appearance of movement. O’Brien’s most noted achievement had been the 1925 silent The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle’s story of dinosaurs discovered on a remote South America plateau brought to modern-day London. When Cooper inspected O’Brien’s twenty minutes of Creation test footage (four minutes of which survives today) he saw a way to bring his giant ape concept to life. He pitched his idea to Selznick, who shared his enthusiasm. Creation was scrapped, but the studio green lighted Kong, known in preproduction as The Beast.

Creation test footage – 1931

British crime novelist Edgar Wallace, contracted by RKO to pen original treatments, was assigned to write The Beast. Merian C. Cooper fed him ideas and encouraged him to incorporate scenes from Creation into the story to utilize the dinosaur models Willis O’Brien had constructed. Over five-weeks, Wallace banged out a 110-page screenplay. He created the major characters, their relationships, and their role in the overall story as well as the beauty and the beast theme, but the author died suddenly of diabetes-related complications. Ernest B. Shoedshack’s wife Ruth Rose was brought on to finish the script and it was she who modeled showman Carl Denham on Cooper. According to Cooper, not a word of Wallace’s original screenplay, which had a needless subplot regarding escaped convicts, ended up in the final film but the author is given a “from an idea conceived by” credit because it was promised him.

Scheduled as ‘RKO Production 601’, the title changed from The Beast to The Eighth Wonder and finally King Kong. Originally Merian Cooper had pictured Kong as more half human/half beast. Willis O’Brien had hired Mexican sculptor Marcel Delgado to create his monsters for The Lost World and brought him on board for Kong. Delgado initially designed a missing link creature combining the features of a long-haired man and a monkey but Cooper hated that concept. He wanted Kong to be as fierce and brutal as possible so decided a pure male gorilla was best after all. The final Kong was 18 inches tall (there would be four Kongs built), a jointed aluminum armature covered with foam rubber and latex. Kong’s rabbit fur pelt was altered by the fingers of the stop-action animators between every frame that gives it a constant rippling effect. Delgado’s models for The Lost World had been built on wooden armatures, but metal ones moved more smoothly though each night the Kong models had to have their skins removed so the metal hinges could be tightened.

Marcel Delgado

The miniature jungle settings were intricate combinations of scale construction and precisely arranged paintings on glass. These paintings, as well as other pre-production art, were credited to artists Mario Larrinaga and Byron Crabbe and were inspired, at O’Brien’s suggestion, on the moody wood-cut illustrations of 19^th-century French artist Gustave Dore. They blended flawlessly with the miniature sets and the jungle soundstage, giving Kong a dreamy, stylish atmosphere that couldn’t have been achieved through any type of location shooting. The animated models were filmed one frame at a time, with minute adjustments between each shot. It could take an entire day to get the 24 exposures needed to fill just one second of screen time. O’Brien finished work on Kong’s battle with the tyrannosaurus rex before principal photography had begun. This footage so impressed RKO brass they upped the film’s budget substantially to $700,000.

Willis O’Brien

“Cover your eyes and scream, Ann, scream for your life!” Merian Cooper knew he wanted to cast a blonde actress as Ann Darrow to contrast with Kong’s dark pelt. His first choices were Ginger Rogers and Jean Harlow, Hollywood’s ‘Platinum Blonde’, but both actresses were under contract with other studios. 24-year old Fay Wray, who had starred for Erich von Stroheim in The Wedding March (1928), was under contract with RKO and was known to Cooper and Schoedsack, having acted in their The Four Feathers. She was starring in Cooper’s first RKO film, The Most Dangerous Game (1932), another jungle-set adventure, and had proven her chops as a scream queen with Dr. X (1931) and The Vampire Bat (1932). Wray claims in her autobiography On the Other Hand that Cooper initially approached her with the deceptive offer to costar opposite “the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood”, whom she assumed was either Clark Gable or Cary Grant. Wray slapped on a blonde wig and was paid $10,000 to play Ann. RKO got their money’s worth in lungpower alone. Her terrified scream is Hollywood’s most familiar and the studio would dub it over the voices of weaker-lunged actresses in other films including that of Helen Mack in Son of Kong.

For romantic lead Jack Driscoll, Cooper wanted to cast Wray’s The Most Dangerous Game co-star Joel McCrea, but they couldn’t come to terms, so unknown contract player Bruce Cabot was tapped. Cooper was impressed with Cabot’s athleticism, a quality he would need for a role that required him to, among other feats, swing from a vine into a cliff-side cave. Carl Denham would be Wray’s The Most Dangerous Game wisecracking costar Robert Armstrong. Cooper apparently saw much of himself both in the personality and appearance of the fast-talking Armstrong who had a string of credits as hard-boiled detectives, promoters, and reporters. Coincidentally, Armstrong and Cooper would die one day apart in 1973. Yet another The Most Dangerous Game player, African-American actor Noble Johnson, was cast in King Kong as Skull Island’s tribal leader. Rounding out the cast was German actor and former silent film director Frank Reicher as the Steamship Venture’s Captain Englehorn. Armstrong, Johnson, Reicher, and Victor Wong as Charlie the cook, would reprise their roles for Son of Kong.

