King Kong - The film that should not have been

Production disasters happen. We see it all the time in Hollywood. Yet, one such classic story has always stood out in my mind: King Kong. Why? Well, of course, I love the movie but even disregarding that: I simply find it unbelievable just how bad things got during production and yet they pulled through it. Not much of a spoiler since you know the movie came out. In any case, let me show you some highlights of that one-of-a-kind production.

In the summer of 1931, movie director David O. Selznick was having a bad time. The 1929 crash had hit Hollywood hard and Selznick had no prospect for anything movie-related soon. In a hurry, he called in his friend Merian C. Cooper so he could leverage his wealthy and influential connections. Cooper would be the literal star of our story. You see, Cooper had an idea for a movie in mind. An idea that persisted for years in his mind. When Selznick came in panic to him, Cooper realized that THAT was his chance. He pitched his idea as best as he could. Thrills, action, a damsel to rescue. And, of course, a giant ape. That idea didn‘t come out of the blue, instead, it naturally came out of Cooper‘s previous adventures. Cooper‘s biographer Mark Cotta Vaz explains that, after World War 1, Cooper had himself sailed to a lost island (near the Solomon Islands), discovered prehistoric creatures (probably Komodo dragons) and witnessed tribal warriors (in Ethiopia). Sound familiar?

In any case, things got worse. Selznick was cut off from production work entirely by Louis B. Mayer (director of MGM). So that‘s it, right? No. Cooper found a studio for Selznick: Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO). Saying that Cooper was motivated is the least of it. He saw the potential of “talking pictures“. And so, production N.601 called “Kong“ would begin. Cooper himself would become a studio production executive for RKO… only to realize what he got himself into. RKO was in financial trouble, just like Selznick, with an estimated loss of 5 million in 1931 alone. That still wasn't enough to make Cooper turn tail. Besides, with RKO, he had now close access to a major boon to his hairy and gigantic vision.

William O'Brien was the key. In a word, O'Brien can be attributed with the creation of stop-clay motion. Brien had previously proved his work on 1925 The Lost World to the amazement of the masses. He would be even more so instrumental for the Kong himself. O'Brien would bring results but very costly and delayed ones. Cooper didn't care. “Everybody wanted me to put a man in a gorilla suit [...] We could have done it in a tenth of the time but it wouldn't have been any damn good.“

So they started working... and couldn't stop. Zoe Porter, Cooper's assistant once said: “I can still see him energetically striding around his office, pipe in mouth, crackers and cheese in one hand, script pages in the other, while I furiously took shorthand notes trying to keep up with the spontaneous flow of his ideas. [...] No one could be around him and not be infected with his energy and enthusiasm.“

But Cooper was also a multi-tasker - working on other films at the same time as King Kong, notably the Roar of the Dragon and The Most Dangerous Game. Just do a quick search of his filmography - you will be amazed, trust me. Releasing about a year before King Kong, those two action-packed films would be extremely well received by an audience bored by increasingly talkative “talkies“. They can largely be attributed to the breath-neck speed at which King Kong goes. In fact, this is how they cut screen time in production: they didn't cut scenes, no. Instead, they sped up scenes from rehearsal to final take.

The script of the film itself can only be called loose. Scenes were being added and modified to take advantage of props and sceneries currently set up for other productions at RKO. For instance, we have a few accounts of a chase scene being improvised in King Kong to take advantage of jungle scenery prepared for The Most Dangerous Game on the day of shooting. Frankly, it is a true miracle that the filming didn't crash and burn on every single day of shooting. Just take the iconic fight scene between Kong and a dinosaur. That single scene took 22 hours to shoot. After all, stop-motion and the scale demanded by Cooper were unique at his time. No one working on the production could be prepared for it. Paired that to the aboundance of last-minute changes and I can safely assume that no one outside Cooper could grasp his full vision. Even comparing the first version of the script, made by English writer Edgar Wallace, to the final production gives a whole different picture. It has been redacted, re-wrote and scrapped not only by Cooper but also by James Crellman and, most importantly, Ruth Rose. In Cooper's own words: “The present script of Kong, as far as I can remember, hasn't one single idea suggested by Edgar Wallace.“ Do I need to say that they went completely over budget (517 000 $, or more than 100 000 $ over)?

Cooper kept it afloat. But even he almost flinched at the last minute. The most iconic scene of the film with King Kong atop the Empire State Building almost didn't happen since Cooper recognized just how much of a mess that scene would be (not to mention the potential lawsuits). The Empire State Building wasn't even finished.

Yet the scene happened. The movie reached movie-goers. And it was an instant success.

I am not surprised that when Peter Jackson - being an excellent movie director in his own right - tried to replicate King Kong‘s production to the letter only to utterly fail. In my mind, it makes that wonderful movie even more unbelievable. No wonder it blew everything that came out in 1933 out of the water. Its sheer scale and ambition are simply marvellous. In any case, thank you for that brief detour in history. What should you keep from that? In a word: stubbornness sometimes pays.

See you next time.

References

Living Dangerously - The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Mark Cotta Vaz, 2005.