Useless Movie Trivia For
King Kong (1933)

Memorable Movie Quotes

Carl Denham: And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive - a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Trivia

The models of King Kong built for the island scenes were only 18 inches high. When producer/director Merian C. Cooper decided Kong needed to look bigger while in New York, a new 24-inch armature was constructed, thus changing Kong's film height from 18 feet on the island to 24 feet while in New York.

Special effects genius Willis H. O'Brien, who earlier used stop-motion animation of dinosaur models in The Lost World, had created several dinosaur models for his unfinished production Creation. Producer Merian C. Cooper sold the idea for King Kong to RKO executives in New York by showing them a test sequence using O'Brien's models. The executives were stunned, never having seen anything like it, and green-lighted production of King Kong . O'Brien also used many of his "Creation" models in King Kong , including the T-Rex and the pteranodon (giant flying creature).

The project went through numerous title changes during production, including "The Beast" (original title of draft by Edgar Wallace in RKO files), "The Eighth Wonder", "The Ape", "King Ape" and "Kong".

Both Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack had been wrestlers, and they acted out the fighting moves for the battle between the T-Rex and Kong in the effects studio, before the animators shot the scene.

This film was successfully reissued worldwide numerous times; some claim it was the first ever re-released film. In the 1938 reissue, several scenes of excessive violence and sex were cut to comply with the Production Code enforced in 1934. Though many of the censored scenes were restored by Janus Films in 1971 (including the censored sequence in which Kong peels off Fay Wray's clothes), one deleted scene has never been found, shown publicly only once during a preview screening in San Bernardino, California in January 1933. It was a graphic scene following Kong shaking four sailors off the log bridge, causing them to fall into a ravine where they were eaten alive by giant spiders. At the preview screening, audience members screamed and either left the theatre or talked about the grisly sequence throughout the subsequent scenes, disrupting the film. Said the film's producer, Merian C. Cooper, "It stopped the picture cold, so the next day back at the studio, I took it out myself."

The trees and plants in the background on the stop-motion animation sets were a combination of metal models and real plants. One day during filming, a flower on the miniature set bloomed without anyone noticing. The error in continuity was not noticed until the film was developed and shown. While Kong moved, a time-lapse effect showed the flower coming into full bloom, and an entire day of animation was lost.

King Kong's roar was a lion's and a tiger's roar combined and run backwards.

Grossed $90,000 its opening weekend, the biggest opening ever at the time.

For the shots of the airplanes taking off from the strip, the pilots were paid US$10 each.

The native village huts were left over from RKO's Bird of Paradise. The Great Wall was part of the Temple of Jerusalem set for Cecil B. DeMille's Biblical epic The King of Kings. The Great Wall set was later reused in Selznick's The Garden of Allah and finally redressed with Civil War era building fronts, burned and pulled down by a tractor to film the burning of Atlanta munitions warehouses in Gone with the Wind.

The success of this film is often credited for saving RKO from bankruptcy.

Was voted the 47th Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

The laserdisc edition of the film includes the first ever audio commentary.

Sensing a huge hit from industry buzz, MGM offered to buy the film outright from RKO for $1.072m (some $400,000 over its negative cost), figuring the little studio was reeling from losing $10+m in 1932. RKO was smart to decline the offer. The film smashed attendance records nationwide and ended up grossing $1.761m during its initial release. RKO would periodically, and extremely profitably, re-release the movie through the 1950s.

Jungle scenes were filmed on the same set as the jungle scenes in The Most Dangerous Game, which also happened to star Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong.

The 2005 DVD restoration further details the risqué liberties of a 1933 pre-code film release in two scenes. The first is when Ann is on the ship's deck while Charlie is peeling potatoes, and the second is where Denham is shooting some test footage of Ann ("Scream for your life, Ann, Scream!"). The thin material used for Ann's dress and gown in both scenes makes it obvious that Fay Wray is not wearing a bra; a wardrobe decision that may not have made it past the Breen Code the following year.

