King Kong (1976, John Guillermin), the television version

You know, a three-hour King Kong movie may just be a bad idea. Though the television version of Kong is intended to be a two-night experience, turning the original two hour and fifteen minute movie into two two-hour network blocks. An almost mini-series event, only not because the only way to get it so long is to add in a lot of excess. There’s so much pointless footage. Some of it you can tell editor Ralph E. Winters cut intentionally because it’s redundant exposition, some of it is bad special effects, some of it is just more establishing shots.

There are a handful of fine additions. I can’t remember a single one, however, so not a full handful. Just little moments where it wasn’t a bad addition instead of being an obviously taped in piece messing up the flow of the editing. Like the new introduction to Jeff Bridges, which makes him more capable than Jessica Lange will give him credit for later on, at least as far as his ruthlessness. Arguably, it’s probably worse than anything bad guy Charles Grodin does (intentionally).

The worst addition are the extended Skull Island natives sequences. Unless you count the score, which doesn’t seem like the original John Barry score, rather some junior editor’s attempt to reuse the original John Barry score for another forty-five minutes or so. But it’s not just adding more music, it’s taking it away, so the television version actually breaks sequences. Often.

The stretched out Kong still spends most of its time on the island, but with a lot more material at the beginning. There’s a semi-good moment—when first mate stand-in Ed Lauter rolls his eyes at Grodin being extra and having to pretend it’s legit. Kong’s got a very interesting approach to camp; director Guillermin refuses to do it and the cast refuses to emote it, but the script’s still got it. The contrasts give the film a lot of personality (for a while).

But there’s also a lot more stuff with the natives preparing their sacrifice to Kong. There’s enough shots of the dancing natives, with a focus on the uncredited girl going to be sacrificed. See, you can’t stretch exceptionally problematic sequences too long because it just invites reflection; not only the characterization of the tribe, but the entire racist, colonizer nature of King Kong, which the film ends up playing with a tiny bit but also the logic to it. There’s absolutely no reason to think the fifty foot tall ape likes Jessica Lange more because she’s a blonde white lady and there’s also no reason to think he ate the regular native brides. It seems far more likely he takes them, plays with them like living dolls, then gets them killed through carelessness, month after month (timed to the full moon). You can even rationalize the natives’ elaborate dance sequence as amusing to Kong in the distant past so he wouldn’t eat the funny little hairless micro-apes.

There is so much empty time in Kong’s three hours. So much time to reflect.

Like how there’s an added scene with a couple guys perving on Lange onboard the ship—the only time she’s seriously objectified even though she dresses like it’s a skimpy casual photo shoot—and they end up dying first on the log sequence.

So are we supposed to feel a little less bad about them going?

The extra footage also implies more character development for the crew—namely Jack O’Halloran and Julius Harris—which doesn’t go anywhere but it’s an almost interesting idea, the perspectives of the crew on this wild goose chase.

Grodin gets another scene or two but ends up suffering the most in the extension. He’s barely in the second half of the film, which is really too bad since he’s initially the one who can sell the muted camp the best. He’s a profoundly good middle manager jackass.

The extra scenes literalize the ending with Lange and Bridges, which is too bad but I guess it’s cool to know it’s the film’s original intent. Also the more literalize, the more obvious Bridges is one weak dude. Despite his solid abs, which get at least one more scene this version, maybe two. He can’t cut it with Lange, who despite being initially characterized as ditzy is never ditzy once she gets going because her performance is too good. It’s even more clear with the excess footage—Guillermin just sets the camera on Lange and lets her vamp. It’s an incredibly bold, incredibly good, incredibly unappreciated move.

Kong’s all about the interiority of Lange’s experience. Well, when she’s in the movie. She also disappears in this version, thanks to more Kong in New York, which runs hot and cold, but then subzero when the finale—because TV version—cuts out most of the blood and gore in the showdown. Sadly the uncredited TV version editor doesn’t take advantage of the constraint to emphasis Lange and Bridges’s experience of it but what can you do.

Bridges is okay. The character doesn’t age well, what with him willing to ignore Kong in plight to finally score with Lange, even though their delayed romance seems entirely due to his classism and lack of confidence in her. There’s potential for a weird love quartet between Kong, Bridges, Lange, and Grodin, with only Grodin understanding Lange’s superego.

But it’s not in this television cut. It’s also not in the theatrical cut. But the theatrical cut doesn’t so definitely decide against it. The television cut adds a bunch of minutes, reduces a bunch of character and, consequently, performances. And the John Barry score. And it does a disservice to Ralph E. Winters’s editing.

And probably Richard H. Kline’s because it screws up the pace of the special effects accomplishments.

I’ve probably been wanting to see King Kong: the Television Version since my first Leonard Maltin movie guide, thirty plus years ago now; it’s all right. It could be worse. But it’s definitely not one of those cases of the expanded version bettering the film. Quite the opposite.

Though, for while he’s in the movie, Rene Auberjonois is a lot better with more to do, even when it’s mugging through transition montage material.

And Lange is excellent as ever.