Bruce Cabot, Fay Wray, and Robert Armstrong

King Kong was one of the earliest films with a musical score composed specifically for it and that assignment went to Austrian-born Max Steiner. Kong was Steiner’s breakthrough, leading to a long string of credits including Gone with the Wind (1939) and Casablanca (1941) and 24 Oscar nominations. Merian C. Cooper recognized the importance of a good score, aware that music not only says what the actors cannot but can appeal directly to the emotions of the viewer, so budgeted $50,000 to employ a 46-piece orchestra. With Kong, Steiner set a new standard and was ahead of his time in utilizing a system of assigning musical themes for the main characters and accompaniment designed to mirror on-screen action. This use of themes, including a romantic one for Ann and Kong, was highly influential and RKO would recycle the score for several film including Son of Kong, The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) and The Last of the Mohicans (1936).

Max Steiner and his orchestra

Cooper and Schoedsack began shooting jungle locations for King Kong before The Most Dangerous Game had wrapped and between Game setups Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and the crew would film their own Kong jungle scenes. The ravine bridged by a fallen tree that Kong eventually hurls into the pit can be seen in Game as well as other elements of the Kong jungle set including a waterfall. The same screams of the men falling into the ravine after being shaken off the log by Kong are heard during the shipwreck sequence of Game.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

In addition to the small models of Kong, Willis O’Brien had his crew construct a 20-foot tall head, chest, and shoulders made of wire, wood, and cloth covered in bearskin. Three men were inside, operating levers and compressed air devices to change Kong’s facial expression. This head was used for several shots, including some shocking ones of Kong chewing on screaming natives. A full-scale foot was built for scenes of Kong trampling natives and a giant hand for when Kong reaches into the cave where Bruce Cabot slashes at him with a knife. A second, larger and more intricate hand was also built, the central function of which was to hold Fay Wray. That hand, with the actress in it, was lifted by crane, and projected backgrounds helped give the illusion that they were thousands of feet in the air when Kong examines his captive while atop the Empire State Building.

Ernest P Schoedsack directed most of the live action sequences at RKO’s studio in Culver City, CA. Sets available there had been built in 1926 for Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings and were recycled for King Kong. These included a massive 60-foot wooden wall with a 20-foot wide gate that was covered with African carvings, jungle growth and that massive wooden bolt. Exteriors for the opening sequence showing the steamer in New York harbor were filmed in San Pedro harbor in California and the interiors were all shot in RKO’s studios.

A stegosaurus, triceratops, plesiosaurus, T-rex, pterodactyl, and various smaller creatures were constructed in the same manner as Kong. These were 2 to 3 feet long, large enough so that they were able to place the animation camera a good distance away while retaining focus on all of the elements (scale fauna and glass paintings) in the shot. Much of the matching of the live action footage with the animated miniatures was accomplished using an innovative camera trick known as rear process projection where the actors performed in front a large projected image. O’Brien would claim that the most complicated sequence to film was the mountaintop battle between Kong and the Pterodactyl. The flying reptile’s beating wings required seven weeks of intricate animation for the scene that runs just one minute. To create jungle ambience, sound engineer Murray Spivack recorded animal noises at a nearby zoo, and then played them backwards for the sounds of the prehistoric beasts. Kong’s roar was created by recording that of a lion, then playing it slowly backwards dubbed over the roar of a tiger, producing a distinctive howl. Spivak himself vocalized many of Kong’s grunts.

Much has been written about the famous lost sequence from King Kong that was shot but cut after an initial screening by Merian C. Cooper, that’s never been found, a thrilling one in which sailors are eaten alive by creepy crawly giant bugs after Kong shakes them from the log into a ravine. One theory concerning the scenes excision is that Cooper thought it too ghastly, taking place just after the sailor’s violent fall into the gorge, and he wanted to keep the focus of terror on Kong. Another is that it was cut to simply tighten up the film’s pacing. This Spider Pit Scene has become a legendary, mythic lost sequence scene from which few stills exist. Director Peter Jackson paid tribute to this sequence by including an updated version of it in his 2005 King Kong remake. Even better, he recreated, in black and white and employing the original stop-motion technique, the scene as a special feature for the Warner Brothers 2005 DVD release of the original King Kong. A documentary about the effort on the disc shows Jackson brought together his brightest FX guys from New Zealand-based WETA studios, along with legendary creature creator Rick Baker and screenwriter Frank Darabont to brainstorm on precisely how it would be assembled. It’s a fascinating project that was pure heaven for monster kids who grew up reading about the scene.

