King Kong (1933)

King Kong (1933) commences with a title card that recites an old Arabian proverb:  “And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty.  And it stood its hand from killing.  And from that day it was as one dead.”

This on-screen legend frames the famous monster movie as a beauty-and-the-beast story, though King Kong has been interpreted quite frequently over the decades as a coded social critique as well.  

No less prominent a figure than director Quentin Tarantino has interpreted the Merian C. Cooper (1893 – 1973)/Ernest Schoedsack (1893 -1979) film as an “allegory about the transatlantic slave trade and America’s fear of the black male.”

I recently re-watched the original King Kong in preparation for this review, and can’t deny that the sub-textual material is present.  Nor can I deny that the film is mindlessly racist and sexist by today’s standards, at  least at certain junctures.

But I was struck by another intriguing aspect of this famous monster movie as well.  

In short, this 1933 fantasy film seems very world-weary, and disappointed with the predictability, safety and even bureaucracy of modernity.  Accordingly, the film positions itself as an escape from modernity.

The modern world, represented by the gleaming skyscrapers and skyline of New York Harbor in the film’s inaugural shot, is a place that -- especially during a financial Great Depression -- can’t seem to provide much of anything to people in terms of answers, or even sustenance. 

Instead, people like filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) actively seek the “thrill of a lifetime” outside of modernity, in places such as Africa or the West Indies.  This desire for freedom and excitement is contextualized as the thrill of something new, or conversely, the thrill of something very old, and very natural…but never-before-seen and recorded by modern eyes or cameras.

Denham sees it as his mission to show “something new” to a depression-weary people.  The first such “new” thing he finds, for example, is the untested screen presence of Ann Darrow (Fay Wray).  

Denham’s bosses want a female to appear in his latest motion picture to ramp up the box office grosses, and Denham must kowtow to their wishes.  But the “reckless” Denham goes out and finds a female star on his own, in his own way. He discovers the young woman, Ann, attempting to steal an apple from a fruit stand, on the verge of starvation.  

He essentially offers her an escape from modernity too.  

Denham then goes in search of that elusive “something new” on Skull Island, far beyond the well-populated waters of New York Harbor….beyond the horizon itself.  An old legend in the South Seas tells of an “island held in the grip of fear…”  

Kong’s island stands in unexplored, mysterious waters, beyond a gateway made of natural reefs. And Kong himself -- the ultimate unknown or something new -- exists behind yet another barrier, a large perimeter wall built by an ancient society of natives.  

To find Kong -- to find something new and natural, then -- one must pierce all the various “gates” of modernity, and head straight back into the less-calculated, less buttoned-down past…even to prehistoric times.  

The sea voyage of the Venture (a name meaning “risky or daring journey”) is accordingly one that escorts audiences and the film’s dramatis personae through a series of doorways leading from staid modernity to unfettered antiquity, and “freedom.”

This freedom is first expressed in terms of the rigidity of New York’s bureaucracy, where Denham learns that an insurance company plans to halt his voyage because of the dangerous explosives he is transporting.  Denham orders an early departure to assure there are no such further impediments to his…entrepreneurship.   

Once en route, Ann and Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) let down their guards and fall in love.  This is a big deal for Jack, who finds that women are a “bother,” but comes to change his mind.  Something about the open air of the sea makes them connect, and come to love one another.

In modernity...

...the search for new faces and new things begins...

Beyond the reefs...

...and behind the wall...

...lives Kong.

King Kong’s final act -- with Kong returned to New York City as Denham’s captive -- reverses the film’s conceits regarding freedom.  

Once found by Denham, “freedom” (represented by Kong himself) becomes a commodity not to discover and enjoy, but to exploit, and share (at a price) with those dwelling in modernity.  People will pay good money to vicariously experience the danger of Kong Island, the expedition, and Kong himself.   The giant ape is billed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” something human eyes have never seen before. 

To put a fine point on it, Kong -- the thing beyond modernity, the thing with the capacity to thrill a jaded modern audience -- is brought back and caged, but Denham quickly learns that no chains and no bars can hold him for long.  Instead, Kong runs free and, by nearly reaching the clouds atop the Empire State Building, eludes modernity again.  Modernity and nature, or freedom, cannot exist side-by-side, the film suggests.

If one considers the biography of the film’s producer/co-director, Merian Cooper, one can see how these ideas of escaping adventure-crushing modernity and pinpointing thrills in incorruptible nature fit in well with his career and biography.  An air force pilot during World War I and a founding member of Pan Am Airways, Cooper directed several early films such as Chang (1927) which were, essentially, travelogues set in far-flung, wild locales.  That film, for instance, famously featured an elephant stampede.  

For long stretches, King Kong plays like a travelogue or documentary, with hearty men of adventurous spirit witnessing beasts never-before-seen. In short, the film is a safari into the wildest jungle ever, with the most spectacular beasts in cinema history.  “Safari” is a Swahili word meaning “long journey,” and a safari usually involves explorers or other adventurous-types going where no man has gone before for the express purpose of seeing new wild life.   

