| King Kong | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster by John Berkey |
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| Directed by | John Guillermin |
| Produced by | Dino De Laurentiis Federico De Laurentiis Christian Ferry |
| Written by | James Ashmore Creelman Ruth Rose (1933 screenplay) Lorenzo Semple Jr. |
| Story by | Merian C. Cooper Edgar Wallace |
| Starring | Jeff Bridges Charles Grodin Jessica Lange Rene Auberjonois Rick Baker (uncredited) |
| Music by | John Barry |
| Cinematography | Richard H. Kline |
| Editing by | Ralph E. Winters |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 17, 1976 |
| Running time | 134 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $23 million[1] |
| Box office | $90,614,445[1] |
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition.
The remake's screenplay was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the original story written by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, which had been adapted into the 1933 screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose. It stars Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange in her first film role, playing the part made famous in the original by Fay Wray.
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Set in the 1970s, Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms an expedition based on infrared imagery which reveals a previously undiscovered Indian Ocean island hidden by a permanent cloud bank. Wilson believes the island has a huge deposit of oil. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), a primate paleontologist, sneaks onto the expedition's vessel and attempts to warn the team against traveling to the island, citing an ominous final message about "the roar of the greatest beast" from previous doomed explorers. Wilson orders Prescott locked up, claiming that he is really a spy from a rival corporation. The ship happens upon a life raft which carries the beautiful and unconscious Dwan (Jessica Lange). Upon waking, Dwan tells Prescott that she is an aspiring actress who was aboard a director's yacht which suddenly exploded. During the ship's ongoing voyage, Prescott and Dwan become attracted to each other.
Upon arriving at the island, the team discovers a primitive tribe of natives who live within the confines of a gigantic wall, built to protect them from a mysterious god known as Kong. The team finds that while there is a large deposit of oil, it is of such low quality that it is unusable. The natives kidnap Dwan, drug her, and use her as a sacrifice to Kong. A monumental ape grabs Dwan from the altar and departs back into the jungle.
Although an awesome and terrifying sight, the soft hearted Kong quickly becomes tamed by Dwan, whose rambling monologues calms and fascinates the monstrous beast. Kong takes Dwan back to a waterfall. He washes her, and uses a great gust of his warm breath to dry her.
In the meantime, Prescott, and First Mate Carnahan (Ed Lauter) lead a rescue mission to save Dwan. The rescue party encounters Kong while crossing a log bridge, and Kong rolls the huge log, sending Carnahan and the rest of the sailors falling to their deaths. Prescott and Boan are the only ones to survive. Kong takes Dwan to his lair. A giant snake appears and attacks the pair, and while Kong dispatches the snake, Prescott escapes with Dwan. Kong chases the pair back to the native village, only to fall into a pit trap and be smothered with chloroform.
Without any of the promised new oil, Wilson decides to transport Kong to America as a promotional gimmick for his company. When they finally reach New York City, Kong is put on display in a beauty and the beast farce, bound in chains with a large crown on his head. When Kong sees a group of reporters pushing and shoving Dwan for interviews, the ape breaks free of his bonds and goes on a rampage throughout the city. Wilson trips while running away and Kong steps on him, killing him instantly. The ape also destroys an elevated train in his search for Dwan. Prescott and Dwan flee across the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan while Kong pursues them. At an abandoned Manhattan bar, Prescott calls the military and tells them to let Kong climb to the top of the Trade Center. Kong locates Dwan and she allows him to take her; he begins to make his way to the World Trade Center, with Jack and the military in hot pursuit.
In the climax, Kong climbs the South Tower of the World Trade Center.[2] After being attacked by men with flamethrowers while standing on the roof, Kong flees by leaping across to the North Tower. Later, he is attacked by military helicopters while Dwan is trying to stop them. The fatally injured Kong falls from the roof to the World Trade Center plaza, where he dies from his injuries. Dwan is bombarded by a sea of photographers. The crowd is so big though that Dwan can't even get close to Jack. She stands still and is photographed relentlessly by reporters while Kong lies dead in a pool of blood and broken concrete.
