King Kong (1976 film)

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The image on the poster shows the Empire State Building in the background — an acknowledgment of the original classic film.

King Kong (also known as King Kong: The Legend Reborn) is a 1976 American motion picture produced by Dino de Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong, about how a giant ape is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition.

The remake's screenplay was by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based very loosely on the original movie 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 starred Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange, in her first movie role, playing a part similar to the one made famous in the original by Fay Wray.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler The remake differs from the original in several major story details. Instead of a film production crew, King Kong's world is invaded by a petroleum corporation’s exploratory team. Fred Wilson (Grodin), an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms the expedition based on infrared imagery which reveals a previously undiscovered South Pacific island hidden by a permanent cloud bank; Wilson believes the island has a huge depository of oil, and has promised his bosses he will come back with “the big one.” Jack Prescott (Bridges), a primate paleontologist, sneaks onto the expedition’s enormous vessel en route and attempts to warn the team against completing its mission, 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. However, while being led below deck, Prescott spots a small life raft in the ocean and convinces members of the crew to search the raft. On board is the beautiful Dwan (Lange). Prescott’s medical experience enables him to perform a cursory exam of Dwan, who, after awakening, tells Prescott that she is an actress who was aboard a rich man’s yacht which suddenly exploded, apparently killing everybody except for her. During the ship’s ongoing voyage, Prescott and Dwan become attracted to each other.

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Kong & Dwan

Once arriving at the island, the team quickly finds that there is no oil and discovers instead 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 natives kidnap Dwan and attempt to use her as a sacrifice to Kong, tying her to an altar outside of their walled village and chanting ominously the word “Kong” over and over again. The captive woman begins to scream in horror as something gigantic slowly approaches, crashing loudly through the jungle trees until it reveals itself as a monumental ape standing triumphantly over her. Kong grabs Dwan and departs back into the jungle. Although an awesome and terrifying sight, the soft hearted Kong quickly becomes tamed by Dwan, whose babbling sweet talk calms and fascinates the monstrous beast.

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King Kong for the most part was played by famous suit actor and effects artist Rick Baker although publicity at the time claimed the creature was robotic

Meanwhile, Prescott and the ship’s crew mount a search mission and manage to both rescue Dwan and capture Kong. Sans any of the promised new oil, Wilson decides to bring Kong back to America as a promotional gimmick for his company. Brought back aboard an oil tanker Kong is starved and kept in the dark, tormented. When they finally reach New York, Kong is put on display in a beauty and the beast farce, bound in chains and exhibited to the masses. Finally being mobbed by reporters, the extremely unhappy ape, pining for the innocent, carefree days back on his island, goes berserk, breaking his chains and terrorizing the city in an orgy of destruction. Wilson is killed during the rampage and a subway car is destroyed. Prescott and Dwan flee to Manhattan, since apes can't swim they think that they are safe. However, because of his great size Kong is large enough to simply walk across. Eventually he recaptures Dwan and begins to make his way to the World Trade Center, with Jack and the military in hot pursuit…

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Kong snarls

In the climax, instead of climbing the Empire State Building, King Kong climbs one of the towers of the World Trade Center. After being attacked by men with flame throwers whilst standing on the roof of the South Tower, Kong flees by leaping across to the North Tower. Later, after he is attacked by helicopters, the fatally injured Kong falls from the roof to the World Trade Center forecourt where he dies from his injuries. (The posters of the movie notoriously showed a savage ape with one foot on each of the two Twin Towers, swatting at fighter jets [1]. In the actual movie, the ape was much smaller than this, and could not have stood on both towers at once. Of course, the 1933 version also had similar "misleading" publicity stills suggesting the ape's size as being much larger than it really was in that film.)

The film has several subplots, including ones that focus on Prescott's naturalist, borderline-hippie ways. The film is also extremely critical of big business and the U.S. military.

Response

Although the film is often described as being a financial flop, King Kong was in fact commercially successful, earning Paramount Pictures back almost triple its budget. The film ended up at #5 on Variety's chart of the top domestic (U.S.) moneymakers of 1977. (The film was released in December, 1976 and therefore earned the majority of its money during the early part of 1977.) The film made $80 million worldwide on a $24 million budget.