Yet, what remains so interesting about this juxtaposition of a fantasy setting with the safari motif is that Cooper has utilized a tool of modernity -- film -- to bring this story back to his audience.  In fact, it’s not only modernity on display in King Kong’s creation, but pioneering technical innovation as well.  The Willis O’Brien stop-motion effects and optical composites look staggeringly good even to this day, particularly in black-and-white, a schema which hides seams beautifully.  

Thus, one can gaze upon King Kong as the work of a man who looked at the world, couldn’t see any new kingdoms to conquer, and so utilized technology to create something from whole-cloth that his audience had never before witnessed: a prehistoric world populated by the “dinosaur family” of Skull Island. He uses special effects to bring to life creatures people have read about, but never seen “alive.”

This travelogue or safari approach to the film precludes, to some degree, much in terms of humanity or characterization.  After Ann is taken by Kong to the interior of Skull Island, the film descends into a series of (still) harrowing fight sequences and battles, but always with a new animal on display, front-and-center in the frame.  

In short order the audience “discovers” Kong, a stegosaurus, an apatosaurus, a T-Rex, a giant snake, and a pterodactyl.  The film’s soundtrack, largely, is a sustained scream from Fay Wray, from about the forty-five minute point on.  People don’t talk or relate as people, they just delve deeper and deeper into the prehistoric jungle, and attempt to survive each new animal featured on the safari.

The Skull Island Safari #1

The Skull Island Safari #2

The Skull Island Safari #3

The Skull Island Safari #4

I also noted on this viewing that more than ever, King Kong boasts a strong reflexive quality.  Carl Denham takes a camera and a girl, Ann, into the jungle to make an adventure movie, a new kind of safari in a different kind of habitat. 

But the movie that the audience is watching -- King Kong -- is also a safari…with a pretty girl fronting it.  When Denham complains about having to kowtow to studio bosses, one feels that the comment originates from Cooper himself. Denham is clearly his surrogate figure.

While we watch a safari film, Denham is also making a safari film.

A girl is needed front both films.  Hence the presence of lovely Fay Wray.

Fans of later generations of King Kong – in 1976 and 2005 – will be surprised upon returning to this 1933 classic that there is almost no reciprocal relationship between Kong and his bride, Ann.  He may love her, but here it’s an unrequited love.  She never moves beyond terror for the “beast,” whatever he may feel for her.  By Son of Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949), a sympathy or love for “the beast” is added as a crucial element of the equation, but it is definitively not present in this film. 

Certainly, one can look at King Kong today and consider it a beauty and the beast story, though beauty has but distaste and fear for her groom.  

And certainly, one can see how Kong himself is a stand-in figure for a proud African slave, dragged from his country in chains to provide the entertainment for an elitist society that is both fearful and envious of him.  But the quality that makes King Kong so great is its sense or spirit of adventure.  

The film steadfastly takes us through the gates of a real world lacking magic, happiness, and perhaps even romance, and reminds us that there are places and things on this Earth yet unseen by man.  And those things, fierce or beautiful, still have the capacity to surprise us, and perhaps change us for the better if we don’t abuse or exploit them.

I suspect one reason that King Kong has survived for roughly eighty years at this juncture, and translated ably from one generation to another, is that many of us still want to believe in our own capacity to be surprised and delighted by nature.  The film is a non-stop safari of vicarious thrills and terrors, a spectacle in the truest sense of the word (meaning that it shows the audience things never before captured on film).  

Even today, King Kong exists to show bored and world-weary audiences that there is more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamed of in "safe" modernity.  

And even today, the film’s spirit of adventure -- if not divine -- is at least as “royal” as its title indicates.

Guest Post: Kong: Skull Island (2017)

[Editor's Note: Today, we are fortunate to have a second look at Kong: Skull Island here on the blog, and an alternate viewpoint of the film from experienced movie critic Jonas Schwartz. Enjoy!]

Remaking a Classic: The Good, The Bad and The Beastly, Part I, Kong: Skull Island

By Jonas Schwartz

The latest Kong remake is a wild-ride adventure with exciting visuals and a realistic ginormous monkey. Unfortunately, it feels merely like a placeholder, a prequel to the big game being released soon, Godzilla Vs King Kong Vs Mothra Vs Rodan Vs every other creature over 50 feet tall. Therefore, the passion for this story feels stale, a block piece on the edge of a puzzle, not a full-fleshed film.

During the last days of the Vietnam War, a secret organization funded by the government journeys to a newly discovered island in the South Pacific. Randa (John Goodman) believes there are ancient monsters ruling this island and brings a geologist (Corey Hawkins), a tracker (Tom Hiddleston), a war photographer (Brie Larson), and a military battalion led by a blood thirsty Lieutenant Colonel (Samuel L Jackson) just looking for a fight. Lucky for him, there's something very large and very hostile on the island who doesn't appreciate being disturbed.

People pay money to see the beast and in that way, Kong: Skull Island delivers. Unlike Rick Baker in a furry suit in the 1976 film or the heavily CGI enhanced zeros and ones of the 2005 film, Kong here never feels fake. The visual effects artists give the title character the illusion of reality, at least as real as a 104-foot-tall creature can appear. The facial expressions, body hair movement, how he runs and pounds  enemies are all credible.  The other visual effects are subtle with flying embers, twigs and bugs swimming in the foreground of shots.