Although the film is often described as being a financial flop, King Kong was commercially successful, earning Paramount Pictures back over triple its budget. The film ended up at #5 on Variety's chart of the top domestic (U.S.) moneymakers of 1977.[3] (The film was released in December 1976 and therefore earned the majority of its money during the early part of 1977.) The film made approximately $80 million worldwide on a $24 million budget.[4] Despite this, Paramount-Gulf Western's CEO stated that he was disappointed the film did not out gross 1975's Jaws (film). After months of much anticipation for the film's release the film received mostly mixed responses from critics at the time of its initial release, especially from fans of the original King Kong. It did however, obtain positive reviews from several prominent critics. Pauline Kael in The New Yorker, Richard Schickel in Time,[5] Charles Champlin in the Los Angeles Times, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, and 'Murf' in Variety,[6] among others, responded favorably to the film's pathos and (often campy) sense of humor. Kael, in particular, truly loved the film, noting "I don't think I've ever before seen a movie that was a comic-strip great romance in the way this one is — it's a joke that can make you cry."[7] The performances by Bridges and Grodin were generally well regarded, and even the film's detractors found Richard H. Kline's Academy Award-nominated cinematography and John Barry's musical score noteworthy.
Currently, critical response to King Kong continues to be mixed. Of the 25 reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes regarding the title, 52% reflect negative reactions. According to Entertainment Tonight's Leonard Maltin, the film "...has great potential; yet it dispels all the mythic, larger-than-life qualities of the original with idiotic characters and campy approach."[8]
The movie's success and notoriety helped launch the career of Jessica Lange, although she reportedly received some negative publicity regarding her debut performance that, according to film reviewer Marshall Fine, "almost destroyed her career".[9]
Although Lange won the Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture - Female for Kong, she did not appear in another film for three years and spent that time training intensively in acting.[10]
The film received an Academy Award for Best Special Effects, an award it shared with Logan's Run (1976).[11] It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Richard H. Kline) and Best Sound (Harry W. Tetrick, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin and Jack Solomon).[12]
King Kong found new and sustained life on television. NBC bought the rights to air the movie and it was a rating success. NBC paid De Laurentiis $19.5 million for the rights to two showings over five years; the highest amount any network had ever paid for a film at that time. This led De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (with Canadian distribution by Paramount) to make a sequel called King Kong Lives (1986), starring Linda Hamilton. Unlike the 1976 remake, the sequel was a commercial failure.
Momentum Pictures released this film on DVD in 2001 on the Region 2 label with a photo gallery and a theatrical trailer. This has now been deleted according to the online retailer site Zavvi. Optimum Releasing has confirmed a new re-release of this film on Region 2 with deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer from the previous issue. There are only 2 deleted scenes on the DVD. This is the extended scene of the brawl between Kong and the Snake. The other scene is the demise of Wilson at the New York unveiling of Kong. The film has been released on Blu-Ray in Region B territories, however this disc is region free and will work in any Blu-Ray machine.[13]
When King Kong made its network TV debut on NBC in 1978, a number of scenes deleted from the theatrical version were reinstated to make the film longer. Most fans of the remake agree that the extended version of the film works much better than the original truncated release. This version also features several changes to the John Barry score, including entirely alternate cues in places that no music existed in the theatrical version, as well as several different edits of cues. This may actually indicate that the version was an early workprint of the film, before it went through its final editing stages. While this is the first of the Kong films to have an extended cut, the second one is the 2005 remake of King Kong. The deleted/extended scenes are not yet released on DVD but 5, 9 and 10 have been included as extras in the deleted scene section on the current Region 2 DVD release.
The film score, composed and conducted by John Barry, was released on CD by both Mask and FSM in 2005. It is noticeably incomplete, however, missing at least two major cues from the film, notably the log rolling sequence, several extensions of cues already present on the soundtrack, and small restatements of the main theme. Otherwise, the track listing is as follows on both CDs:
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