The Empire State Building, the scene of Kong’s final clash with mankind, had been completed less than two years before he climbed it in King Kong. The art deco Manhattan structure was being celebrated as the great architectural achievement of its time, towering a record 12,500 feet. Footage of the four real biplanes was edited around scenes of miniatures, suspended on thin piano wire, flying around Kong, who is attempting to swat them like flies. Willis O’Brien’s crew built a twenty foot ramp that the animation camera itself moved down frame by frame toward Kong, creating the dynamic shots of the combative Kong being seen through the pilot’s eyes. Merian C. Cooper plays the pilot who points to Kong and shouts to the gunner in the cockpit behind him, who is played by Ernest P. Shoedsack. In a way, Kong is killed by the men who created him.

On March 2, 1933, King Kong premiered at the 6,200-seat Radio City Music Hall in New York City where the film was preceded by a massive song and dance production featuring the Dancing Roxyettes entitled Jungle Rhythms. It also played across the street at the 3,700-seat RKO Roxy, the first film to ever open at both of RKO’s flagship movie palaces simultaneously. This was the rock bottom of the Great Depression and just at the time newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared a “bank holiday”, closing most banks. As evidence that in times of trouble, people are more eager than ever to turn to escapism and fantasy, crowds stood in long lines, eager to shell out $.75 to see what was advertised as “The Picture Destined to Startle the World!” In its first four days, all ten daily showings at both theaters were sold out and King Kong grossed $90,000. The film had its Hollywood premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on March 23. The life size Kong head and shoulders O’Brien’s team had constructed was placed in the theater’s jungle themed courtyard to greet eager filmgoers. Not to be outdone by his New York counterparts, showman Sid Grauman preceded the film with acrobats, a 50-voice choir, and a troupe of African American women dancers performing The Dance of the Sacred Ape. King Kong was a smash in Hollywood as well and, after opening nationally April 10^th, went on to gross $1,800,000, lifting the struggling RKO studio out of debt.

Critics in 1933 were mostly kind to King Kong. Jim Bigelow wrote in his Variety review: ““Kong mystifies as well as it horrifies, and may open up a new medium for scaring babies via the screen.” The New York Times’ Mordaunt Hall declared: “through a variety of angles of camera wizardry the producers set forth an adequate story and furnish enough thrills for any devotee of such tales”. Yet King Kong failed to receive a single Oscar nomination in 1933. The Noel Coward-penned drama CAVALCADE, the second most successful film of 1933, would win the Best Picture Oscar that year. King Kong would have been a shoe-in for the special effects category but that award was not established until 1938. Willis O’Brien would have to wait until 1949 to receive his much-deserved Academy Award for the Cooper-Shoedsack production Mighty Joe Young.

In the wake of King Kong’s monstrous success, RKO quickly shot a sequel which was rushed into theaters before the year was over. Son of Kong picked up where the original film ended, chronicling Carl Denham’s (Armstrong again) return to Skull Island, this time with brunette Helen Mack, searching for a hidden treasure he needs to pay off all the lawsuits that resulted from Kong’s New York City rampage. Junior Kong was blonde, smaller, and friendlier than his dad and Son of Kong was a much softer and more juvenile sequel, a comic fairy tale that ran a brief 70 minutes. It suffered from a lower budget than its predecessor and was not nearly the financial success. Willis O’Brien used parts of his original Kong models to create the son and while the animation is equally polished, Son of Kong is a smaller scale film in every sense.

For King Kong’s 1938 rerelease, some sexuality and violence were excised to appease Hollywood’s Production Code, a set of moral guidelines unenforced five years earlier. These scenes included the one of Kong gently undressing Ann Darrow, then sniffing his fingers and several close-ups of Kong munching and stomping on Skull Island natives and New Yorkers. When King Kong was sold to television in the late 1950’s, it was this censored print that was syndicated so older monster kids grew up watching an abridged version. The film was restored for an early ‘70s reissue and many fans of the film were startled to see the complete King Kong for the first time.

Some censored moments that were restored in the ’70s

King Kong has been officially remade twice. In 1976 Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis unleashed his heavily promoted version starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange as Dwan, to eager audiences. Though De Laurentiis bragged about the 50-foot robot ape artist/sculptor Carlo Rambaldi had constructed for the film, that prop was infamously underused and Kong was mostly played by Rick Baker in an elaborate suit, a development that angered both critics and the original film’s fans. With the exception of John Barry’s score, there is nothing noteworthy about the modestly successful 1976 version which climaxed with Kong battling helicopters atop the World Trade Center. Director Peter Jackson, hot off his Lord of the Rings trilogy got it right with his 2005 remake. Jackson who has stated that King Kong was the film that had inspired him to become a filmmaker, set his version in 1933 and cast Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, Jack Black as Carl Denham and Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll. The effects in this version were completely CGI, but it was made with respect for the original film, snatching bits of the corniest original dialogue verbatim, and even a few bars of Max Steiner’s theme. Jackson cast himself as one of the biplane pilots and was in talks with Fay Wray to deliver the film’s last line (“It was Beauty killed the Beast.”) when she passed away in August 2004.

