Check out This Film from 1926 currently available on Slate. “The Movie-Star Komodo Dragons That Inspired ‘King Kong’”
“In 1926, the American Museum of Natural History trustee William Douglas Burden set sail with a team of adventurers that included a hunter, a herpetologist, a cameraman, and Burden’s wife. They were off to capture dragons.
Other intrepid explorers had already confirmed the existence in the East Indies of giant lizards (dubbed Komodo dragons). Yet none of the animals had been brought to the west alive.”
I didn’t watch the whole thing. It actually shows them shooting one:(
So true. some of the best and funniest movies I’ve seen have been old films, especially the silent ones. Buster Keaton’s Seven ChancesSeven Chances (1925) - IMDb had me laughing through the whole show.
And for drama, there’s the tale of child abuse told in Broken Blossoms, starring Lillian Gish.
I wasn’t aware of this film, although Cooper was inspired by Komodo dragons (see my earlier post about it).
as I understand it, this or another expedition briought back live Komodo dragons and several dead ones. The live ones didn’t last long. Several of the skinsd wrere mounted in a diorama at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Reptiles. I recall going to see that many times. The old Hall of Reptiles was vclosed and they built a new one, which put the Komodo dragon skins on display in a new 360 degree diorama, instead of the old one-side-0only one, mounted in a big Lexan hexagon.
I remember there being a hole in one of the skins in the old diorama, and it’s still there in the current one, which I’ve always thought was the gunshot wound.
I agree that it’s an amazing film, and should be on everyone “best 100 films of all times” list. Yes, the special effects have been surpassed, but that’s sort of like saying that Shakespeare is boring because he writes so many cliches. KING KONG was the inspiration for Ray Harryhausen and other special effects artists, to push the envelope to get us to where we are today. I thought that Peter Jackson’s remake was less engrossing than the original, even though the spesh-fx were obviously better, the humanity was less (IMHO.)
I’ve seen it more than once on TV, but haven’t seen it for years
Me too! Turns out the ‘rippling’ is the fingerprints (so to speak) of the people animating the model, who didn’t bother to smooth the fur out after them (or so I heard on a TV documentary - which I think was about Ray Harryhausen)
Once you see a chestburster, everything else pales in comparison…
Yes, we were all convinced several times that she was dead, or horribly broken
It’s not that they didn’t bother to smooth out the fingerpruints – they couldn’t. According to Goldner and Turner, the animators were horrified when they saw the fur that was obtained, knowing that it was the wrong kind or wrong cut, and would show every touch. For some reason they couldn’t get the right stuff and had to proceed with it. But you don’t see the same “fur ruffling” effect in O’brien’s earlier efforts, or in Son of Kong or Mighty Joe Young.
Again, according to Goldner and Turner, some studio executives, seeing the working shots, responded “Look at Kong bristle!”, so the effect worked pretty well for some people.
There was an Energizer TV ad several years ago that duplicated some of the rooftop scenes from Kong. It was done in black and white. I’ve heard that it was actually done with rod puppetry, not animation, but that they duplicated the “bristling hair” effect by using compressed air blown across the model from different directions.
I’ve worked in the CGI industry, and sadly never been impressed with the quality of ultra-realism used in movies like the Kong remake. Technically impressive yes, but as you say, lacking humanity. The problem is the difference between modelers and animators. The old fashioned animators spent hours on end adding that humanity to their characters. The modelers want realism so much they forget that animation is so much more than an attempt to create reality. I’ll take O’Brien and Harryhausen over CGI any day.
I have seen it multiple times (a dozen times, at least). I’m 51, and saw it when I was a kid in the early 1970s. They played King Kong and various lesser “monster movies” on the TV all the time way back then. Fun times! Love the movie – it is a true classic!
[Despite being a big fan of old monster flicks (primarily the Universal Frankenstein/Dracula/Wolf Man axis), I’ve only seen Kong a couple of times. It’s not a favorite of mine. The special effects are a great artistics achievement, but it’s hard for me to believe that several people in the 1930s adamantly insisted that the characters MUST have been played by men in suits because they are so lifelike. One definitely has to suspend disbelief to accept the effects as realistic. I’m not saying this detracts from the film at all, but its effects are far more like claymation than CGI.