The tumultuous year of 1973 has been strikingly captured by the art direction, production and costume design. The location supervisors found island spots that look untouched and dangerous. Instead of the boilerplate songs found in most late '60s/early '70s films, the music supervisor found some rarer numbers for the soundtrack from The Hollies, Black Sabbath and The Stooges.

It's not accidental that the long grass and swamp land of Skull Island resembles Vietnam. The correlations between the famous war photos of soldiers sneaking through the rice fields of South Vietnam and the scenes of Samuel L Jackson's men lurking through the fields in the film are far from subtle. The script finds interesting motivations for the characters due to the harsh shame of losing the war. Jackson's character goes full Rambo on Kong because he can't handle losing to another enemy. The script also tries to draw parallels to today's political chaos with protestors shouting in the streets of Washington D.C. and Goodman's character stating "Mark my words, there'll never be a more screwed-up time in Washington.”

The script by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, and Derek Connolly has witty dialogue but the story loses an empathetic string by dropping the bizarre but touching love story between the beast and the beauty. Larson's quick touch of Kong's cheek and his scooping her up to safety are sweet but lack the punch that the lump of clay and Fay Wray managed in 1933. Being 140 feet makes for a climb up the Empire State Building less a feat, but that iconic scene in the '33 film is more special than any of the non-stop action scenes created here.

Newcomer director Jordan Vogt-Roberts forms some clever action moments and visuals. One that stands out are the flashbulbs of a camera going off in the dark as a reminder of Kong's latest lunch, but the editing is so rapid-fire that all the victims' deaths become non-descript. One is never sure who died in a past scene until you've taken a headcount in the next sequence.  Because the brigade separates after the first attack, each cavalry seems to follow the same marks in their own locations which becomes repetitive and drags down the pacing. The final action scene between Kong and an ancient beast seems too reminiscent of Jurassic World with beast versus beast while the humans sit around, dazed. 

The acting is never embarrassing but no one seems to notice others are being pulverized next to them. No sadness or terror registers on anyone's face. The script gives stars Hiddleston and Larson little to do, but the always reliable Jackson and Goodman have fun with their over-the-top roles. John C Reilly steals the film as a loopy former pilot who had been stranded on the island since the '40s. Manic (who can blame him when he's had very little companionship for thirty years) and wise (after surviving a prehistoric danger zone), Reilly rises above the material. He manages to be both comic relief and the film's heart.

A diverting two hours, Kong: Skull Island will whet people's appetite for the main course coming in several years, and hinted at during the post-credit teaser, but at almost $20 a pop, films should be more than just hors devours and this film is only a starter.

Schwartz is a voting member of the Los Angeles Drama Critics, and the West Coast Critic for TheaterMania. Check out his “Jonas at the Movies” reviews at Maryland Nightlife.

The Films of 2017: Kong: Skull Island

For an almost-summertime blockbuster, Kong: Skull Island (2017) sure has a lot on its mind, and that’s a good thing in this age of message-free movie entertainment. 

On a very basic, literal level, much of this film concerns cinematic universe-building. The adventures here, on Skull Island, reveal the back-story of Monarch, a monster hunting organization that audiences first encountered in 2014’s Godzilla.  The film’s post-credit sequence sets up Godzilla 2: King of Monsters (2019), and likely, Kong vs. Godzilla (2020), as well.

So there’s plenty of continuity-building for the avid kaiju fan, if that’s what you’re most excited about.

It would be disturbing, however, to report that the entirety of the film is designed exclusively for exposition and fan service, and paving the way for more hype-laden sequels. 

Fortunately, Kong: Skull Island features deeper themes, and subtext too, even as it moves the King Kong myth some distance away from its previous and historical obsessions (namely a beauty-and-the-beast romance, and a statement about mankind “caging” nature, and thus destroying nature). 

In all likelihood, you’ve seen the Apocalypse Now (1979)-styled Kong posters, and this allusion is a key piece of understanding the new film. 

Like Coppola’s film, Kong: Skull Island is set in the Age of Vietnam.

Apocalypse Now is set in 1969; Kong in 1973. In both cases, the war is known (by all but a few) to be a lost cause, Richard Nixon is President, and America is in the midst of some serious soul searching about the purpose of the war, the prosecution of the war, and, finally, the impact of the war on the national psyche.

Apocalypse Now, of course, is a very loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 literary work, Heart of Darkness, whose theme can be summed up, broadly-speaking, by the following phrase: colonialism (or imperialism, if you prefer) causes insanity. 

Specifically, the novel’s madman, Kurtz, separates from his own world (Europe of the 19^th century), and in goes off the rails as a kind of (crazy) God figure in Africa, treating the indigenous people like they are mere things to be exterminated. This is also Kurtz’s function, incidentally, in Apocalypse Now, though the story there is relocated from the Congo Free State in the 19^th century to Cambodia during the Vietnam Era.

Kong: Skull Island, modifies the theme just a bit.

Although war may be considered a form of imperialism I suppose, I would state the 2017 monster film’s theme in this way: a failed war creates insanity in men, particularly in men like Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), and leaders in Washington D.C.

