Editor’s Note: Our resident cinephile and move critic Mike Fried, author of the Mike At the Movies column, takes a look back at the cinema history of a true Hollywood legend: Kong. And he’s not monkeying around!
By MIKE FRIED
KING KONG (1933)
*****
This movie occupies a special place in my heart.
In addition to it being one of the best monster movies ever made, it’s one of those movies that was shown on Channel 11 on Thanksgiving morning (along with Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young). I’d watch those three movies and then go deal with the stupid monkeys in my family. As a kid, this movie scared the shit out of me (it didn’t help that the poster for the movie showed Kong four times as tall as the Empire State Building). As an adult, it continues to enthrall.
A lot of the people I used to work with — much younger people — only know Kong from Peter Jackson’s just okay 2005 remake. The biggest monkey in that movie was Jack Black as impresario Carl Denham. Further, Adrien Brody was woefully miscast.
This movie is full of hokey dialogue as befits the early 1930s and Robert Armstrong is the key hokey-man who has fun chewing the scenery. But Bruce Cabot is just terrific as Jack Driscoll and Fay Wray had the role of a lifetime as Kong’s crush, Ann Darrow.
But what sells this movie — and what still works 90 Years Later — are the special effects by Willis O’Brien. The stop motion action work was inspired Ray Harryhausen and it still excites to this day. Whether it is Kong attacking humans or pterodactyls or a T. Rex or a NYC Subway car, it is a sight to behold, made even more exhilarating by the fact that O’Brien made sure that Kong’s emotions could be seen on his face.
I’d be remiss if I did not mention Max Steiner’s exhilarating symphonic score — reputedly the first such score in film, although I haven’t been able to pin that down. Regardless, the music is another major character in the film.
Yeah, there’s stuff that hasn’t age well, especially the scenes with the Skull Island natives, but that could be found in most movies from that era. I don’t condone it; but I also don’t let it detract from the rating either.
Marian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack both co-wrote and co-directed this movie, filmed at the same time as Schiedsack’s The Most Dangerous Game which utilized the same jungle sets, and they did a terrific job giving us this thrilling story of the first Kaiju Titan long before the term Kaiju was ever coined.
I give an extra shout out to the carnivorous brontosaurus that attacks the sailors on Skull Island as we now know that not to be true. But I also give a shout out to the Amazon action sequences.
It’s an absolutely terrific film that remains fun to watch every year.
WATCH IT!
KING KONG (1976)
***
The Kong origin story — if you don’t know it, look it up.
I probably shouldn’t like this version of the great classic — I do, but the “like” falls into the ‘just barely’ category. Plus I have to be in the right mood. Tonight I was.
The 1933 version is the bellwether — there will never be a Kong film (or a Kong) that will surpass it.
And this one doesn’t even come close.
And yet …….
This one has the Dude, which is always an added bonus. Jeff Bridges’ Jack Prescott tries to be half the man Jack Driscoll was and he does an admirable job at it. Instead of being a first mate, he is a stowaway Princeton paleontologist who runs after Kong when he takes the beautiful Dwan (they couldn’t call her Dawn???) who had been kidnapped by the natives and offered as a sacrifice.
And instead of Carl Denham, documentarian and motion picture maker, the expedition to Skull Island is led by Fred Wilson, the head of Petrox Petroleum, a huge oil conglomerate. Fred has heard that Skull Island has all sorts of oil deposits and by stealing them, he can make a fortune. Fred is played with smarmy glee by Charles Grodin, sporting a great cinematic porn stash. Grodin is the high point of the film. He is a pure joy to watch, even though he is such a dick. “LIGHTS, CAMERAS-KONG!”
The weakest link in this movie is twofold: Jessica Lange and Kong.
She was obviously hired because she looked great and could halfway act — she hadn’t yet perfected her acting skills. She’s pretty bad but still it’s her film acting debut. But she at least tries. Her scenes where she is trying to be nice to Kong to calm him down are laughable, though.
More than I can say for the costumers and special effects wizards that put together this Kong. I thoroughly dislike the Peter Jackson version of Kong but at least that version had a CGI Kong, not Rick Baker in a rubber suit. I was waiting for the 1962 Toho Godzilla to show up so two guys in rubber suits could fight each other. Unlike the 1933 Kong, which actually showed some emotion, this guy just kept beating his breast and yelling the lamest roar (using subtitles, it was written out as “Arrr”). And when this Kong tries to show emotion he looks like he just wants to bone Dwan (Dawn?) especially when he snatches her out of the Harry’s of Hanover Square restaurant, one of my favorite hangouts in the City.
And of course when out on display, Kong breaks loose. His rampage through Queens and Manhattan is pretty good, despite being short, but one of the more laughable moments is when he throws a subway car and it explodes in a fireball as if it had a gas tank.
