KING KONG (Film Comments by Evelyn C Leeper)

[Philip De Parto]

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from:

THE MT VOID
08/15/25 -- Vol. 44, No. 7, Whole Number 2393

= = = = =

KING KONG (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

KING KONG (1933): This is not a review so much as a bunch of
random comments.

Kong is never called "King Kong" in dialogue. Within the story,
the title appears only on the theater marquee.

Overtures to movies used to be a thing. Now they're replaced by
ads.

The Morse code at the beginning says, "VVV A RADIO PICTURE VVVVV"
and syncs with the appearance of the letters of "A Radio Picture"
as they appear on the screen.

Orville Goldner (one of the credited technical staff) wrote the
book THE MAKING OF KING KONG.

As everyone now knows, the "old Arabian proverb" was written by
that old Arabian, Merian C. Cooper.

I had always thought the ship was docked in New York, but the book
claims it was Hoboken, and the opening shots do appear to be from
the other side of the river.

One of the things you can start to notice after many viewings is
the glimpse into the trivia of everyday life in 1933. For example,
when Englehorn and Riscoll light matches to light a pipe or a
cigarette, Englehorn strikes the side of the cup holding the
matches, but Driscoll uses his fingernail, and then holds the lit
match for at least ten seconds. It is clearly a wooden
"strike-anywhere" match of the sort we don't see anymore, or at
least very widely, and for good reason. As one site notes,
"'Strike anywhere' matches light easily, even when unattended,
such as in the mail during shipping." As a result, they are
heavily regulated.

We also see (reasonably authentic scenes) of the Depression.

Apples tended to sell for a nickel, so Denham's payment of a
dollar is quite impressive.

Everyone wears hats (or caps). It's not just because it's winter;
it was just what everyone did. (One movie I saw recently from that
period had construction workers wearing hats.)

The ship does indeed seem to be overpopulated (as a character in
the first scene notes).

Denham's recounting of the "Beauty and the Beast" has no
resemblance to the familiar fairy tale; in Denham's telling, the
Beast is strong until he met Beauty, then he "went soft, he forgot
his wisdom, and the little fellas licked him."

The position "2 south, 90 east" is in fact far west of Sumatra,
and there is nothing for thousands of miles southwest; the closest
land of any size is Mauritius, about 2000 miles in that direction.

The wall was built so long ago that "the people have slipped back,
forgotten the high civilization that built it." Denham also refers
to "centuries". So is Kong that old? Is he the last of a long
line? (The sequel says not.) We see no other giant apes, and apes
are not solitary creatures.

How did knowledge of Kong get to other islands? Apparently
Englehorn had heard of it.

Ann's reactions during the screen test anticipate what Denham is
going to ask for. For example, he tells her to look amazed, but
she looks frightened rather than just amazed. Then he says that
there's a chance if she could scream, which would normally cause
Ann to scream, but she knows not to at that point, but to wait
until he tells her to.

In the fog near the island you get a shot of the whole ship. It's
clearly not big enough to hold Kong.

As someone pointed out, the villagers are limited to the peninsula
on their side of the wall, so it is not clear how that many people
can find enough food, fresh water, clothing materials, etc.--not
to mention enough girls to sacrifice. Harry Harrison claims we see
no boats or canoes, so they can't survive on fish. In fact, we do
see outriggers, first on the beach when Denham lands, and later
when the natives come out to the Venture. And Ann refers to them
when they first land on the island. Still, it doesn't look like
enough to support all the people we see.

How does Ann keep the same hair length and hair style after more
than six weeks at sea?

The birds we see at the beach are cartoons, not stop-motion
animation.

Driscoll claims nobody knows who built Angkor Wat. Even in the
1930s I suspect archaeologists had figured out when it was built
(12th century), and concluded it was built by the ancestors of the
current inhabitants of that area. It's not as if the area was
completely deserted of people.

Someone (Bradbury? Harryhuasen?) relates going to Nias (Island)
and trying out some of the phrases from KING KONG. They were met
by total bafflement on the part of the Nias islanders. Thus is
drawn the line between filmmakers who hire linguists to write
foreign language dialogue and those who just make it up as they go
along.

I love the way Ann wears high heels when going to the island.

While the DVD doesn't subtitled the islanders' language, the
novelization does, so it is easier to distinguish words.

Why Denham thinks he won't be noticed when he is in a clearing in
the direct line of sight of the chief is a mystery.

The natives are clearly African rather than southeast Asian. (In
"The Myth Goes Ever Downward", Paul Di Filippo talks about the
dearth of Samoan extras in Hollywood at the time, but Samoans
would be equally wrong geographically--Skull Island is *west* of
Sumatra in the middle of the Indian Ocean, not east in the
Pacific.)

How do the natives manage to pick just the spot to come to on the
ship to be able to capture Ann over the railing?

Charlie might be a bit of a stereotype, but at least he is not
used for comic relief.

One wonders where the natives got the fur for all the Kong
costumes in the ceremony. Were there other giant Kongs they
killed? Were there also normal-sized apes on the island?

The tracking shot from the rear of the procession to the gate
makes the viewer feel they are actually there as part of it.

Thank goodness Cooper didn't go for the super-phallic bolt across
the gate that DiLaurentiis did.

Where did the giant gong come from? The islanders don't seem to
have any metal-working capabilities (or enough raw material).

As Robert Silverberg notes in "The Magic and Mystery of Kong",
Kong's lower canines make no sense.