While the film received mostly mixed responses from critics, especially from fans of the original King Kong, it did receive extremely positive reviews from several prominent mainstream critics. Pauline Kael in The New Yorker, Richard Schickel in Time, Charles Champlin in the Los Angeles Times, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, and 'Murf' in Variety, 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." [2] The performances by Bridges and Grodin were generally well regarded, and even the film's most ardent detractors noted that Richard H. Kline's Academy Award-nominated cinematography and John Barry's thunderous musical score were first class.

The movie's success and notoriety helped launch the careers of Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges. Other notable actors in the cast, some in early roles, include Rene Auberjonois (Benson, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law), and Jack O'Halloran (Superman, Superman II, Dragnet (1987)).

The film received an Academy Award for Best Special Effects, an award it shared with Logan's Run (1976).

King Kong found new and sustained life on television. NBC bought the rights to air the movie and it was a rating success. This led de Laurentiis Entertainment Group (with distribution by Paramount) to make a sequel called King Kong Lives (1986), starring Linda Hamilton. Unlike the first film, the sequel was a commercial failure, but found cult success on video.

"Kongfrontation", a theme park ride based on the 1976 King Kong, opened in 1990 at Universal Studios Florida. It remained the park's biggest attraction until it was removed in 2002.

Extended Television Version

When King Kong made its network TV debut on NBC in 1982, 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. The newly added sequences included:

1. Jack drugs one of the Petrox Explorer's crew in a bar in Surabaya and steals his uniform.
2. The sailors playing cards on deck when Captain Ross calls them to the meeting with Fred Wilson and Roy Bagley.
3. A scene showing Jack, shirtless, in the brig of the Petrox Explorer.
4. Timmons and Garcia spy on Dwan showering, and are caught by Jack who causes Garcia to fall overboard into the sea.
5. When Kong escapes from Shea Stadium, a Petrox Corp. representative yells at Wilson for his incompetance.
6. After Kong steps on Wilson there is an extra shot of Wilson's crushed hat.
7. Kong picks up a Cadillac Fleetwood and throws it into the side of a building, where it explodes.
8. A plan by the military to send jets after Kong is scrapped and they decide on helicopters instead.
9. Jack tries, without success, to hotwire a Chevrolet Corvette while he and Dwan are fleeing.
10. An extra sequence showing Kong walking down the street with Dwan in his hand.

Soundtrack

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:

1. The Opening
2. Maybe My Luck Has Changed
3. Arrival on the Island
4. Sacrifice / Hail to the King
5. Arthusa
6. Full Moon Domain / Beauty is a Beast
7. Breakout to Captivity
8. Incomprehensible Captivity
9. Kong Hits the Big Apple
10. Blackout in New York / How About Buying Me a Drink
11. Climb to Skull Island
12. The End is at Hand
13. The End

Cast

• Jeff Bridges .... Jack Prescott
• Charles Grodin .... Fred S. Wilson
• Jessica Lange .... Dwan
• John Randolph .... Captain Ross
• Rene Auberjonois .... Roy Bagley
• Julius Harris .... Boan
• Jack O'Halloran .... Joe Perko
• Dennis Fimple .... Sunfish
• Ed Lauter .... Carnahan
• Jorge Moreno .... Garcia
• Mario Gallo .... Timmons
• John Lone .... Chinese Cook
• Garry Walberg .... Army General
• John Agar .... City Official
• Keny Long .... Ape Masked Man
• Sid Conrad .... Petrox Chairman
• George Whiteman .... Army Helicopter Pilot
• Wayne Heffley .... Air Force General
• Rick Baker .... King Kong (uncredited)
• Walt Gorney .... Train Driver (uncredited)
• Ira S. Rosenstein .... Logan (uncredited)

External links

• King Kong (1976) at IMDb
• Cool Cinema Trash: King Kong 1976
• Story of the Classic 1976 Promotional posters
• Kingdom Kong, a fan site devoted to the 1976 remake