Having lost this particular war -- a war of uncertain purpose and limited support -- such men have lost their moral compass and, indeed, their grip on sanity. This viewpoint is purposefully countered in the film by the presence of a morally-centered veteran from a “just” or “noble” war, World War II.

To ground this discussion in the film’s details a bit more, Kong: Skull Island’s primary antagonist is a Kurtz-like figure (Packard), who decides to make war against a being -- Kong -- that he comes to hate. Packard is not able to look at the larger picture, and understand how Kong protects the status quo on his island home; protecting indigenous peoples from the fierce Skull Crawlers. 

Instead, Packard wishes to interfere on the island and destroy this enemy, simply to prove his own superiority. If the island should fall to other monsters, then Packard will return with the “cavalry” and kill them too. To Packard, might can make right. America didn’t lose in Vietnam, he reports, the powers that be made his soldiers “cut and run.”

With Kong, he doesn’t want to make that mistake again. He is committed until the bloody, self-destructive end, and if he takes his loyal men with him, well, so be it.

Kong: Skull Island features terrific special effects, and at least one great character (Marlow, portrayed by John C. Reilly), but it achieves greatness primarily on the basis of its deeper meaning, so don't believe the superficial reviews that tell you the movie is just dumb fun.

Kong is a monster, and a danger to man under the right circumstances, yes, but he is one who also serves a purpose on Skull Island. Remove him, and a whole island is de-stabilized.  As intimidating and “monstrous” as he is,  Kong remains a bulwark.

Reading a bit further into this analogy, it’s clear that this idea doesn’t belong in the distant past. A decade ago, America chose to take out a “monster” in the Middle East, and the result, once that bulwark was gone, was great chaos and uncertainty; and the creation of new, even more deadly enemies.

That’s exactly what could happen on Skull Island, should Packard succeed in his mission.

Through powerful imagery (of Washington D.C. at the start of the film, and of a President Nixon bobble-head), Kong: Skull Island conveys well its theme, a warning about imperialism and war. One soldier notes -- and I paraphrase -- that if you bring guns to a new land, you’re going to find new enemies to fight, and new battles to wage.

In this -- the second Kong film of the 21^st century -- the old script is flipped. The mighty ape is a great hero dedicated to balance and the custodianship of his home. This Kong is thoughtful and intelligent (capable of using tools, we see in the climax), and man is actually the destructive “monster.” 

“Is that a monkey?”

In 1973, a man from a secretive company called Monrach, Bill Randa (John Goodman) wrangles a military escort to explore a newly-discovered land mass he calls Skull Island.

Leading that escort is Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), a solider still upset about the end of the war in Vietnam, and America’s failure to stay and fight what he perceives as a winnable conflict. 

Also along for the ride are Captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), an ex-soldier turned mercenary, and war photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson).

The team reaches Skull Island and after navigating a wall of storms, begins a mapping mission that requires the detonation of bombs.  After several explosions on the surface, however, a force of nature -- a giant ape named Kong -- strikes back.  

With his helicopters destroyed and his forces decimated, Packard plans a counter-attack to kill Kong.

Conrad, and Weaver, meanwhile, encounter a World War II pilot, Marlow (John C. Reilly), who explains to them how Kong protects the people of the island from colossal, subterranean lizard creatures he calls Skull Crawlers. Kill Kong, as Packer wishes, and the island’s natives will be endangered and quite likely destroyed.

A desperate mission by river is launched to reach the north side of the island and signal for help, but Packard refuses to leave Skull Island before destroying Kong. 

Meanwhile, Packard’s use of munitions and napalm fighting Kong awaken the largest of the dormant skull crawlers…

“It’s time to show Kong that man is king.”

At its heart, Kong: Skull Island seems to be a tale about what happens to men -- good men -- when they fight a war that they don’t understand, don’t believe in, or feel is somehow unjust.  

Packard loves and honors his men, those he serves with, but he has totally lost his moral barometer, and therefore the ability to understand what is best for them. When many of his soldiers are killed in an attack by Kong -- in an incredibly tense and well-sustained action sequence -- all he can see is the need to kill an enemy. Packard doesn’t see, for example, that what is goon for his team is to get the surviving men out of danger.  That would be, in his eyes, cutting and running, and he is never, ever going to do that again.

Packard’s understanding of Kong, and the situation on Skull Island, is deliberately juxtaposed in the film with the perspective of Marlow (John C. Reilly), a World War II veteran who crashed on the island in 1944, and who has come to not only respect the native people, and Kong, but even his enemy: a downed Japanese pilot. 

Marlow -- named after the protagonist of Heart of Darkness -- perhaps because his war was perceived as just and necessary by his people, and by those who served -- is able to maintain his moral compass in a way that Packard cannot.  He is able to understand Kong’s role on the island, and see the giant ape as something other than a rampaging monster. He respects Kong’s role as guardian of the people, and furthermore can explain Kong’s violent behavior towards Packard’s team. 

Packard’s men came to the island and began dropping bombs, with no warning, no prologue. These bombs not only threaten the wild-life on the surface, as we see in several sequences of deer-like animals running from the explosions, but also threaten to awake Big Daddy Skull Crawler from his subterranean slumber.  This monster killed Kong’s parents, but is now quiescent. Packard’s actions are not only harming innocents, but threatening to awake a sleeping giant. 