Since this is a newer Kong, no Empire State Building for him — nope, this Kong manages to climb up the straight steel supports of the Twin Towers of the recently constructed World Trade Center — quite an impressive feat since he manages to do so with Jessica Lange in one hand. A funny side note: when Empire State Building employees found out that Kong would ascend the WTC, they were so bent out of joint that they protested at the WTC — in gorilla suits.
Even more laughable than the subway fireball is that when Kong is atop the Twin Towers with the cops on the ground, 1,300 feet below, and they all have their pistols drawn like that’s gonna help.
Yeah, it’s a cheesy movie
But I like cheese.
It would have been much better if it was about 25 minutes shorter — at 135 minutes it tries one’s patience.
Still, give it a shot and WATCH IT!
KING KONG (2005)
***
Yeah, I’m not on the King Kong remake bandwagon. This one is at least better than 1976 but it is lesser than Kong Skull Island, where Kong looked as he should be.
I just watched this movie on 4k and it shows all of its defects. The special effects look like special effects and they look cheesy given the expense and time and care put it into the production. The apatosaurus stampede looks like it is just superimposed and Kong himself looks airbrushed. I guess that’s what happens when today’s technology is superimposed onto films from 20 years ago. Jurassic Park and Jurassic World look much better in 4k, the effects rendered more beautifully.
The story is fine and the production is okay but it’s nothing special. The fact that Naomi Watts has to do a dance to make Kong laugh is ridiculous — it’s a scene that has always bothered me.
Speaking of things that bother me in this film is Jack Black. He has neither the acting chops or the screen presence to play Carl Denham. I read that he was channeling Orson Welles — if he was, he did so unsuccessfully. Acting wise, he kills the picture.
Where the picture does succeed is in the expansion of the jungle scenes and the re-creation of scenes that were removed from the original film (the bugs). This is where Jackson pulls it off, but it is a case of too little too late.
For me, Kong lacked the humanity of the 1933 Kong, whose eyes were super expressive and Naomi Watts, as good as she was, puts in a performance that pales in comparison to Fay Wray’s.
I’m not a filmmaker. I am only a poor armchair film fan who puts his valueless two cents in but if I were a filmmaker and I had a favorite film (and this was Jackson’s) I would not have the audacity to remake it.
KONG: SKULL ISLAND
*****
Most people get down on the Legendary monsterverse but not me — I dig it. This Vietnam era tale of a bunch of American Special Forces troops accompanying the characters from MONARCH was an absolutely brilliant way to reboot the Kong franchise.
And even though it is a reboot to fit the monsterverse, it takes a page from the original King Kong by having otherworldly creatures that inhabit Skull Island, the nastiest of which are the Skullcrawlers. And why are they called Skullcrawlers? Because in the words of one man, “It sounds neat.”
There’s a terrific cast with MCU veterans Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larsen as civilians drafted in to the cause and, the cherry on top, Samuel L. Jackson as the Colonel in charge of the Special Forces. Also on hand is John Goodman as Bill Randa, one of the founders of Monarch in the 1950s.
The thing about this movie is that well, there’s a man … I won’t call him a hero, because what’s a hero? But sometimes there’s a man and I’m talking about John C Reilly here. Sometimes there’s a man , well he’s the man for his time and place — he fits right in there — and that’s John C Reilly as Marlowe on Skull Island and even if he was a lazy man — and Reilly was certainly that — quite possible the laziest on Skull Island which would place him high in the running for laziest worldwide. But sometimes there’s a man, sometimes there’s a man. Aw shoot, I lost my durn train of thought ….aw hell
This is a really good action movie and Kong reboot but it soars because of Reilly.
Just to be a completist …
THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS
*****
This is perhaps one of the greatest documentaries ever made.
And what’s it about?
Video games and those who embrace the video arcade lifestyle.
It focuses on Donkey Kong and the two men determined to be the King of Kong, Billy Mitchell, who is a total heel, and Steve Wiebe, a no one, a failed athlete, from Redmond, Washington who challenges Mitchell’s record.
What sets this apart is the total intrigue that surrounds the challenge. Billy Mitchell, jerk that he is, is the darling of the arcade community. Steve is a no one and the community — including the judging body — appear to put in the fix to make sure Billy wins.
This is as dramatic as a documentary can be.
I’ve watched it 5 times since it came out in 2007 and its stranger than fiction story is just miraculous. I don’t think any hollywood fiction writer could have come up with a story as intriguing as this one.
Despite all allegations of selective editing, it’s the very editing that makes this movie one of the funniest things that I have ever seen. I will never not watch this.
When Billy Mitchell says, “If I’m not there and I don’t see it, how do I know it happened,” you know who he voted for in 2020.
It’s freaking funny as hell.
Oh yeah WATCH IT!
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