King Kong (1976, John Guillermin)

In 2001, the Academy awarded Dino De Laurentiis the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial award. The clips ran from the beginning of his career to the present–I can’t remember if Body of Evidence got a clip–and I kept waiting to see how they’d deal with Kong. The De Laurentiis produced remake is either forgotten or derided, probably most well-known as the background clips at the Universal Studios attraction. When they got to Kong, they used the scene where Kong attacks the elevated train. They used a pan and scan clip. I was mortified, but only because it was stunning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was going to not only use a pan and scan clip… but pick a mediocre scene to showcase. It was, I suppose, a clip on loan from the Universal Studios attraction.

John Guillermin’s King Kong has one bad sequence. When the island natives kidnap Jessica Lange off the ship, it doesn’t work. It’s not the writing, it’s the visual. Guillermin shoots it wrong (which seems impossible, given the rest of his direction in the film). It just doesn’t work. It seems too hackneyed. Otherwise, Kong‘s filmmaking is impeccable. There’s some iffy composite shots, but also some amazing ones. The editing for the scenes with miniatures is fantastic–whenever it’s a little doll standing in for Lange, the shot cuts about a frame before it’s too much.

The film’s a little strange in its uselessness. It’s not a remake intending to improve on the original or even retell it. This Kong is just a modernization–the whole oil company angle all of a sudden relevant again–and Lorenzo Semple Jr.’s script is deceptively good. There’s some great dialogue in the film, particularly from Jeff Bridges, particularly during his scenes with Lange. The film’s approach to their pseudo-romance is fantastic.

There’s also a bunch of jokes in the script–apparently written to be of the “wink-wink” variety (Semple did script the Adam West Batman movie after all). Except every one of those lines goes to Charles Grodin and Grodin’s playing a jackass oil executive; in other words, all the lines work coming from Grodin, especially given how well he plays the jackass. The character is never likable, but he’s never entirely unlikable either–though he’s always despicable.

The supporting cast is solid–Rene Auberjonois, John Randolph and Ed Lauter especially. Bridges’s assured leading man performance is almost an anomaly in his career. Not many actors can make the giant monkey movie seem real, but Bridges does.

As for Lange, she’s real good. She got a lot of flack for the role–I remember reading somewhere All that Jazz saved her career and she only got that part because she was dating Fosse–but she’s good. She’s playing a narcissistic twit who turns out to have some emotional depth (but not enough to overpower the egoism). Lange’s even got one of the film’s great monologues and she delivers it well.

It’s strange to think of this Kong as having great monologues, but it does have a few. Semple’s a good screenwriter.

Kong‘s a prototype genre event picture, but it’s not a genre picture. It’s pre-genre. Guillermin doesn’t make a single reference to the original and the script only makes a couple, both early on. The sweeping, lush John Barry score frequently saves the picture. It makes scenes work.

But King Kong is sort of lost. It’s a Panavision event picture made before event pictures were released–pan and scan–on VHS to buy. It’d be another twelve years (Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade kicking it off) before event pictures became home video attractions too. Kong is meant to be a theatrical, uncontrolled by remote control, viewing experience. It’s peculiarly paced, deliberate and assured and visually stunning. Even when the composites are bad–it’s inexplicable why they didn’t shoot the final scene, with Kong versus the helicopters, with miniatures–the film still works.

King Kong will never get its due. For whatever reason, derogatory remakes get better notices than respectful ones. But it’s a fine night at the movies (about ten minutes in, I had to kill all the lights to get the experience going fully–with an overseas HD-DVD no less) and it’s great looking.

King Kong (2005, Peter Jackson)

I’ll be honest–I didn’t make it very far, considering its length, into King Kong. I sat through a lot. I sat through the opening Great Depression montage, which was shockingly bad. The people who assailed Michael Bay for his glitzy Pearl Harbor gave Jackson a free pass for Kong? It’s obscene. I sat through the terrible CG. “Grand Theft Auto IV” looks better. Jackson draws attention to Kong‘s unbelievable backdrops in a way I can’t believe any modern filmmaker would. CG isn’t a new tool anymore and Jackson’s bad, 1990s video game CG is terribly misused. It’s incompetent.

I sat though the film opening with Naomi Watts, who’s weak. The tone for the film during her scenes seems to have been lifted from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a goofy cartoon rendition of the 1930s. I sat through Jack Black. His first scene, combined with James Newton Howard’s pervasive, intrusive score and Jackson and company’s script, mocks the original film. It’s stunning how it degrades and dismisses the original–but it later gets much, much worse.

Peter Jackson’s King Kong is pure, big Hollywood camp. There’s nothing else to call it.

I also sat through some of the worst filmmaking I’ve ever seen in a film not ridiculed by critics and audiences alike. The scene where Watts walks up the plank… she hesitates–it’s such a big momentous, life-changing event (something the viewer might know from that lame original Jackson so enjoys mocking). Then it gets worse. Jackson goes to close-up on her feet making the step.

But that one isn’t even the worst I saw. The slow motion close-up of Adrien Brody typing out Skull Island–ominously, of course–with each key getting a zoom, is even worse. Jackson doesn’t have any respect for his own script, which is kind of interesting, I suppose, but not particularly.