Marlow says it well, himself: “Kong’s a pretty good king. Keeps to himself, mostly. But you don’t go into someone’s house and start dropping bombs, unless you’re picking a fight.”

Packard has been itching for just such a fight. To prove to himself, and others, that he didn't lose in Vietnam. 

Again, consider these two men in balance. One is able to see the incursion on the island as a provocative move that demands Kong’s response (as king). The other, Packard, believes he is king, and that it is his prerogative to choose the fate of the island.  

And one man comes from a war of honor; the other from a war without any clear overriding moral purpose.  

When there is no clear overriding purpose in war (except to win), any technique, any strategy that keeps one alive, or in control -- napalm, automatic weapons, what-have-you -- becomes justified.

We see Packard’s jaundiced, and unstable view on full display in his arrogant response to photographer, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) when he first meets her. She takes photographs in war, documenting fact. Yet Packard sees her (and the press, by extension) as a threat to him, and to the American people. If only she took photos that supported his viewpoint, maybe the people at home would have supported the Vietnam War better. That’s what he believes. 

Yet it’s not Mason’s job (or the press’s, actually) to be PR agents supporting a war, or supporting a particular political agenda. It’s the press’s job to question power, and show people the truth. Only fools and failures blame the press for their own shortcomings.

America's failure in Vietnam is also played with, intriguingly, in the first approach to Skull Island, by helicopter convoy.  

There is a storm front of catastrophic proportions surrounding the island.  Yet Randa (John Goodman) and Packard make the call to fly through it; to brave the whirlwind without knowing, without understanding, the conditions they’ll face on the other side. Essentially, they are flying blind into a world they don’t understand.  

As the helicopters pierce the veil of gray clouds and lightning, we see a Nixon bobble-head on the dash of a chopper start to spin and shake. Later, when faced with Kong, it spins even more madly, as if experiencing a seizure. It’s as though Nixon, from the vantage point of 2017, is warning the team not to engage, not to go forward into a war that cannot be won.

The film’s social commentary also involves politics, and Washington, D.C. One of the first lines of dialogue in the film is Bill Randa’s assertion that “there’ll never be a more screwed-up time in Washington.” 

Historically, we know this is not a statement of fact. Since 1973, we’ve had the debacle of the Iraq War, (remember when we were going to be greeted as liberators?) and even the madness that has seized the city now; with sinister foreign influences entangling many in the new Administration’s cabinet.  In the film, however, we see the error of 1973 decision-making. The mission to Skull Island is green-lit, only because Russia might get to the island first.

The reason to visit the island is not exploration. It is not discovery. It is not entertainment (Kong 1933).  It is not the harnessing of resources (Kong 1976). It is the quest to win, to get ahead in a global cold war. Consequences and preparations be damned. 

Lives be damned too.  It's a race!

Against this injudicious madness, Kong: Skull Island gives us two approaches.  

One man, Marlow, seems crazy on the surface (having been away from “civilization” for 30 years), but he is actually quite sane. 

And then we have Packard, who on the surface seems reasonable, but is the opposite; he is as mad as Kurtz ever was.

The other characters -- and there’s a fellow here named Conrad, after the author of Heart of Darkness -- are little more than ciphers, in comparison. 

I'll go further. Marlow is the real heart of the film. He is never over-the-top, or cartoon-like. Instead, we relate to his wisdom, and his yearning to see home, and his family, again. Kong: Skull Island's final pre-end credit sequence is so emotionally powerful because Marlow is the film’s heart and soul; a soldier who understands his cause, but also understands his place in the world. He has been judicious for years, turning enemies into friends and learning to respect the rules of the island. And now, as he returns home for a long-delayed reunion, his faith is rewarded.

The film’s central theme, that war causes insanity, is a key strength of the film, but there are others worth noting.  

For one thing, Kong: Skull Island features a terrific sound-design and sound-track, recalling for us the age of Vietnam both through popular music, and the whirring hum of the Bell Huey copter.  The film is an incredible auditory experience, and the sound design dovetail perfectly with the chaotic imagery.  Again, Kong’s unexpected, surprise attack on the copter squadron is a dramatic high-point, a show of American force instantly out-matched by an enemy no one saw coming.  

And that idea, of course, is a perfect metaphor for the Vietnam Age.

In terms of the Kong cinematic myth, a number of historical images are here re-purposed.  The Native Wall re-appears here, though is put to new use.  We learn it was not built to keep Kong out (as it was in in all other editions of the myth), but rather to protect the people behind the walls from the monstrous skull crawlers. 

Another standby, a visual composition I call “in the hands of the beast” (in which a character -- most often female -- is carried in Kong’s enormous fist), also appears here, but greatly reduced in important from previous iterations of the myth.  Mason is picked up by Kong, after having nearly drown, and held for only one sequence. Again, Kong doesn’t hold this woman throughout the film.  Instead, the moment is reserved for just one powerful moment.  The beauty-and-the-beast aspect suggested by this shot is negligible in this film.

