King Kong Information

King Kong is a 1976 American monster film produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 film of the same name about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition. Featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, it stars Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange in her first film role.

The film was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1977 according to box office statistics compiled during its release by Variety. It won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Sound. Of the three King Kong films, it is the only one to feature the World Trade Center instead of the Empire State Building. A sequel titled King Kong Lives was released in 1986.

Plot

In 1976, Fred Wilson, an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms an expedition based on infrared imagery which reveals a previously undiscovered Indian Ocean island hidden by a permanent cloud bank. Wilson believes that the island holds vast untapped deposits of oil, a potential fortune which he is determined to secure for Petrox. Unknown to Wilson or the crew, Jack Prescott, a primate paleontologist who wants to see the island for himself, has stowed away on the expedition's vessel, the Petrox Explorer. Prescott reveals himself when he warns the crew that the cloud bank may be caused by some unknown, and potentially dangerous, phenomenon. Wilson orders Prescott locked up, believing him to be a corporate spy from a rival oil company. While being escorted to lock-up, Prescott spots a life raft which, upon inspection, is found to be carrying the beautiful and unconscious Dwan. After conducting a thorough background check on the 'spy', Wilson realizes that he is telling the truth and appoints Prescott as the expedition's official photographer, requesting that, due to his medical training, he be present when Dwan revives. When she does regain consciousness, Dwan states that she is an aspiring actress who was aboard a director's yacht, which suddenly and inexplicably exploded.

When the Petrox Explorer arrives at the island, the team discovers a primitive tribe of natives who live within the confines of a gigantic wall. The tribal chief shows an immediate interest in the blonde Dwan, offering to trade several of the native women for her, an offer firmly rejected by Jack. The team then learn that while the island does indeed contain large deposits of oil, it is of such low quality that it is unusable. Later that night, the natives secretly board the ship and kidnap Dwan, drugging her and offering her as a sacrifice to a giant ape known as Kong. Kong frees Dwan from the stronghold and retreats into the depths of the island.

Although an awesome and terrifying sight, the soft-hearted Kong quickly becomes infatuated by Dwan, whose rambling monologue both calms and fascinates the monstrous beast, taming his baser, more violent instincts. After Dwan falls into mud, Kong takes her back to a waterfall to wash her and dry her with great gusts of his warm breath.

In the meantime, Jack and First Mate Carnahan lead several crew members on a rescue mission to save Dwan. The search party encounters Kong while crossing a log bridge. Enraged by the intrusion into his territory, Kong rolls the huge log, sending Carnahan and all but one of the team plummeting to their deaths; Jack and Crewman Boan are the only ones to survive. While Boan returns to the village to alert the others at Jack's insistence, Jack presses on looking for Dwan. Kong takes Dwan to his lair. As he starts to undress her, a giant snake appears and attacks them. While the distracted Kong is fighting the snake, Jack arrives and rescues Dwan. After killing the snake, Kong chases them back to the native village. Smashing down the huge gates, he falls into a pit trap that Wilson and the crew have dug, where he is overcome by chloroform.

After learning that the oil cannot be refined, Wilson has instead decided to salvage the expedition by transporting the captive Kong to America as a promotional gimmick for Petrox. When they reach New York City, Kong is put on display, bound in chains with a large cage around his body from the neck down and a large crown on his head. When Kong sees a group of reporters pushing and shoving Dwan for interviews, the ape, believing that Dwan is being harmed, breaks free of his bonds. A stampede ensues as panic engulfs the throng, with people crushed and trampled as Kong strides through the crowd. Wilson, trying to flee, loses his footing and is crushed underfoot by Kong.

Jack and Dwan flee across the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan and take refuge in an abandoned bar, where Jack notices a similarity between the Manhattan skyline (notably the World Trade Center Twin Towers) and the mountainous terrain of Kong's island. He runs downstairs to call the mayor's office and tells them to let Kong climb to the top of the World Trade Center. Before Jack can return, Kong, using his keen sense of smell, discovers Dwan and snatches her from the bar, then makes his way to the World Trade Center with Jack and the National Guard in pursuit.

