King Kong (1933)

The idea of King Kong grew from the wildlife documentaries that both Cooper and Schoedsack had previously worked on. Cooper also says he once dreamt of his movie, where a massive gorilla attacked New York. Schoedsack had previously worked on dinosaur pictures such as ‘The Lost World’ which gave him the inspiration for such a huge feat as a film with a giant ape. How they were going to go about filming a picture with a gigantic 50 foot ape in was a tricky one. It was Willis O’Brien’s previous success with stop motion in ‘The Lost World’ that caught Cooper’s eye. After informing O’Brien of his idea they went to RKO where they showed previous stop motion animations – it was immediately liked as many of the staff were amazed as to what may come of this creation. Edgar Wallace was soon added to the strong team as the initial Scriptwriter for the film. Straight away work began on Kong himself: mechanisms, skins and paws were created all prior to script writing. Detailed research into Gorilla skeletons started to ensure the precision of the 18-inch Kong doll. Their funds were minimal which is why they carried on filming Kong 2 straight after the first Kong release. The set was also open to the filming of ‘Most Dangerous Game’ adding further money the companies.

When it came to initial acting it was very challenging for everyone as Kong himself was a ‘rear-projection’ which was also a very new technique – with such aspiration to succeed with these new techniques RKO knew they were onto something with Kong. O’Brien experimented with condoms during his filming, but not used as intended; instead he used them to experiment with different colour filters and see the after affects. From this he found that red objects projected through a red filter simply disappeared, whereas through a blue filter they would jump out at the audience. Both Schoedsack and Cooper were wrestlers in their youth, so they would act out the scene where Kong battles a dinosaur beforehand. Clever techniques such as playing a Lion and Tiger’s roar backwards was what created King Kong’s famous roar. To save money a lot of the set was re-used from old films. The native village huts were left over from ‘Bird of Paradise’ and the Great Wall was part of the Temple of Jerusalem used in ‘The King of Kings’. The scene in which King Kong tears apart an elevated train is a little aspect Cooper added, due to when he was a child he would constantly be disturbed by them at night. The reason for the dinosaur in the fight scene seeming quite snake-like is due to RKO having to cut cost because armatures were expensive – so they decided to remove the dinosaurs back legs. Jungle sets were the same used in ‘Hounds of Zaroff’ which were all shot indoors at Culver Studios. Although some of the shots were taken outdoors in Bronson Canyon. When the shots weren’t literally taken in New York, they were simply models, due to the fact that King Kong was a model they were able to use that to affect. For example: when Kong climbs the Empire State building that is simply all a model.

Apart from RKO Radio: Biografernas Filmdepot, Janus Films, Kino International Cine Vog Films S. A., Mondial, Union Afrique Films, and Compagnie Universelle Cinematographique were the other distributors. The huge variety of distribution over many countries helped increase King Kong’s popularity. King Kong had very little advertisement other than posters. It was hearsay that helped it succeed. It was cleverly shown on the 3 most popular theatres in New York simultaneously (never done before), this on its own aroused suspicion as to its importance. As audiences watched they were shocked by the horror of Kong, but amazed by the special effects and techniques that had never been seen before. Soon word spread about the amazing Kong and it soon became a phenomena – a bench mark in film making history.