Kong does climb mountains in Kong: Skull Island, but he doesn’t fight a battle on a man-made summit (Empire State Building, Tokyo Tower, or World Trade Center).  This deletion makes sense for a couple of reasons.  Kong is no-longer an anti-hero or tragic hero, but rather a full-fledged hero. 

Secondly, he doesn’t die in this film, but lives to fight another day. The writers have thus saved themselves the trouble of figuring out some bizarre, byzantine way of resurrecting him for Kong vs. Godzilla.  

Frankly, I’m relieved.

As in all previous Kong films, the giant ape does face a “contender for the throne" here, some monster that challenges his supremacy on the island.  In 1933 and 2005, he went up against a T-Rex (or pack of them, as in the Jackson edition). In 1976, he fought an over-sized snake.  Here, Kong battles a whole family of skull crawlers, but the cause is more personal.  We learn that Kong's entire family was murdered by the Big Daddy Skull Crawler, and that now he is a lone sentinel on the island, protecting the people.

As a life-long Godzilla fan, I also found it intriguing that some aspects of Toho Kong made it into this re-imagination. Kong fights an octopus here (as he does in King Kong vs. Godzilla), and I swear Kumonga makes a guest appearance too.

I have read some reviews that don’t appreciate these modifications, or that suggest the movie gets Kong “wrong.” 

I’ll be honest about this: I did not need a fourth version of the original King Kong story, and I certainly did not need to see the character fall off a tall building and die for a fourth time.  I believe it was the right call to keep many of the ingredients of the myth, but change up the details and practical application of some story elements.  This movie feels fresh in a way that, perhaps, the Jackson film did not.

After 85 years, it’s about time. 

And since Kong: Skull Island intelligently rewrites the Kong myth to include the theme about war, and madness, I would say it does not lack for vital or relevant meaning.  

On the contrary, this king-sized monster movie deals with a re-thought and re-considered Kong, rather than just reviving a monster from a “bygone era” of movies.

Movie Trailer: Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The King Kong Show (1966): "The Horror of Mondo Island"/"Dr. Who"

"You know the name of King Kong..."

In the autumn of 1966, ABC TV first aired the American/Japanese co-production called The King Kong Show (1966).  The companies involved were Videocraft, and Toei Animation. Arthur Rankin and Julie Bass served as executive producers.

The series ran for 25 episodes, and was a sort of omnibus show. By that I mean that each twenty minute show featured three stories.  Two were devoted to Kong, and one was devoted to a different animated program called Tom of T.H.U.M.B.

As far as the premise goes, The King Kong Show saw the mighty ape of the movies transformed, essentially, into the friendly over-sized pet of the globe-hopping Bond family.  The family consisted of a father, Professor Bond (Carl Banas), a teenage daughter, Susan (Susan Conway) and a pre-teen boy, Bobby Bond (Billy Mae Richards).  Kong and Bobby were playmates, and especially close.  Bobby was too "young" to consider Kong dangerous, and so became his friend, instead.

Kong, meanwhile, was described as being "ten times as big as a man."

So the Bonds found Kong on Mondo Island, and took care of him, only to become involved in numerous adventures with the giant ape and those who sought to control or dominate him. The adventures concerned aliens ("The Space Men") the evil-mastermind, Dr. Who ("Dr. Who," "Rocket Island") and other challenges.  A supporting character, Captain Englehorn, came straight from the 1933 King Kong.

And, of course, elements of this cartoon re-appeared in the live-action King Kong Escapes (1967), particularly the character Dr. Who (visualized differently in the film), and the Mondo Island setting.

Here's a look at the famous theme song from the series:

Today, I'll look at two six minute segments.  The first is "The Horror of Mondo Island."  in this tale, the discovery of a "rare and important element" known as "Fantasium" -- which can make steel elastic and bendable -- brings a mining crew, and their destructive vehicles, to the island.

Seeing Kong's island paradise spoiled by strip-mining, Bobby warns the workers about "the Horror Mondo Island" in an attempt to scare the out-landers away.  He describes a monster that attacks by night, and then disguises Kong as the fearsome beast, painting him white.

The ruse is successful, and the miners are driven off.   The episode' s highlight is a scene in which Kong battles a bull-dozer or crane, and makes short work of it. Since this is a kid's show, however, he only crushes the vehicle after the driver has vacated.  It's also intriguing that Kong, in disguise, actually resembles the character's son, as seen in the 1933 sequel to the original film.

The episode ends with the miners realizing (thanks to Captain Englehorn) that the island possesses "natural obstacles beyond our control."  In other words, Bobby has saved the beautiful island both for Kong, and future generations.

One can see how this six minute story is simple, and aimed at children. The message, about conservation, is plain, and Bobby is the protagonist, the one who -- independent of his father's wishes and plans -- saves the day.

The second six minute story I'll look at for this special Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging is "Dr. Who." This is the tale that introduces the mad scientist villain to the series.  He is visualized as a very short, bald man in a lab coat. He also wears thick, black glasses, and thick black gloves.

As the story begins, Professor Bond introduces Dr. Who to Bobby. Dr. Who wants to take Kong away from the island, on a two day trip. Bobby refuses to give permission.  Dr. Who then holds the family at gun-point, and launches an attack on Kong.