The animation and special effects of King Kong left a legacy of their own within the film industry. It is impossible to find a special effects artist or a director of effects-heavy films who does not list Kong as a key influence. The techniques developed for Kong are applicable to modern FX technologies. As far ahead of King Kong as digital effects seem, they might not have been possible without the ingenuity of Willis O’Brien. KING KONG is one of those few movies that come across as vividly the 20th time around as the first and there’s no doubt 80 years from now people will still be enjoying the awesome achievement that is King Kong.

This article was originally written for, and was published in, Horrorhound Magazine

This article was originally written for Horrorhound Magazine in 2013.

SLIFF 2016 – TRIBUTE TO KING KONG Nov. 6th – Here are the Top Ten Giant Ape Movies of All Time!

But Kong wasn’t the only massive simian to grace the silver screen. Here’s a look at the ten best giant apes in the history of the movies.

HONORABLE MENTION: A*P*E

The ad campaign for the 1976 Korean film A*P*E warned “Not to be confused with KING KONG”. A captive giant ape, after escapes from a freighter and sets his destructive sights on Seoul, Korea where he falls for an American actress (Joanna Kerns ) filming a movie there. A*P*E was originally filmed in 3-D so there are countless shots of a man in a moth-eaten ape suit throwing Styrofoam boulders at the camera. He also engages in a pitiful skirmish with an obviously dead shark, flips to the bird to his attackers, and in one scene, sports high-top tennis shoes. The same stock destruction footage is repeated in A*P*E, one of the most dismal, if unintentionally funny monster movies of all.

10. KING KONG LIVES

Dino De Laurentiis waited ten years to produce a sequel to his poorly received but modestly successful King Kong remake and brought back director John Guillermin to helm King Kong Lives in 1986. The Jarvik Heart, a medical device making headlines at the time, became the springboard for the story which took place just after Kong’s fall from the World trade Center. He needs a blood transfusion to prevent his body from rejecting his mechanical ticker so a busty Lady Kong is transported from Skull Island to donate. The big guy falls hard for her and the hairy pair bound off into the mountains to make a Kong baby a team of hunters on their tail. The unbelievably goofy premise is played absolutely straight in King Kong Lives. Highlights include an absurd heart-transplant scene (by a team of doctors lead by Linda Hamilton) featuring surgical tools the size of trucks, and a battle with a pair of floppy rubber alligators. This sequel nobody asked for to the remake nobody liked was less offensive, faster-paced, and more fun than its predecessor.

9. QUEEN KONG

Queen Kong was a 1976 gender-switching British twist made to ride the coattails of the 1976 Dino de Laurentiis King Kong remake. A cigar-chomping Rula Lenska played filmmaker/adventurer Luce Habit who travels with blonde hippy Ray Fay (Robin Askwith, shaggy-haired staple of ‘70s British sex comedies) to the African island of Lazanga (Where They Do the Konga). The native girls there (including Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb star Valerie Leon in a red bikini) sacrifice him to the local simian goddess, Queen Kong complete with breasts and a hairdo. Queen Kong follows the 1933 film closely with with Queenie battling a T-Rex and pterodactyl with a hook for a leg before being transported to London for a climb up Big Ben and a tumble through the Tower of London while wearing a giant bra and panties. Queen Kong is riddled with absurd British clowning, a pair of silly musical numbers, and spoofs of Jaws and Airplane. One party lacking a sense of humor was Dino de Laurentiis himself who filed an injunction to prevent the release of Queen Kong. It went unseen until it’s unearthing by Retromedia DVD in 2002.

8. KONGA

Konga was a low-budget 1962 British film from American producer Herman Cohen. Michael Gough played Dr. Decker, a loony botanist who discovers a serum that causes his cuddly pet chimpanzee Konga to grow out of control. The monkey only reaches Kong-size dimensions in the final minutes of Konga, smashing out of the glass ceiling of Decker’s greenhouse in a memorable scene. The shabby gorilla suit in Konga was provided by George Barrows (the script never makes it clear why a chimp would grow into a gorilla) and it’s the same one used in Robot Monster (1953) and Gorilla at Large (1955). Its many flaws aside, Konga has always been good cheesy fun for bad movie fans who like laughing at inept films and even inspired its own Charlton comic book series.

