There will only ever be one King Kong. The movie was a revelation when it first appeared on movie screens in 1933, gifting the world with its first truly all-cinematic movie creation, a creature of feeling and power crafted holy from the imaginations and hands of the movie makers. Sequels and remakes have come and gone, all attempting to tap the glory and pathos of the original. Some get the power, some get the emotion, but none of them, despite even more powerful technologies have been able to replicate the impact of that first great film.
There appeared in 1975 a book which attempted to document the creation and process by which Kong had come to movie houses. It was titled simply The Making of King Kong and the authors were George Turner and Dr. Orville Goldner. I've had a copy of the original stashed in among my treasures for many years. It's an impressive book for its time, and remains so today. It was reprinted in recent years in a somewhat smaller and more readable format. When I began my latest expedition into the world of Kong I picked up a copy of the new one and enjoyed it all over again.
Also of incredible value were two books, really two volumes of the same book titled King Kong Unmade The Lost Films of Skull Island Revisited by John Lemay. This delightful work is presented chronologically and offers insight into extant Kong movies as well as they myriad efforts to launch remakes, revisions and imitations. There were more than I knew about, and this book offers up succinct and highly readable coverage of them all.
And while I'm on the subject there's Keep Watching the Skies - American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties by Bill Warren. This is a massive two-volume set of tomes which give summaries and opinions of most every movie you can think of from the relevant era. These are movies which were released in America as well as made here, so Toho gets great coverage. I include it in this post because all this monster mayhem was kicked off when King Kong made his way into the living rooms of America by means of that new wonder of technology the television set.
These books have been published, revised and published again over the years. Above you can see the delightfully delicate artwork for the first editions.
Here is the magnificent art by Kerry Gammill which graces both volumes in the set. Being able to identify every single creature, invader, robot, and mutation in this image is a badge of honor or arguably a sign of a too cloistered existence. I plead guilty. Take a closer look and see how you do.
King Kong is a mighty beast, and a mighty good movie. It has spawned fascinating books looking into its storied origins and a veritable legion of monsters.
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Growing up in the 70's-80's, the library in my suburban hometown had a larger than usual section on Film/TV/Media. The Making of King Kong was the book that introduced me to that section. One of the first books I read in the Adults section.
ReplyDeleteA detailed tome on a fascinating subject will do it every time.
DeleteInteresting to note that the Goldner and Turner bylines got switched in the later edition. Unless there was an explanation in the book itself, I wonder why the switch. Goldner was an effects technician on the '33 Kong and Turner flirted briefly in the field, too. He produced some fascinating genre history with his writings, especially in The Cinema of Adventure, Romance and Terror.
ReplyDeleteApparently Goldner thought that the bylines should have been reversed when the book was first published. He considered himself more a source than a writer of that tome. When it was revised by the work of Turner before his death, Price made the call to switch.
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