Helicopters assault Kong, but fortunately Captain Englehorn arrives to help, and Kong breaks out of his prison aboard a ship.  The episode ends with the foreboding (and accurate) observation that "we haven't seen the last of Dr. Who."

This episode does a good job of establishing the friendship and symbiosis between Kong and Bobby. One would assume that Kong is the great protector in the relationship because he is strong and, well, gigantic.  But here we see that Kong must also be protected too, and that Bobby steps into that breach. He is Kong's guardian as much as Kong is his.

Both of these episodes from the 1966 animated series are short and sweet, and filled with adventure. Kong himself is portrayed as a gentle giant, which is appropriate, given the intended audience.

King Kong Week: Kong: Skull Island Trailer

I am off to the movies with Joel and Kathryn, to see Kong: Skull Island.  Look for my review next Tuesday!

King Kong Week: King Kong (2005)

I reviewed Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) here on the blog upon its theatrical release over a decade ago, and gave it a positive, even glowing recommendation.

With twelve years of hindsight, my thoughts are a little more even-keeled in terms of the movie’s success as a work of art.

It is still a great looking movie, even if it isn’t a great movie, overall.  I'll be honest, I'm conflicted about the film.  I love a lot of it, and some of it drives me up-the-wall.

Why was I so enthusiastic in the first place? Well, I was thrilled that King Kong was back on the big screen, and also that he had been given his due with a sprawling, epic, blockbuster adventure, I suppose. After all -- lest we forget -- a King Kong Lives (1986)-style debacle was always a possibility.

Today, I still see many of the virtues I detected in 2005. This version of Kong is, perhaps, the most sympathetic and “human” iteration of the character. He’s a scarred old warrior, whose heart is melted by Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts). The character is strong (as his battle with three carnivorous dinosaurs suggests), but also innocent in a way, as his ice “skating” moment in Central Park reveals. 

And the production values are still top-notch, especially regarding the third-act recreation of Manhattan. The film’s climax, atop the Empire State Building, is both vertigo-inducing and highly emotional. The moment wherein the weakened, defeated Kong slips backwards from the apex of the building still gets me.  I absolutely hate to see the noble Eighth Wonder of the World slip out of frame.  The moment gives me a lump in my throat every time I watch the film. It's so sad.  And that sadness is earned. We've traveled a thousand miles with this noble Kong.

And what doesn’t work about this King Kong?

Well, some of the CGI effects don’t hold particularly up that well today, for one thing, and neither do some of the central performances. The film is overlong too, and takes forever to get through a story that -- let’s face it -- we all know by heart. Some characters and their subplots only take away from the film’s success, overall, I wager.  Kong is the movie.  We don't need sideshows with deck-hands and their mentors.

Also, much of the rethinking about Kong for this movie involves making the film more beautiful, and bigger in scope. I feel like there was actually more real thought behind the 1970’s version; transforming the Kong cinematic myth into a story of plundered resources, and the rape of nature. The disco-decade version of the material updated it for a new age, and a new audience.  This film, for all its glories, is a straight-up throwback, but with a deeper characterization of Kong.  But again, that's a logical development. The 1970's character is more "human" or than the 1933 one.  

This Kong is a remake, indeed, and yet it possesses some intriguing notions that are worth mentioning, like a native culture that suffers, it seems, from constant PTSD.

Yet overall, Peter Jackson’s King Kong doesn’t break much new ground so much as develop old ground, or even give us a particularly fresh or innovative window to understanding Kong's world better. I can happily watch the film -- anytime I have three hours to spend, that is -- and enjoy it.  A lot. But it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that both the 1933 and 1976 editions of this story give me more to write about, and think about.

I am hoping that Kong: Skull Island (2017), while set in the 1970's, also moves the character and his world in a fresh direction.

  

“Monsters belong in B movies.”

Down-on-his-luck filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) takes his last chance to make a movie, fleeing New York (and his studio bosses and creditors…) about the Venture with the intended star of his new movie: failed stage actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts).  Writing the script for his latest opus is playwright, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody).

They all travel to a mysterious destination in the South Pacific: Skull Island. There, traumatized natives seem to leave in fear of a God-like being.  Ann is kidnapped by the natives and brought back to be the bride of that God, a giant gorilla called Kong.

Kong takes Ann through the jungle, to his home high on a mountain, battling back any prehistoric monsters that might attempt to hurt her.  Meanwhile, Denham, Jack and a team from the Venture attempt to retrieve her.  After Denham’s camera is destroyed, the filmmaker realizes that he can still make it big…by returning King Kong to New York.

He executes that plan, but King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World, breaks free, and runs rampant in New York, climbing to the top of the Empire State Building for a final showdown with the world (and technology) of modern man.

“There is still some mystery left in the world, and we can all have a piece of it for the price of an admission ticket.”

The original King Kong was a taut and lean 90 minutes from start-to-finish. The 2005 King Kong runs over three hours (three hours and seven minutes, I believe.) The extra time is not wasted, but, looking back, the film does seem a little overloaded with unnecessary scenes and characters.  