7. KING KONG ESCAPES

King Kong vs. Godzilla was a hit in 1962 and Toho brought the slightly revised Kong suit was back five years later for King Kong Escapes which was not a sequel but a live action tie-in to the animated Saturday morning Rankin-Bass TV series King Kong, the first anime series commissioned by an American company. King Kong Escapes featured the cartoon’s villainous Dr. Who (no relation to the British time-hopper), who wants to capture Kong for his own evil plans. Kong battles it out with both a T- Rex and a giant sea serpent before engaging in a lively ape-to-robot confrontation with Mecha-Kong. The robot version of Kong is one of the film’s best elements, as its massive, impractical design cuts an impressive figure and it’s what most kids remember about King Kong Escapes.

6. THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN

The Mighty Peking Man (1977) was the Shaw Brothers of Hong Kong’s entry in the Kong bandwagon. A Chinese explorer in search of a legendary giant in the wilds of India finds not only the enormous ape-like caveman but his friend, a wild blonde female version of Tarzan. The Mighty Peking Man, aka Goliathon, featured some decent miniature effects and an expressive Yeti suit but is best remembered for leggy bleach-blond Swiss actress Evelyn Kraft as Samantha the jungle siren, speaking in fractured English dressed in a barely-there fur bikini.

5. SON OF KONG

In the wake of King Kong’s monstrous success, RKO quickly shot a sequel which was rushed into theaters before 1933 was over. Son of Kong picked up where the original film ended, chronicling Carl Denham’s (Robert Armstrong again) return to Skull Island, this time with brunette Helen Mack, searching for a hidden treasure he needs to pay off all the lawsuits that resulted from Kong’s New York City rampage. Junior Kong was blonde, smaller, and friendlier than his dad and Son of Kong was a much softer and more juvenile sequel, a comic fairy tale that ran a brief 70 minutes. It suffered from a lower budget than its predecessor and was not nearly the financial success. Willis O’Brien used parts of his original Kong models to create the son and while the animation is equally polished, Son of Kong is a smaller scale film in every sense.

4. KING KONG VS GODZILLA

In 1962, Japan’s Toho Studios purchased the rights to King Kong from RKO for King Kong vs. Godzilla, their first color film featuring their popular giant radioactive lizard. It was based on King Kong vs. Frankenstein, an idea Willis O’Brien had conceived as a sequel to King Kong with the big ape battling a creature assembled from parts of giant animals. Unable to find an American studio interested, the project was adapted by Toho who replaced Frankenstein with Godzilla. Fans of O’Brien’s stop-motion work on the original were reportedly horrified by the idea of the big ape being played by a Japanese guy in a suit. While the costume is pretty ragged and expressionless, King Kong vs. Godzilla always been a fan favorite, a big colorful boy’s fantasy with ambitious miniature work, Universal monster stock music, and giants grappling and tumbling like colossal wrestlers. One highlight is when King Kong picks Godzilla up by his tail and whips him around the air like a ragdoll and another is Kong’s lively tussle with an octopus.

3. KING KONG (2005)

King Kong has been officially remade twice. In 1976 Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis unleashed his heavily promoted version starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange as Dwan, to eager audiences. Though De Laurentiis bragged about the 50-foot robot ape artist/sculptor Carlo Rambaldi had constructed for the film, that prop was infamously underused and Kong was mostly played by Rick Baker in an elaborate suit, a development that angered both critics and the original film’s fans. With the exception of John Barry’s score, there is nothing noteworthy about the modestly successful 1976 version which climaxed with Kong battling helicopters atop the World Trade Center. Director Peter Jackson, hot off his Lord of the Rings trilogy got it right with his 2005 remake. Jackson who has stated that King Kong was the film that had inspired him to become a filmmaker, set his version in 1933 and cast Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, Jack Black as Carl Denham and Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll. The effects in this version were completely CGI, but it was made with respect for the original film, snatching bits of the corniest original dialogue verbatim, and even a few bars of Max Steiner’s score. Jackson cast himself as one of the biplane pilots and was in talks with Fay Wray to deliver the film’s last line (“It was Beauty killed the Beast.”) when she passed away in August 2004.

2. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG

The producer –director team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack attempted to recreate the magic of King Kong in 1949 with Mighty Joe Young, which followed the Kong story closely but this time with more humor, affection and a big ape that kids could see as a hero. Again Robert Armstrong leads a safari to an isolated land to find a new attraction and again discovers a giant ape attached to a young blonde (19-year old Terry Moore). The Golden Safari nightclub sequence in Mighty Joe Young is a colorful centerpiece, with voodoo dancers, Joe lifting Moore on a platform while she plays ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ on the piano, ten circus strongmen in leopard-skins who take on Joe in a tug-of-war, and a wild rampage after a trio of drunks go backstage to ply the already contentious ape with booze. Special effects master Willis O’Brien and his young protégée Ray Harryhausen succeeded in making Joe as much of a real character as Kong ever was, using technical advances to give the ape an even more expressive face and mannerisms. Mighty Joe Young failed to capture the box-office magic of its predecessor and a proposed sequel, Joe Meets Tarzan, was scrapped.