According to the book "David O. Selznick's Hollywood" by Ron Haver, costume designer Walter Plunkett (later noteworthy for Gone with the Wind) worked uncredited on this film. Specifically, he designed the "Beauty and the Beast" costume that Ann Darrow wears while Carl Denham is filming her screen test.

Ranked #4 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.

Premiered at the famed Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

The 56-cm-high model of King Kong used in the film sold at auction in 2009 for about $203,000 (US). It was originally covered in cotton, rubber, liquid latex, and rabbit fur, but most of the covering has decomposed over the decades.

Actual close up footage of The Empire State Building was added to the film upon reissue in 1952, for the scene where Kong grabs the first plane and tosses it off the side of the building. We see a pristine picture of the Empire State Building as it existed in the 50s with its' TV Antenna. In the original scenes the NYC landmark was part of "Hollywood Set", with aerial footage added.

The "Old Arabian Proverb" opening the film was actually written by director Merian C. Cooper.

According to Orville Goldner in 'The Making of King Kong', the film came in at thirteen reels. Cooper feigned horror at the the number thirteen, and insisted another scene be shot to bring the film to fourteen reels. The new scene was the elevated train sequence, one that Cooper had wanted all along.

After King Kong has been successfully gassed on the beach, and just before the break to New York, Denham yells that they've captured "Kong! The Eighth Wonder of the World!" He says "Kong" rather than "King Kong" because at that point in the script development, the picture's title was simply "Kong".

King Kong does not appear until nearly 47 minutes into the running time.

One of the characters in line to see Kong complains to his lady companion, "These tickets cost me twenty bucks." At presumably $10 per ticket, this would have been a tremendous cost in Depression-wracked 1933. In contrast, a ticket to see the 1933 New York Yankees, which featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, or to this movie itself, would have been about thirty-five cents.

Cooper had been a wrestler as a youth, and O'Brien had had several amateur boxing matches. This experience is evident in Kong's fight with the allosaur. Kong puts his left paw up to guard his face, as a boxer would do, as he hits the allosaur with a right cross. Kong also uses the well known wrestling moves trip-out and snap mare during the fight. Kong finally wins by climbing on the allosaur's shoulders and pulling its jaws apart. This move would later be popularized as the "Rocca Ride" by professional wrestler Antonino Rocca in the 1940's.

When talking about the wall, Driscoll mentions being at "Angkor once". He could be referring to Angkor Wat, a huge Cambodian temple complex built in the 12th century.

Body count: 40

Close-ups of the pilots and gunners of the planes that attack Kong were shot in the studio with mock-up planes. The flight commander is director Merian C. Cooper and his observer is producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. They decided to play the parts after Cooper said that "we should kill the sonofabitch ourselves".

Goofs

When Kong is shaking the sailors off the log, the second person falls and land at the bottom of the chasm, but when the camera cuts back, he appears to be back on the log.

In close-ups of his face, King Kong has more teeth than he does when his whole body is shown.

When Kong tears Ann's dress, he leaves her left shoulder completely bare. After this, there is a string-like strap over it in all shots of her in the rest of the jungle sequence.

A Skull Island resident jumps from a hut and falls beside a domed chicken cage, which then hinges backwards and catches the actor's wig, taking it off his head, and remaining on top of the cage.

Box Office Info USA

Budget: $670,000

Gross: $1,700,000

Filming Dates: October 10, 1931 to February 1, 1933

Filming Locations

Backlot, Culver Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA (native village/Great Wall set/jungle)
Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA (some shots of jungle)
Culver Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA (studio) (aboard ship scenes/interiors/miniature & stop-motion photography/special effects)
Hoboken, New Jersey, USA (establishing long shots of docks and airplane footage only)
Los Angeles Harbor, San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA
New York City, New York, USA (long shots/exterior: Empire State building)
San Pedro Harbor, Long Beach, California, USA
San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA (off-shore, freighter scenes, and beach scenes nearby - landing at Skull Island)
Shrine Auditorium - 665 W. Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA (Kong on stage scene)