Watts and Brody, from what I saw, have absolutely no chemistry together. The fault lies with both of them. She isn’t very good and he looks incredibly embarrassed.

Black’s worse than I thought he’d be. He mugs constantly.

Both Evan Parke and Thomas Kretschmann seem to be good. Maybe their performances crap out after I stopped watching.

Oh, I never did get around to why I stopped watching.

There’s some foreshadowing to the event–the ship, the Venture, is out of Surabaya. I’m nearly positive Surabaya is never mentioned in the 1933 original. The 1976 remake–ridiculed by critics as campy and disrespectful of the original–opens in Surabaya. Whatever, I figured it was a coincidence.

Until Jackson rips off a monologue from the 1976 version. I didn’t let it finish. I stopped the film.

King Kong isn’t just worse than I expected, it’s worse than I could have imagined. Why Jackson chose to remake a film he doesn’t–almost forty minutes in to his remake–appear to have any regard for (save the opening title design), is inexplicable.

His direction isn’t bad. There’s some enthusiasm (but not much) and I’m sure he thinks his CG looks good.

The writing is awful, unbearable as it turns out.

I really did expect to sit through this one when I started it (it’s so bad, I’ve forgotten the last film I turned off). Then, fifteen minutes into it, I thought I’d at least make it until the big CG ape showed up. But there’s no point. It’s complete crap and a spit in the eye of the original. Jackson doesn’t even have a narrative–much less an artistic approach–his Kong exists to laugh at the original.

I know Jackson wanted Fay Wray to deliver the “it was beauty killed the beast” line at the end (she passed away before filming started, I believe). Would she have done it after Jackson spent three hours sneering her version?

King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack)

King Kong is a perfect film. I don’t think I’d realized before. It’s always hard to talk about films like Kong, influential standards of American cinema. I want to talk about how its structure still sets the tone for modern films–the gradual lead-in (it’s forty-some minutes before Kong shows up), the non-stop action of the second half, how establishing characters well in the beginning means they can go without dialogue for twenty minutes and still be affecting. Or the special effects. I’d love to talk about the special effects, like how I’d never noticed the absolutely brilliant sound design–the most effective stop motion moments are the ones with the people Kong interacts with. Murray Spivack’s sound brings them fully to life–best evidenced as Kong’s rampaging through the village and attacks a house. It engenders concern for the inhabitants, who must have been six inch dolls.

But Kong isn’t a perfect film for its impact. It’s perfect because of itself. The film opens with the scene on the docks, quickly establishing the peculiar tone of the first half. Everyone sort of takes Robert Armstrong’s gung ho filmmaker with a grain of salt. They’re bemused by him. Armstrong’s perfect for the role, big and amiable, it’s hard to be mad at him when he does something selfish and stupid. Just like the characters, who get themselves into the mess by listening to him and knowing better, so does the audience. Armstrong’s like a big kid for lots of Kong, always coming up with the best action after the consequence.

That first scene also goes far in establishing Bruce Cabot. Cabot’s character is Kong‘s most interesting–as is the way the film handles him. The scene with Cabot ranting to Fay Wray about women not belonging on ships–we’re supposed to understand it’s Cabot who’s off, not Wray. Regardless of whether or not he’s right, the first forty minutes of Kong are about Cabot learning to stop acting like a little boy (which Armstrong never has to do). It makes the romance between Cabot and Wray a wonderful one to watch unfold–that “Yes, sir” following their first kiss elicits a fantastic mood.

These scenes all happen long before Kong shows up, long before the roller coaster starts. I didn’t even get to the coffee shop scene, where Armstrong’s enthusiasm even gets the viewer going–promising everyone, viewer and Wray alike, the wait will be worth it.

And when Kong does show up, it’s clearly worth it. King Kong doesn’t really make the monster a sympathetic character. He tends to chomp on people and his curiosity usually leads to someone dying in a horrific manner, but they do make him into a real character. Utterly insensitive to the chaos he causes, Kong still has these wonderful, inquisitive moments. He’s frequently confused by the little people and it rounds out the film, bringing about emotional concern for him without having to light it in neon. The film reduces Wray’s part to victim at the halfway mark–and she certainly never shows any concern for Kong–which is narratively reasonable. It also puts the onerous on the viewer–if he or she wants to care for Kong, it’s because of his or her response to him, not because the film’s dictating.

Once Kong gets back to New York, the whole thing seems to wrap up in fifteen minutes. There’s the interesting monologue from Armstrong though, regarding what he’s done to Kong. He’s fully aware he’s been culturally insensitive, as well as zoologically, but he doesn’t care. The people don’t care what they’ve done to Kong and Kong doesn’t care what he does for people. It creates an interesting, ego and superego free narrative. Anything the audience wants to bring to it or attribute to it, they’re bringing themselves.

King Kong‘s a lot of things audiences and critics had to come up with new adjectives to describe back in 1933–a romance, an adventure being the two easiest–but it’s simply just a fantastic way to spend a hundred minutes.