King Kong *** (1976, Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange) – Classic Movie Review 411

There’s a huge monster, high adventure, tongue-in-cheek humour and even a dash of sex in director John Guillermin’s busy and conscientious but patchy and rather uninspired 1976 remake of the 1933 all-time great fantasy adventure King Kong. Jeff Bridges is fine as the square-jawed hero Jack Prescott, but Charles Grodin seems ill at ease as Fred Wilson, a 40-something oil executive with the Petrox Corporation.

And you feel a bit sorry for a young Jessica Lange (as Dwan, aka Ann Darrow, in her movie début) as the forlorn heiress to the cinema’s number one screamer Fay Wray. Nevertheless she won a Golden Globe for Best Female Acting Debut in a Motion Picture. And it was the start of a long and highly successful, Oscar-winning career for Lange. Who knew from this that she could act?

You might feel sorrier still producers Dino and his son Federico De Laurentiis, who suffered a huge critical flop. But they had the last laugh too. On a then huge budget of $24 million, King Kong grossed $52 million, over twice its cost back, at the US box office alone.

Though based on the original story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C Cooper as well as the 1933 King Kong screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose, Lorenzo Semple Jnr’s respectful screenplay fails to sparkle. However, though it tinkers with the characters and many of the details, by and large it does keep the faith with what is good in the original.

The heroes are not making a movie this time and there is a new character in Jack Prescott, who is a professor at Princeton University in the Department of Primate Paleontology. Along with Wilson, Prescott is leading a petroleum exploration expedition for the Petrox Corporation on a mission to discover oil in a remote location.

On the way, their ship, the Petrox Explorer, rescues Dwan, alone and adrift on a raft. She is an aspiring actress who has survived a deadly storm while sailing on a pleasure yacht in the South Pacific. They sail on and come to a strange, isolated island, where they encounter a colossal ape. Eventually they capture it to make money exhibiting it in the US, where the chained and caged Kong naturally starts to freak out.

However, despite its many shortcomings, the movie is pretty good technically. Carlo Rimbaldi, Glen Robinson and Frank Van der Veer won a best visual effects Special Achievement Award Oscar (and it is Rimbaldi’s assistant Rick Baker in the gorilla suit as Kong), while Richard H Kline’s crisp cinematography was Oscar nominated and Dale Hennesy and Mario Chiari’s production designs are impressive.

The film is also redeemed by its fine players. There is an early appearance for John Lone as the Chinese cook, veteran John Randolph (1915-2004) is ship’s captain Ross and esteemed character actor Ed Lauter plays Carnahan. With over 200 credits running back to 1971, Lauter died at 74 in October 2013.

Of course Kong is the star of the movie and they got it pretty much right for the time. Seven different Kong masks were created by Rambaldi, and moulded by Baker to convey the creature’s various emotions. The 40-foot Kong, the largest mechanical creature ever created, was constructed with a 3.5-ton aluminium frame, covered  with rubber and 1,012 pounds of Argentinian horse tails, sewn into place individually.

Its insides were comprised of 3,100 feet of hydraulic hose and 4,500 feet of electrical wiring. It was controlled by 20 operators and cost a total of $1.7 million. The full-sized mechanical arms were suspended from a crane to extend and lift Lange 30 to 40 feet in the air. Kong’s vocal sounds were recorded by Peter Cullen.

The American TV version runs much longer, with an astonishing 45 extra minutes of footage added to it for its two part TV premiere.

King Kong is followed by a 1986 sequel, King Kong Lives.

British film-maker John Guillermin.

British film-maker John Guillermin, director of The Towering Inferno, the 1976 King Kong, Death on the Nile, The Blue Max, and The Bridge at Remagen died on 28 September 2015, aged 89. He was best known for big-budget action films, also including El Condor, Shaft in Africa, Sheena and the sequel King Kong Lives.

Richard H Kline.

Richard H Kline, the twice Oscar-nominated cinematographer on King Kong and Camelot, died on 7 August 2018, aged 91.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 411

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange in King Kong (1976).