For instance, a deck hand on the Venture, Jimmy (Jamie Bell), and his friendship with Hayes (Evan Parke) get a lot of attention, but ultimately don't impact Kong’s life and death, at the hand of man.  It humanizes these characters, sure, but do we really need these characters humanized in a King Kong story? I think the answer is negative. They are superfluous.  

Similarly, all the back-story about Jack’s play, and Ann’s hard luck, and Carl Denham’s monetary woes put meat on the skeleton of the story, but as we can see from the 1933 film, that meat is not necessary, either.  The characters don’t really need so much fleshing out, and, in fact, the fleshing out may be counter-productive in some cases.  

Take Jack Black’s Carl Denham, for example. Let's be charitable and just say that Black is not the most nuanced of performers, and he brings a very black-and-white interpretation to the character. Robert Armstrong’s Denham was a filmmaker, a rogue, and also, in his own way, quite heroic. He was capable physically, and cunning mentally. Jack Black’s Denham is part comic-relief, part cartoon. He is so avaricious and money-hungry that his final line, about Beauty killing the beast, no longer makes sense.  In this case, it was greed that killed the beast; Denham’s greed, in particular. It’s silly (and ill-fitting) that he should put the blame on Ann, who clearly loves Kong, while he seems to view Kong only as the goose that laid the golden egg.  Nice way to shift the blame, Carl!

Denham is thus less an anti-hero, and more an actual villain in this version of the film, taking on some of the qualities we see in Charles Grodin’s Wilson in the 1976 film.

The dinosaur attacks on Skull Island in Jackson's version of King Kong are so ramped up, so-over-the-top, so much the last word in edge-of-your-seat cliffhanger action that they can’t help but impress on first viewing. You'll squirm and gasp throughout these exhilarating moments.

Later, however,  questions of credibility crop up.  There’s one scene here where a man shoots another man with a machine gun, to get a giant bug off of his chest.  Miraculously, the other man doesn’t get shot himself, even with the bug darting all about, and the bullets flying, staccato fashion. This scene, like a few others, seems to exist by a cartoon set of physical laws.  These scenes harm the film, overall.

Also, the movie seems to suffer a bit from the fact that it has so many resources to fall back on. In previous versions of the King Kong story, we have seen the huge wall on Skull Island and marveled at it.  It seemed amazing, but also real. The native wall here seems like something out of a fantasy world -- Fellowship of the Rings, maybe -- not out of our reality. The contraption which delivers Ann to Kong is over-complicated and byzantine, when it simply isn’t necessary for it to be so complex.  It all reeks a little bit of the idea that just because you can do a thing, you should do a thing.  But again, that’s a complaint I have often made of Peter Jackson’s work. His films are long, fascinating, undisciplined, and in dire need of a responsible editor.

On the other hand, I do appreciate how Jackson has re-imagined the character of Kong as a hero, not a monster. It's odd to write about a giant gorilla as a "character," but this version of Kong is far more developed than in previous films. He is a battle-scarred warrior, perhaps a little over-the-hill, even. He is the last of his kind, as you can see from his cave high over the island, where the bones of his ancestors and family lay scattered. 

And since the natives in this film are terrible, psychotic people, one senses that Kong has made his loneliness their worst nightmare. They live in mortal fear of their "God," and again, no version of the film has brought that idea home better than Jackson's. When you see the terrors of Skull Island this time around, you'll understand exactly how and why a giant gorilla might long for the company of a Vaudeville entertainer to take his mind off certain things. 

He’s got to deal with things like giant vampire bats. Or roving T-Rex packs.

And because the Ann Darrow/King Kong relationship makes more sense in this version, the last third of the film (set in 1933 Manhattan...) is far more effective. Again, this may sound absurd based on the fact I'm writing about a giant simian here, but the film works in the same rare emotional dimension as Romeo and Juliet or any other tale of star-crossed lovers. 

Ann isn't just "sorry" for Kong because she has sympathy for an innocent animal, she actually loves him, based on their (harrowing) experiences together. All her life, the script informs us, the people she loves have left her; leaving her vulnerable and in danger. Kong is the one being who is always there for her; always fighting to protect her.  That’s a beautiful development of this relationship.

Finally, the portion of the film set in Manhattan, particularly atop the Empire State Building, is utterly enthralling. You will feel awe (at the depiction of NYC during that time...), vertigo (at the dizzying heights), and anxiety (even though, of course, you know how it's all going to end.) You will feel tremendous sadness for the inevitable separation that Kong and Ann will endure.  This sequence is Jackson at his absolute best. He is able to use digital imagery, and CGI creations to render a scene that feels entirely human, and incredibly emotional.  I said it above, and I'll say it again: I find Kong's final slide from the top of the Empire State Building unbearable, despairing, here.

This review may or may not help to clarify your feelings about this version of the legend.  I sometimes love the film, sometimes like it, and sometimes feel that it is scuttled by bad choices in casting, and running time.  I wish that it had some deeper relation to its time (as we clearly see in the case of the 1976 version). 

Yet you can tell that every frame of this film is a labor of love, and so I wish, 12 years on, I just loved Peter Jackson's King Kong a bit more than I do.