Monster Movie of the Week: King Kong (1976)

It takes a set of Kong-sized nuts to bill your remake as "the most exciting original motion picture event of all time!"

King Kong (1976)

Director: John Guillermin

Genre: Monster on the loose

THE MOVIE

Blockbuster fever struck American movie goers in the mid seventies. After the runaway success of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in the summer of 1975, movie studios began clamoring for the next big event movie. What better event movie than a remake of a story that is synonymous with the word “big?”

The 1976 remake of King Kong is interesting to watch if only to see how it is different and similar from the other two major versions of the story. The ’76 Kong differs greatly from both the ’33 and ’05 movies. This version of the story is the least spectacular and the most sexually charged. This is also the least regarded of the Kong movies and is often thought of as a turkey or a bomb although it was actually a big hit upon its release but not in the ballpark of Jaws which is certainly what it was hyped for.

The movie follows the basic storyline of the original, although in this version the film crew is replaced by an oil expedition (remember this was during the first Energy Crisis) headed by a Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin,) a Nixonian paranoiac who has staked his reputation on finding oil beneath Skull Island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) stows away on the boat. In this version, he is a primatologist who has heard stories of giant apes on Skull Island.

Once at sea, the crew finds Dwan (Jessica Lange) floating in a lifeboat. Dwan switched the middle two letters of her name so that it would be more memorable. Dwan is an actress who was aboard a luxury liner that exploded For Some Reason. Dwan is, as a friend of mine once succinctly put, "Actress-Crazy." This is very special combination of insecure, flightly, neurotic, self-absorbed and plain ole' nuts that only a working actress can really pull off (for a great example of Actress-Crazy see Terry Garr in Tootsie). Jessica Lange plays Dwan like she’s constantly horny or high (sometimes she combines them to mix it up.) Sometime between this movie and her appearance in (yes) Tootsie she became a very good actress but her performance in King Kong is total camp.

The other main departure from the classic story is that that this Skull Island is not inhabited by all of the dinosaurs and strange creatures that we have come to expect. It is inhabited by Kong and a large rubber snake and a bunch of Africans (despite the fact that it is in the South Pacific). So, some of the fun of the original and Peter Jackson version are lost here.

When they get to New York the story pretty much matches the other versions, only here Kong climbs the then newly-constructed World Trade Center Towers instead of the Empire State Building, as he does in the other versions. I always find World Trade Center scenes a little distracting in movies filmed before 9/11. Unfortunately, most movies filmed in New York from the 70’s through the 90’s feature the buildings prominently. King Kong features some gratuitous WTC action.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

This Kong is not realized with stop motion as the original was but with a mix of suitmation and animatronics and the final result looks strangely Fonzie-esque. While the animatronic masks are capable of a large range of movement and expression, the effect is usually just creepy, especially when Kong leers at Jessica Lange’s character constantly. Or the scene where he blows repeated on a wet Dwan, which is just wrong. Wrong and disturbing.

This has to be the perviest Kong yet. The sexual subtext of the original is here brought closer to the fore (“He tried to rape you!” says Charles Grodin’s character) and it loans the movie a lurid and unpleasant quality. The Peter Jackson version is smart enough to diffuse the sexual aspect all together and build a genuine connection between Anne and Kong. This one is not.

Squish.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

This is the only version of the story to depict Kong’s actual trip to New York. I've always wondered what that trip must have been like. I like the scenes where he is locked up in the bowels of an oil tanker pounding the hell out of it.

SEQUELS

King Kong Lives 1986

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available in a bare-bones DVD.

SEE ALSO

King Kong 1933 King Kong Escapes 1967 King Kong 2005

TRIVIA

This movie represents a slightly larger version of Kong than is usually depicted in the American movies. Here, he is described as being about 50 feet tall whereas normally he is about 25-30 feet tall.

The Japanese Kong is on a much larger scale allowing him to tangle with the likes of Godzilla.