1. KING KONG (1933)

King Kong (1933) is a classic tale of beauty and the beast. An ancient animal lives on a mysterious land (Skull Island) that is hidden from the rest of the world. Carl Denham and his crew travel to the island and try and locate the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. This giant behemoth is dubbed King Kong, the monster whom the natives fear. The explorers have to cross a land that time really forgot. Dinosaurs and other strange creatures inhabit the terrain and pick off the humans one by one. Normally the beast would have nothing to do with the nosy visitors but he’s smitten by the lady in the group and saves the humans. His reward for being helpful is being chained up and dragged off to “civilization”. Will King Kong adjust to life in the city? Can he find love with a woman who’s a fraction of his size? The animation and special effects of the original 1933 King Kong left a legacy of their own within the film industry. Even 80 years later it is impossible to find a special effects artist or a director of effects-heavy films who does not list Kong as a key influence. The techniques developed for Kong are applicable to modern FX technologies. As far ahead of King Kong as digital effects seem, they might not have been possible without the ingenuity of animator Willis O’Brien. KING KONG is one of those few movies that come across as vividly the 20th time around as the first and there’s no doubt 80 years from now people will still be enjoying the awesome achievement that is King Kong.

SLIFF 2016 – A Tribute to KING KONG November 6th LONG LIVE THE KING and the 1933 Original!

” Throw your arms across your eyes and scream, Ann. Scream for your life!”

LONG LIVE THE KING and KING KONG screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Ave.) Sunday, November 6th beginning at 6pm as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. The event will be hosted by We Are Movie Geeks own Tom Stockman. Ticket information can be found HERE

SLIFF bows down to the King — Kong, that is — with a double bill of “Long Live the King” and the 1933 classic that introduced the giant gorilla to the awestruck world at this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. The event takes place at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium on Sunday November 6^th beginning at 6pm.

First up will be the documentary LONG LIVE THE KING, which explores the enduring fascination with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history: the mighty King Kong. LONG LIVE THE KING is produced and directed by Frank Dietz and Trish Geiger, the creative team behind the award-winning BEAST WISHES (the 20112 documentary about Bob and Kathy Burns, the goodwill ambassadors of science fiction film fandom. LONG LIVE THE KING devotes primary attention to the 1933 classic, celebrating the contributions of filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot, writer Edgar Wallace, and especially stop-motion innovator Willis O’Brien. But Kong’s legacy is also fully detailed: the sequel “Son of Kong,” the cinematic kin “Mighty Joe Young,” the Dino DeLaurentis and Peter Jackson remakes, even the Japanese versions by Toho Studios. Among the legion of Kong fans interviewed are “Simpsons” writer/producer Dana Gould, director Joe Dante (a former SLIFF honoree), and artist Bill Stout.These celebrity interviews reflect decades of passion and fandom of the original 1933 classic film, revealing how many entertainment creators’ lives were influenced by childhood first viewings of KING KONG, and how this timeless adventure fantasy influenced future careers of filmmakers, writers, actors and artists for generations since its release. These amusing personal stories weave together common threads of admiration, wonder and inspiration that all KONG fans share in their lives and work.

The double bill concludes — of course! — with KING KONG, allowing viewers to return to the treacherous jungle of Skull Island and thrill again as Kong climbs the Empire State Building with Fay Wray gently cradled in a giant paw.

Don’t miss A Tribute to KING KONG November 6th

SLIFF 2016 – The St. Louis International Film Festival Schedule Announced

The schedule for the 25th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF) has been announced and once again film goers will be offered the best in cutting edge features and shorts from around the globe. The festival takes place November 3-13, 2016.

SLIFF kicks off on November 3 with the opening-night selection ST. LOUIS BREWS, the latest home-brewed documentary by local filmmaker Bill Streeter, director of BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE: A ST. LOUIS STORY (read my interview with Bill HERE)

According to SLIFF, the festival will feature more than 125 filmmaking guests, including honorees: Actress Karen Allen (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, ANIMAL HOUSE), director Charles Burnett (KILLER OF SHEEP, TO SLEEP WITH ANGER), winner of the Cinema St. Louis Lifetime Achievement Award; and director Steve James (HOOP DREAMS).

Full information on SLIFF films, including synopses, dates/time, and links for purchase of advance tickets is available on the Cinema St. Louis website.

Check the site regularly for updates: http://cinemastlouis.org/about-festival

The St. Louis International Film Festival is one of the largest and highest profile international film festivals in the Midwest. The majority of the films screened – many of them critically lauded award winners – will receive their only St. Louis exposure at the festival.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2016, SLIFF is presented by the nonprofit Cinema St. Louis, which also annually produces the locally focused St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, the LGBTQ-focused QFest, and the Classic French Film Festival. In addition, Cinema St. Louis is the local producer of the 48 Hour Film Project and hosts educational programs, competitions, screenings, and special events throughout the year. Attendance has increased steadily during the festival’s 35 years, with over 24,000 filmgoers attending in 2015.