Kong climbs to the roof of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, where he is attacked by soldiers armed with flamethrowers. Kong manages to evade them with a spectacular leap across to the roof of the North Tower. He rips pieces of equipment from the roof and throws them at the soldiers, killing them when he throws a tank of flammable material. Ignoring Jack's earlier request for safe, live capture, military helicopters are sent in to kill Kong (most likely since Petrox is facing major indictment). After ensuring Dwan's safety, Kong fights the attacking helicopters, downing one of them. Dwan desperately pleads for the military to break off their assault, but the pilots continue attacking. The relentless hail of bullets finally brings down Kong. As Dwan approaches Kong and puts out her hand to touch him, he rolls over the edge of the roof, crashing to the plaza hundreds of feet below. Dwan rushes down to comfort him and tearfully watches him take his last breath. An enormous crowd gathers around Dwan and the giant ape's body. Jack fights his way through the crowd to get to Dwan, but is stopped short by police as she is surrounded by journalists and paparazzi, despite her cries to him.

Cast

• Jeff Bridges as Jack Prescott
• Jessica Lange as Dwan
• Charles Grodin as Fred S. Wilson
• John Randolph as Captain Ross
• Ren Auberjonois as Roy Bagley
• Ed Lauter as First Mate Carnahan
• Julius Harris as Crewman Boan
• Jack O'Halloran as Joe Perko
• Dennis Fimple as Sunfish
• Jorge Moreno as Garcia
• Mario Gallo as Timmons
• John Lone as Chinese Cook
• John Agar as City Official
• Sid Conrad as Petrox Chairman
• Keny Long as Ape Masked Man
• Garry Walberg as Army General
• George Whiteman as Army Helicopter Pilot
• Wayne Heffley as Air Force Colonel
• Rick Baker as King Kong (suit performance, uncredited)

Production

There are two different accounts for how the remake for King Kong came about. In December 1974, Michael Eisner, then an executive for ABC, watched the original film on television and struck on the idea for a remake. He pitched the idea to Barry Diller, the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, who then enlisted veteran producer Dino De Laurentiis to work on the project. However, De Laurentiis claimed the idea to remake King Kong was solely his own when he saw a Kong poster in his daughter's bedroom as he woke her up every morning. When Diller suggested doing a monster film with him, De Laurentiis proposed the idea to remake King Kong. Diller and De Laurentiis provisionally agreed that Paramount would pay half of the film's proposed $12 million budget in return for the distribution rights in the United States and Canada if the former could purchase the film rights of the original film.

De Laurentiis later contacted his friend Thomas F. O'Neil, president of General Tire and RKO-General, who informed him that the film rights were indeed available. Later, De Laurentiis and company executive Frederic Sidewater entered formal negotiations with Daniel O'Shea, a semi-retired attorney for RKO-General, who requested a percentage of the film's gross. On May 6, 1975, De Laurentiis paid RKO-General $200,000 plus a percentage of the film's gross. After finalizing the agreement with Paramount, De Laurentiis and Sidewater began meeting with foreign distributors and set the film's release for Christmas 1976.

Writing

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After moving his production company to Beverly Hills, De Laurentiis first met with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who at the time was writing Three Days of the Condor. Impressed with his work on the film, De Laurentiis contacted Semple about writing King Kong, in which Semple immediately signed on. During their collaboration on the project, De Laurentiis already had two ideas in mind"?that the film would set in present day and the climax would set on top of the newly constructed World Trade Center.

Because of the risen sophistication in audiences' tastes since the original film, Semple sought to maintain a realistic tone, but infuse the script with a sly, ironic sense of humor that the audiences could laugh at. Having settled on the mood, Semple retained the basic plotline and set pieces from the original film, but updated and reworked other elements of the story. Inspired by the then-ongoing energy crisis and a suggestion from his friend Jerry Brick, Semple changed the expedition to being mounted by Petrox Corporation, a giant petroleum conglomerate whom suspected that Kong's island has unrefined oil reserves. In its original story outline, Petrox would discover Kong's island from a map hidden in the secret archives at the Vatican Library.

In a notable departure from the original film, Semple dropped the dinosaurs that are present with Kong on the island. The reasons for the dropped subplot was due to the increased attention on Kong and Dwan's love story and financial reasons as De Laurentiis did not want to use stop-motion animation in the film. Nevertheless, a giant snake was incorporated into the film.

A fast writer, Semple completed a forty-page outline within a few days and delivered it in August 1975. While De Laurentiis was pleased with Semple's outline, he expressed displeasure with the Vatican Library subplot, which was immediately dropped. It would be replaced with Petrox discovering the island through obtained classified photos taken by a United States spy satellite. Within a month, the 140-page first draft incorporated the character of Dwan (who according to the script was originally named Dawn until she switched the two middle letters to make it more memorable), the updated rendition of Ann Darrow from the 1933 film. For its second draft, the script was reduced to 110 pages. The final draft was completed by December 1975.

