# Great & Mighty Cecil--my question is about King Kong **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 20, 2023, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306 "2023-05-20T01:08:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/1 "2023-05-20T01:08:20Z")
Kong–not the remake. The Original. 1933. I was re-watching it. The story & the concept was, and is, extraordinary. This film captured the world’s imagination, & showed the amazing breadth of what Cinema could do. Both Winston Churchill & Adolf Hitler allegedly described it as their favorite Hollywood film. Obviously, a broad appeal. It delights both children & adults, even today. **But what was the inspiration for such a unique film?** That is my question. What inspired the film makers to create this vast, elemental character? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/2 "2023-05-20T01:22:46Z")
A racist exploitation film 3 years earlier. > **[Ingagi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingagi?wprov=sfti1)** > > Ingagi is a 1930 pre-Code mockumentary exploitation film directed by William S. Campbell. It purports to be a documentary about "Sir Hubert Winstead" of London on an expedition to the Belgian Congo, and depicts a tribe of gorilla-worshipping women encountered by the explorer. The film claims to show a ritual in which African women are given over to gorillas as sex slaves, but in actuality was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, using American actresses in place of natives. It was produced and distri ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/3 "2023-05-20T03:08:47Z")
Movie is available at [https://vimeo.com/search?q=KING%20KONG%201933](https://vimeo.com/search?q=KING%20KONG%201933) Note blank Overture for about first 4 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/4 "2023-05-20T10:47:02Z")
Unlikely. Kong was already in preproduction when that film came out. And Wikipedia says its creator was given a book called _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_ when he was a boy, in 1899, which had descriptions of a huge, invincible gorilla called the King of the African Forest. That movie poster looks to be pretty clearly in the same oevure as anti-german wwi posters like this: > **[Destroy this mad brute Enlist - U.S. Army.](https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.55871/)** > > No. 457 1 print (poster) : color lithograph ; sheet 106 x 71 cm. | No. 457a 1 print (poster) : color lithograph ; sheet 106 x 70.8 cm. | Propaganda poster shows a terrifying gorilla with a helmet labeled "militarism" holding a bloody club labeled... The idea of gorillas ravishing women is older than Ingagi. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/5 "2023-05-20T13:50:54Z")
Couple Odysseus and the Cyclops figure into this? Sailor leaves ship, strange island, giant brute… ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/6 "2023-05-20T14:20:14Z")
Mostly, it was Merian C. Cooper’s concept, beginning with the idea of a giant ape atop the world’s tallest building. He was influenced by W. Douglas Burden, explorer and naturalist, and his account of a trip to the island of Komodo with its prehistoric flavor. A love interest was added as a means of luring the giant ape into captivity (and because Cooper’s previous film, _Chang_, had been criticized for lacking a love interest). Most of the rest was filled in by Ruth Rose, the wife of Cooper’s partner, Ernest Schoedsack, after original screenwriter Edgar Wallace died in 1932 (without having written a word, according to Cooper). – Orville Goldner & George E. Turner, _The Making of King Kong_, 1975. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/7 "2023-06-08T18:18:15Z")
There are lots of roots to King Kong. **Dropo** got several of them, citing Goldner and Turner’s book. There are several others listed in another interesting book, **The Girl in the Hairy Paw** (an anthology edited by Ronald Gottesman and Harry Geduld) 1.) A story by H. Rider Haggard (I can’t recall the title now) about an African tribe that sacrifices a woman to a Beast (that turns out to be a man in a costume) 2.) An episode in **Gulliver’s Travels** i which Gulliver, in Brobdingnag 9the land of giants) is captured by a giant pet monkey and carried to the top of a building 3.) Cooper and Schoedsack’s earlier film **Chang** , which has a buildup about a mysterious beast (which turns out to be a baby elephant) 4.) Willis O’Brien’s earlier films **The Lost World** and especially the unfinished **Creation** , which prtovided animation models, situations, and footage (The log-rolling scene was basically lifted from “Creation”). It also provided the prehistoric beasts that Kong used. (Cooper reportedly was really considering getting a Komodo dragon for his film. O’Brien’s stop-motion artistry provided a better way to bring the reptilian monsters to life.) I’ve heard it argued that **Ingagi** helped provide the “green light” for the financing for Kong, which is plausible, even if it was in preparation at the time. It was the Depression, and money was hard to come by. It might also explain, in part, why you had both a gorilla and black people populating a South Pacific island. Otherwise, it would have made more sense to set the story in Africa. (We ignore the presence of prehistoric beasts) ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/8 "2023-06-15T16:42:12Z")
As an aside, I’m struck by your characterization of the film as “racist.” Where in the description do you see evidence of racial prejudice? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/9 "2023-06-15T18:35:39Z")
The premise (presented as reality) is African women willingly having sex with gorillas. Also read further down under “Reception” where a critic describes it as containing “wall to wall” supremacist stereotypes". ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2023, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/10 "2023-06-15T20:24:04Z")
I see the critic’s take on it. But from what the Wiki article said, the women were “sex slaves,” which makes me think they didn’t have sex “willingly.” I imagine that a movie made back then would be fairly free with stereotypes, though. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2023, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/11 "2023-07-06T12:01:40Z")
> [@CC](#): > > I see the critic’s take on it. But from what the Wiki article said, the women were “sex slaves,” which makes me think they didn’t have sex “willingly.” That just makes it worse – the brutish primitive local tribe was forcing them into it. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2023, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-mighty-cecil-my-question-is-about-king-kong/984306/12 "2023-07-06T17:38:53Z")
Yeah, but that’s a classic motif, sacrificing virgins. That’s in “Clash of the Titans”. Giant ape sex compares to being fed to a volcano or a Kraken how? Or medieval lore about damsels and dragons.