Because SLIFF is one of only three dozen fests that serve as qualifying events for Oscar live-action and animated narrative shorts, the festival has an especially strong selection of short subjects. In fact, in 2006, the Best Short FilmLive Action winner, “West Bank Story,” received Oscar consideration because it won SLIFF’s “Best of Fest” shorts award in 2005. In 2014, the Academy added SLIFF as a qualifying festival for documentary shorts.

Highlights from this year’s festival include:

JACKIE Sunday, Nov. 13 at 6:00pm
Directed by Pablo Larraín (“No,” the upcoming “Neruda”), “Jackie” is a searing and intimate look at one of the most important and tragic moments in American history, as seen through the eyes of the iconic First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (Natalie Portman). The film places the viewer in Jackie’s world during the days immediately following her husband’s assassination, offering a psychological portrait of the First Lady — known for her extraordinary dignity and poise — as she struggles to maintain her husband’s legacy and the “Camelot” that they created together and loved so well. The extraordinary cast includes Peter Sarsgaard (as Bobby Kennedy), Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, and John Hurt. Hailing Portman as “altogether astonishing,” Britain’s Guardian describes “Jackie” as “great cinema”: “a singular vision from an uncompromising director that happens to be about one of the most famous women in American history.”

A TRIBUTE TO KIM TUCCI Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 6:30pm
Cinema St. Louis pays tribute to longtime board chair Kim Tucci as part of SLIFF’s 25th-anniversary celebration. Kim’s service to the St. Louis region includes investing in the community, raising funds to fight disease, and enabling projects of civic pride. And still, somehow, he finds time to enjoy the movies. While many cinephiles would be content with outings to the local multiplex, Kim has put his love of film to greater use by serving on the board of Cinema St. Louis for the past decade, chairing the organization since 2008. He also served for many years as chair of the Missouri Film Commission. His selfless work has both helped build the film industry here in Missouri and allowed Cinema St. Louis to bring some of the world’s best films to St. Louis. The evening — held at the recently opened Delmar Hall — begins with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m. and is followed by a program that includes a Lifetime Achievement Award presentation, a live auction to benefit Cinema St. Louis, and a short conversation about movies between Kim and Y98’s Guy Phillips. The night is capped with a screening of one of Kim’s favorite films, “Harold and Maude” (see listing in Film Features section). The tribute portion of the program is a fundraiser for Cinema St. Louis, but the screening of “Harold and Maude” — which starts at 8 p.m. — is free and open to all (though donations are encouraged).

NO CROSSOVER: THE TRIAL OF ALLEN IVERSON Sunday, Nov. 6 at 7:00pm
On Valentine’s Day 1993, 17-year-old Bethel High School basketball star Allen Iverson was bowling in Hampton, Va., with five high-school friends. It was supposed to be an ordinary evening, but it became a night that defined Iverson’s young life. A quarrel soon erupted into a brawl pitting Iverson’s young black friends against a group of white patrons. The fallout from the fight and the handling of the subsequent trial landed the teenager — considered by some the nation’s best high-school athlete — in jail and sharply divided the city along racial lines. Oscar nominee Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) returns to his hometown of Hampton, where he once played basketball, to take a personal look at this still-disputed incident. With director Steve James.

Fritz Lang’s DESTINY (1921) Saturday, Nov. 5 at 8:00pm
This new restoration of Fritz Lang’s “Destiny (Der müde Tod)” is a dizzying blend of German Romanticism, Orientalism, and Expressionism. The film marked a bold step for Lang, away from conventional melodrama and into the kind of high-concept filmmaking that would culminate in such über-stylized works as “Die Nibelungen” and “Metropolis.” In the film, a young woman (Lil Dagover) confronts the personification of Death (Bernhard Goetzke) in an effort to save the life of her fiancé (Walter Janssen). Death weaves three romantic tragedies, offering to unite the girl with her fiancé if she can prevent the death of the lovers in at least one of the episodes. The great surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel once enthused: “When I saw ‘Destiny,’ I suddenly knew that I wanted to make movies. Something about this film spoke to something deep in me; it clarified my life and my vision of the world.” SLIFF’s favorite band, the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra, provides an original score and live accompaniment.

A TRIBUTE TO KING KONG Sunday, Nov. 6 at 6:00pm
The St. Louis International Film Festival bows down to the King — Kong, that is — with a double bill of LONG LIVE THE KING and the 1933 classic that introduced the giant gorilla to the awestruck world. The documentary LONG LIVE THE KING explores the enduring fascination with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history: the mighty King Kong. The documentary devotes primary attention to the 1933 classic, celebrating the contributions of filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot, and especially stop-motion innovator Willis O’Brien. But Kong’s legacy is also fully detailed: the sequel SON OF KONG the cinematic kin MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, the Dino DeLaurentis and Peter Jackson remakes, even the Japanese versions by Toho Studios. The double bill concludes — of course! — with KING KONG, allowing viewers to return to the treacherous jungle of Skull Island and thrill again as Kong climbs the Empire State Building with Fay Wray gently cradled in a giant paw.With introduction and discussion by We Are Movie Geeks editor Tom Stockman.