Casting

Meryl Streep has said that she was considered for the role of Dwan, but was deemed too unattractive by producer Dino De Laurentiis. Dwan was also proposed to Barbra Streisand but she turned it down. The role eventually went to Jessica Lange, then a New York fashion model with no prior acting experience.

Filming

De Laurentiis first approached Roman Polanski to direct the picture, but he wasn't interested. De Laurentiis's next choice was director John Guillermin who had just finished directing The Towering Inferno. Guillermin, who was known to have had outbursts from time to time on the set, got into a public shouting match with executive producer Federico De Laurentiis (son of producer Dino De Laurentiis). After the incident, Dino De Laurentiis was reported to have threatened to fire Guillermin if he did not start treating the cast and crew better. Rick Baker, who designed and wore the ape suit in collaboration with Carlo Rambaldi, was extremely disappointed in the final suit, which he felt was not at all convincing. He gives all the credit for its passable appearance to cinematographer Richard H. Kline. The only time that the collaboration of Baker and Rambaldi went smoothly was during the design of the mechanical Kong mask. Baker's design and Rambaldi's cable work combined to give Kong's face a wide range of expression that was responsible for much of the film's emotional impact. Baker gave much of the credit for its effectiveness to Rambaldi and his mechanics.

To film the scene where the Petrox Explorer finds Dwan in the life raft, Jessica Lange spent hours in a rubber raft in the freezing cold, drenched and wearing only a slinky black dress. Although Lange was not aware of it, there were sharks circling the raft the entire time. Shooting of this scene took place in the channel between Los Angeles and Catalina Island during the last week in January 1976.

On one of the nights of filming Kong's death at the World Trade Center, over 30,000 people showed up at the site to be extras for the scene. Although the crowd was well behaved, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (owner of the World Trade Center complex) became concerned that the weight of so many people would cause the plaza to collapse, and ordered the producers to shut down the filming. However, the film makers had already got the shot they wanted of the large crowd rushing toward Kong's body. They returned to the site days later to finish filming the scene, with a much smaller crowd of paid extras.

According to Bahrenburg, five different masks were created by Carlo Rambaldi to convey various emotions. Separate masks were necessary as there were too many cables and mechanics required for all the expressions to fit in one single mask. To complete the look of a gorilla, Baker wore contact lenses so his eyes would resemble those of a gorilla.

Rambaldi's mechanical Kong was 40 ft (12.2 m) tall and weighed 6 tons. It cost 500,000 to create. Despite months of preparation, the final device proved to be impossible to operate convincingly, and is only seen in a series of brief shots totaling less than 15 seconds.

The roar used for Kong was taken from the film The Lost World (1960).

Music

The film's score was composed and conducted by John Barry. A soundtrack album of highlights from the score was released in 1976 by Reprise Records on LP. This album was released on CD, first as a bootleg by the Italian label Mask in 1998, and then as a legitimate, licensed release by Film Score Monthly in 2005. On October 2, 2012, Film Score Monthly released the complete score on a two-disc set; the first disc features the remastered complete score, while the second disc contains the remastered original album, along with alternate takes of various cues.

2012 Film Score Monthly Album

Controversy

Before Michael Eisner pitched the idea of a remake of King Kong to Barry Diller, he had earlier mentioned the idea to Sidney Sheinberg, the CEO and president of MCA/Universal Pictures. Shortly after, Universal decided to purchase the property as an opportunity to showcase its new sound system technology, Sensurround, which debuted with the disaster film, Earthquake for Kong's roars. On April 5, 1975, Daniel O'Shea, a semi-attorney for RKO-General, had arranged meetings with Arnold Stane, attorney for MCA/Universal, and De Laurentiis and Sidewater for the film rights to King Kong; neither side knew that a rival studio were in negotiation. With a bargain price set $150,000, Stane had negotiated an offer of $200,000 plus 5 percent of the film's net profit. In contrast, De Laurentiis had offered $200,000 plus 3 percent of the film's gross"?and 10 percent if the film recouped two and a half its negative cost. In May 1975, the film rights were granted to De Laurentiis.