Per the OP’s surprise that folks hadn’t seen the film: in our increasingly diffuse culture, I’ve given up assuming that there is anything that “everyone” has seen. I was in a meeting with seven or eight people the other day and mentioned that some friends were doing a hokey Dr. Who video. None of them (all between ages of 25-45) had ever heard of Dr. Who. I’d be surprised if most of my co-workers have ever seen Casablanca for that matter.
A “Popular Mechanics”-like magazine of the day published a two-page spread showing how the effects were done. They correctly showed the dinosaurs being animated, but incorrectly (and in great detail) showed how Kong was portrayed by an actor in a suit. The newspapers in later years carried stories by guys claimed to have played King Kong, and the obituary of legendary Holywood ape-portrayer Charles Gemora said that he played King Kong. Not only was it believed at the time, it was believed for decades afterwards.
It’s harder for me to believe that the images from The Lost World (filmed by O’Brien, who did the effects for Kong, eight years earlier) fooled even reporters from the New York Times, but they did. To my modern eye, most of these look pretty obviously fake and very jerky*, and some are downright atrocious. But these really did convince people they were real – they committed themselves in print.
Even earlier, people were convined that Winsor McCay’s cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur was a mechanical construct on stage. There’s sufficient testimony to back it up.
This is what I mean by people being used to the technology and jaded – when it was new and unfamiliar, people’s reactions are seriously affected by that, and I suspect they don’t even properly recall things when they think back on it. According to what I’ve read, the first public exhibition of motion pictures showed a train arriving at a station – and people ducked out of the way. (the footage they were reacting to is extant. I’ve seen it.)
By the way, I agree about “Casablanca”, because I asked people if they’d seen that when I asked about Kong. A lot of them hadn’t.
*not all of it, though. Some is beautifully fluid, and is accompanied by matted-in flowing water at the base of the frrame. It showed what O’Brien would be able to do in Kong.
Oh? I seem to remember the show I saw they didn’t realise they’d marked Kong’s fur until they watched the whole sequence and realised what was causing the rippling.
But that was on the BBC so probably a different source material.
I first saw it when I was 21–four years after I saw the 1976 remake. I was underwhelmed.
IMHO, The acting–except for Fay Wray–is terrible, the dialogue is atrocious, the special effects vary in quality from good to really bad, and the famous last line is one of the worst I’ve ever heard.
Interesting. I have a story of this in reverse. I was at the dog park a few months ago and saw what I thought to be an animatronic dog. It was huge–far out of proportion of what I had typically conceived as the limits of canine expanse. Turned out to be the real thing. 250 pound of English Mastiff from the same lines as Ch. Mtn. Oaks Gunner, the “Beast” from The Sandlot. Suffice to say that, when one thinks that a dog must be SFX, it is one big damn dog.
Despite my love for the film, I will agree with you about the dialog and acting. Well, to put it more precisely, and charitably: acting in 1933 was very very different than what we’re used to now.
But yeah, the scene between Ann and Driscoll … “say, I think I love you.” is just cringe-worthy.
I’m a 49 y.o. male who grew up on monster movies!
I have watched nearly all the Kong films SEVERAL times, in their entirety:
King Kong (1933)
[The leering, full-sized “Kong Head” who just rolls his eyes left to right like one of those old ‘Kit-Cat Wall Clocks’ sends me rolling every time!]
The Son Of King (1933)
WHAT!?! Only 33% on RottenTomatoes?? I think it’s a great sequel!
Mighty Joe Young (1949) [I know it’s not Kong, but…!]
King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)
I just watched it about 3 months ago. Yes, it’s goofy, but still fun.
King Kong (1976)
My personal favorite, as well as our introduction to the lovely Jessica Lange.
I first saw this at 13 during its theatrical release and was awestruck by the power, and fury displayed as Kong smashed the village gate in his failed attempt to retrieve his blonde Barbie-doll, Dwan.
Yes, I was only 13, (what’s a 13 y.o. know about what makes a good movie?) but this scene along with Kong’s 1976 death left a lasting impression on me.
King Kong Lives (1986)
The less said about this abortion, the better!
King Kong (2005)
Maybe it was the combination of Naomi Watts, (meh) and Jack Black (ugh!) that rubbed me the wrong way, but I simply couldn’t get into this AT ALL!