Note that Kong seems to have two differently shaped heads: one
squarish (in close-ups) and one more elongated (for the full-body
shots).

Kong also has nothing in front to identify him as male (and no
cleft in back either). Is it possible that Kong is actually female?

Kong clearly knows how the fastening on the pillars work,
indicating a high level of intelligence.

At this point, Driscoll apparently takes charge, over Englehorn or
Denham.

We start to see the influence of Gustave Dore, with jungle scenes
in which the foreground is in shadow and the background well lit,
almost in a frame formed by the trees. (In spite of this, the
foreground is remarkable well-lit considering it is supposedly
nighttime and the characters all talk about how dark it is.)

The stegosaurus was considerably larger than stegosauri were.

The stegosaurus tail rattle (and the T-rex tail wave we see later)
were adopted by Ray Harryhausen in his stop-motion animation.
(Harryhausen worked with O'Brien on MIGHTY JOE YOUNG.)

If the swamp is shallow enough for them to push the raft with
poles, how does the entire brotosaurus submerge to get under the
raft?

If you are escaping from an animal whose head is high off the
ground, why would you climb an exposed tree that would put you at
exactly that level?

We see more Dore images as we travel across the island.

No one is really quite sure what the creature crawling up the vine
is when Driscoll is hiding in the cave.

If the dinosaur Kong fights is supposed to be a Tyrannosaurus rex,
it has one too many fingers on its forelegs (three rather than
two). If it was an allosaurus, on the other hand (pun intended),
the fingers are correct. Most sources say it is a T-rex, but that
is probably only because that is a better-known dinosaur. The book
claims merely that it is a carnivorous dinosaur.

We now know that the jaw strength of a T-rex (or an allosaur)
would be such that Kong could not have wrenched the carnivore's
mouth open the way he did.

The scene with the waterfall at the left of the screen (right
after Driscoll has returned to the village) was duplicated by
Peter Jackson in his 2005 version.

The scene in the cavern where Kong fights a sea serpent is a tour
de force of multiple exposures: the main action is the stop motion
of Kong fighting the serpent, while in the upper left there is a
cut-out with film of a live-action Ann, and in the lower right
another cut-out has a live-action film of Driscoll. The depth of
field is such that Ann is farther back and is at times obscured by
Kong, while Driscoll is always closer than Kong.

The sea serpent inexplicably has legs.

Not as evident on the small screen but visible on a theatrical
screen is the wall and the village in the background when we see
Kong on his "penthouse patio". On the small screen, you can see it
best when Driscoll and Ann are descending on the vine.

Pteranodons could barely lift their own weight, let alone pick up
a hundred-pound woman. Pteranodons lived in the late Cretaceous.
Pterosaurs also include pterodactyls, which lived in the late
Jurassic.

Even after weeks at sea, the sailors refers to Ann as "the lady"
rather than by name.

Apparently the gate was merely a symbol, since it survives Kong's
onslaught for all of fifty seconds.

Coconut bras were never a part of Polynesian, or south or
southeast Asian culture. They seem to have been invented as a way
to come up with something to satisfy modesty requirements of
photographs, movies, etc., that appeared to be indigenous. They
would be incredibly uncomfortable in real life.

Several of the "Kong rampage" scenes were cut in later releases as
being too violent, but have been restored.

He's always be king of his world" is as close as the dialogue
comes to calling him "King Kong". "King Kong" was what the lights
said on Broadway.

The tickets were "20 bucks"--was that for one or two? Either way,
it was a lot cheaper than HAMILTON.

Driscoll says it's the first time he's worn an open-front suit.
Sailors' uniforms buttoned all the way to the neck.

How did Denham get Kong back to New York? (Remember, the Venture
wasn't large enough to hold him.) And how did he get Kong from the
ship to the theater without anyone seeing Kong? And how did he
convince reporters to hold off taking photographs until they were
on stage?

Again, the scene of Kong dropping the woman was excised in later
releases.

How does Kong manage to find Ann in New York? And how does he
climb buildings while holding her?

Why does Ann try to escape Kong's grip when to do so would mean a
fall to her death?

Several people escape from the El train; you can see them fall out
of the windows which are now on the bottom side of the train and
run away.

It becomes full daylight rather quickly from the time Kong escapes
to when the planes are attacking.

[-ecl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: KING KONG (non-film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

In July 2007, we were traveling to the Canadian Rockies and we
drove to Cardston, Alberta. Our destination here was the
Remington-Alberta Carriage Museum, but we made a quick stop when
we came unexpectedly upon a silhouette sign of a giant ape. It was
the sign for the Fay Wray Fountain. Fay Wray was born at Wrayland
southwest of Cardston in 1907, and the fountain was built/named
during her visit to Cardston in the 1990s. The "King Kong"
connection in Cardston has not been exploited as much as Vulcan,
Alberta's name has, though, and there is no Kong Kong statue, or
Skull Island Restaurant, or Carl Denham Movie Theater.

Cardston is the "Mormon capital" of Canada, known for its Temple
(the oldest outside the US and the only one in Canada until the
1990s), and was founded by Charles Ora Card, Orson Scott Card's
great-grandfather.

(A photo of the Fay Wray Fountain can be seen at
<http://leepers.us/FayWrayFountain.jpg>.)

Photos of Vulcan can be seen at
<http://leepers.us/vulcan/vulcan_pics.htm>.)

[-ecl]