EYES OF FIRE Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 7:30pm
A few years back, SLIFF by chance came into possession of a print of “Eyes of Fire,” an unjustly forgotten horror film shot more than three decades ago in the backwoods of Missouri. On our 25th anniversary, SLIFF felt duty-bound to give a respectful nod to our celluloid past — every other work in the fest screens digitally — by cracking open the film cans and offering a rare opportunity to view this criminally underseen gem in glorious 35mm. Set in the Colonial era, “Eyes of Fire” — the film debut of experimental photographer Avery Crounse — recounts the creepy doings that occur when a preacher accused of adultery is banished with his followers to the unsettled wilderness, an isolated forest haunted by the spirits of long-dead Native Americans. LA’s Cinefamily, which held its own screening of “Eyes of Fire” earlier this year, aptly describes the film as a “supernatural battle between good and evil, rife with impressively fantastical set pieces — from trees with faces and a mysterious naked forest-dwelling sect to rains of skulls and bones — all swung on a shoestring budget.”

A JERRY LEWIS DOUBLE FEATURE Saturday, Nov. 12 at 1:00pm
JERRY LEWIS THE MAN BEHIND THE CLOWN. Since his earliest days, SLIFF Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Jerry Lewis had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches, and signature slapstick humor. But Lewis was far more than just a funny performer. After the breakup of his famed partnership with Dean Martin, Lewis moved behind the camera, writing, producing, and directing many of the adored classics in which he starred: “The Bellboy,” “The Ladies Man,” “The Errand Boy,” and “The Nutty Professor.” By becoming a “total filmmaker,” Lewis emerged as a driving force in Hollywood, breaking boundaries with his technical innovations, unique voice, and keen visual eye. Lewis garnered particular respect and praise overseas, especially in France. But if his French admirers regarded Lewis as a true auteur, American critics proved far more skeptical, often dismissing him as nothing more than a clown. Gregory Munro’s brisk, informative documentary offers answers to questions that have perplexed American pop culture for more than 50 years: Why do Europeans love Jerry Lewis? What is the inexplicable aversion many Americans have toward him? Is he just a brash, anything-for-laugh buffoon or is he a creative genius in the tradition of Chaplin and Keaton? Who is the man behind the clown? Plays on a double bill with THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. With video introduction by Jerry Lewis, a SLIFF Lifetime Achievement Award honoree.

DRAWING HOME Thursday, Nov. 10 at 6:30pm
In 1920s Boston, East Coast debutante Catharine Robb (newcomer Julie Lynn Mortensen) is dating the most eligible bachelor in the world, John D. Rockefeller III. Her future seems set: a dream life in the upper echelons of society. But Catherine finds her careful plans upended when she meets a young painter, Peter Whyte (Juan Riedinger), from one of the most beautiful places on Earth, the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Although their worlds are polar opposites, a mutual love of art draws them together. They soon face a universal question: Can you find “home” in another person? Inspired by the true story of the central couple, “Drawing Home” features a cast that includes Kate Mulgrew (“Orange Is the New Black”), Emmy winner Peter Strauss (“Rich Man, Poor Man”), Kristin Griffith, Rutger Hauer, and Wallace Shawn. The film was shot on location in Canada’s gorgeous Banff and Yoho National Parks.With lead actors Juan Riedinger and Julie Lynn Mortenson and producers Allan Neuwirth and Margarethe Baillou.

WITHIN OUR GATES Saturday, Nov. 12 at 7:30pm
As part of our 25th-anniversary celebration, SLIFF reprises a special event from our 2009 edition by screening “Within Our Gates,” writer-director Oscar Micheaux’s impassioned response to D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” The film shines a revealing light on the racism of U.S. society, provocatively including scenes of lynching and attempted rape. Micheaux was a pioneering African-American filmmaker and novelist whose career stretched from the silent era through the 1940s. “Within Our Gates,” one of the oldest surviving “race” films, was thought lost until a print was discovered in Spain in 1990 and restored by the Library of Congress in 1992. This screening features a new restoration that offers an even more faithful approximation of the film as originally released. SLIFF has again invited Cairo, Ill.’s Stace England & the Salt Kings to play the original score the group created for our 2009 presentation. The band will also offer a few selections from its album “The Amazing Oscar Micheaux,” whose songs were inspired by the filmmaker’s life and work.With live accompaniment by Stace England & the Salt Kings.

And of course there is much much much much more! Check the site for the complete schedule and for updates: http://cinemastlouis.org/about-festival

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