In the wake of the agreement, Shane claimed that O'Shea had verbally accepted Universal's offer although no official paperwork was signed. O'Shea contested, "I did not make any agreement written or oral...never told him we had an agreement, nor words to that effect...never told him that I had the authority...I am not an employee, agent, or officer at RKO." A few days later, Universal filed suit against De Laurentiis and RKO-General in Los Angeles Superior Court for $25 million on charges of breach of contract, fraud, and intentional interference with advantageous business relations. In October 1975, Universal, which was in pre-production with their own remake with Hunt Stromberg, Jr., as producer and Joe Sargent as director, filed suit in a federal district court arguing that the story's "basic ingredients" were public domain. Univeral had claimed that their remake was based on the two-part serialization by Edgar Wallace and a novelization by Delos W. Lovelace adapted from the screenplay that had been published shortly before the film's release in 1933.

On November 12, 1975, Universal announced it would start production on The Legend of King Kong on January 5, 1976 with Bo Goldman writing the screenplay based on the novelization by Lovelace. On November 20, RKO-General countersued Universal for $5 million alleging that The Legend of King Kong was an infringement on their copyright, and asked the court to prevent any "announcements, representations, and statements" on their proposed film. On December 4, De Laurentiis countersued for $90 million with charges of copyright infringement and "unfair competition". In January 1976, both studios agreed to withdraw their legal suits filed against each other. Universal agreed to cancel The Legend of King Kong, but intended to proceed with a remake sometime in the future although on the condition to release it eighteen months after De Laurentiis's remake. In September 1976, a federal judge ruled in favor of Universal that Lovelace's novelization had fallen into public domain which cleared the studio to produce a remake.

Reception

Box office

King Kong was commercially successful, earning Paramount Pictures back over triple its budget. The film ended up at #5 on Varietys chart of the top domestic (U.S.) moneymakers of 1977. (The film was released in December 1976 and therefore earned the majority of its money during the early part of 1977.) The film made just over $90 million worldwide on a $24 million budget.

Critical response

After months of pre-publicity before its release, the film when on release received mostly mixed responses from critics, especially from admirers of the original King Kong. However, it did obtain positive reviews from such prominent critics. Pauline Kael in The New Yorker, Richard Schickel in Time, Charles Champlin in the Los Angeles Times, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, and 'Murf' in Variety, among others, responded favorably to the film's pathos and (often campy) sense of humor. Kael, in particular, truly loved the film, noting "I don't think I've ever before seen a movie that was a comic-strip great romance in the way this one is "? it's a joke that can make you cry." The performances by Bridges and Grodin were generally well regarded, and even the film's detractors found Richard H. Kline's Academy Award-nominated cinematography and John Barry's musical score noteworthy.

The movie's success helped launch the career of Jessica Lange, although she reportedly received some negative publicity regarding her debut performance that, according to film reviewer Marshall Fine, "almost destroyed her career". Although Lange won the Golden Globe Award for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture - Female for Kong, she did not appear in another film for three years and spent that time training intensively in acting.

Critical responses to King Kong continue to be mixed. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 49% based on 37 reviews with an average rating of 4.7/10. The critical consensus reads that "King Kong represents a significant visual upgrade over the original, but falls short of its classic predecessor in virtually every other respect."

Awards

The film received three Academy Award nominations and won one.

• Winner Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson and Frank Van der Veer), shared with Logan's Run (1976).
• Nominee Best Cinematography (Richard H. Kline)
• Nominee Best Sound (Harry W. Tetrick, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin and Jack Solomon).

Distribution

Extended television version

King Kong found new and sustained life on television. NBC bought the rights to air the movie and it was a ratings success. NBC paid De Laurentiis $19.5 million for the rights to two showings over five years, the highest amount any network had ever paid for a film at that time. When King Kong made its network television debut on NBC in 1978, a number of scenes deleted from the theatrical version were reinstated to make the film longer. This version also features several changes to the John Barry score, including entirely alternate cues for places that no music existed for in the theatrical version, as well as several different edits of cues.

Home media

Momentum Pictures released a Region 2 DVD of this film in 2001 with a photo gallery and a theatrical trailer. Optimum Releasing has confirmed a new re-release of this film on Region 2 with deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer from the previous issue. There are only two deleted scenes on the DVD. The first is an extended scene of the brawl between Kong and the giant snake and the second is the demise of Wilson at the New York unveiling of Kong. The film has been released on Blu-ray in Region B territories, although this disc is region-free and can work in any Blu-ray machine. To date, the only DVD appearance of this extra footage from the TV version is in the form of five deleted/extended scenes on the Region 2 release.