King Kong (1976)

First Movienite in Pamela's new house!

Pamela's Nite
Pork Roast, Cous-cous, Cabbage, Lemon Totes a la Bruckheimer

Time Magazine on 1976 King Kong:

For the past two months, ads have been splashed throughout the press proclaiming that King Kong will love and die again—not once but twice. In early January both Universal and Paramount will start production on $12 million remakes of the 1933 classic. Universal believes that the film will gross somewhere between Jaws and Earthquake. Paramount's director Dino de Laurentiis declaims boldly that King Kong 'is still the most exciting original motion picture event of all time.'
From Monkey Business
Jan. 5, 1976

In the $13 million movie's seventh week of production, King Kong still lacks a star. In his race to beat rival Universal's King Kong project, De Laurentiis won a court battle but apparently neglected to get the ape off the drawing board. All of the 40-ft. mechanical Kong he has so far is a pair of mighty arms that cost $450,000 and have developed on-camera arteriosclerosis. The producer has rushed over so many Italian technicians to get the monkey off his back that pasta is outselling pastrami at the studio commissary.
From King Klunk
Apr. 5, 1976

After a troublesome nine-month gestation, King Kong is alive and well and going through toilet training in Hollywood. The 40-ft. star of Dino De Laurentiis' $22 million ape epic made his public debut at MGM's back lot and, considering that his innards are almost as complex as those of a Polaris missile, the king showed surprisingly few kinks. (The ape whose death was staged last June at Manhattan's World Trade Center for the film's final scene was a Styrofoam stand-in.)
From The King Leaks
Aug. 30, 1976

Like the first King Kong, produced 43 years ago, the new version plunges one quickly into the heart of that special critical darkness indigenous to the movies. On the face of it, nothing could be more preposterous than this story of the love affair between the oddest couple in popular culture: a blonde whose beauty is matched only by her dimness of mind (at least in the original) and an ape who is 40 ft. tall, fierce of mien and manner, yet at heart just a big adolescent, bumbling spectacularly through the throes of his first—often literally crushing—crush.
From Here Comes King Kong
Oct. 25, 1976

There was something darkly enigmatic about the original Kong. Fay Wray had stirred the softer side of his nature and forced him, as it were, to re-examine some of his premises. But no matter how tenderly he picked her up, one never knew whether he would lose control of his enormous strength and destroy what he seemed to love. The very blankness of his expression reinforced the anxiety. When the old Kong breaks loose in New York, he is angry—no question about it. He will have his vengeance on his captors and on those who come to gawk at his pain. The new Kong does accidentally mangle a few people, but there's no real rage in him.
From The Greening of Old Kong
By Richard Schickel
Dec. 27, 1976

Review of 2005 version:
In 1976, Lorenzo Semple Jr.'s most important innovation was to have the female lead (called Dwan, played by Jessica Lange) reciprocate the Beast's feelings. Kong was fascinated by Dwan. After an initial bout of fear and anger, she accepted him as a gentle protector. Atop the World Trade Center, she risked her life to save his, and her world came apart when he fell. The male lead (Jeff Bridges) was also shown as being sympathetic to Kong.

For the 2005 version, Jackson has followed the 1976 movie's lead, and developed a tender, two-way relationship between Ann and Kong. This is meticulously advanced over the course of the movie - particularly in three scenes. The first has Ann doing a song-and-dance routine that amuses Kong and convinces him not to kill her. The second has Ann moving behind Kong during a battle, acknowledging him as her "champion." And the third involves a frozen pond in Central Park, and may represent King Kong's most magical moment, and Jackson's lasting contribution to the legend. Unlike in the 1976 movie, Jack is not kindly disposed toward Kong. This may be why, in the end, the bond between Ann and Kong seems stronger than the one between Ann and Jack. And the reunion of the two human lovers after Kong's plunge rings hollow. We don't really care about Ann and Jack. The character we do care about has just died. His final moments with Ann are quietly heartbreaking.

New York Times Guillermin bio:
British filmmaker John Guillermin was all of 22 when he was mustered out of the RAF and began making documentaries in France. Hoping to hone his cinematic technique, Guillermin studied the Hollywood studio system first-hand in the latter part of the '40s, then made his feature-film debut at 24 with the British melodrama Torment. More prodigy than genius, Guillermin stuck to safe commercial fare along the lines of Miss Robin Hood (1952) and Operation Diplomat (1953) throughout the '50s. His budgets and box-office pull improved with such films as I Was Monty's Double (1957), The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960), Tarzan Goes to India (1962) and The Blue Max (1966), films that did as well in the U.S. as they did in England. On the strength of these projects, Guillermin returned to Hollywood, where he helmed the 1968 George Peppard detective picture P.J., then directed another "early bloomer," Orson Welles, in House of Cards (1969). After the high point of The Towering Inferno (1974), Guillermin's work became less distinctive; on such later films as King Kong (1976) and Death on the Nile (1978), he was just another technician, whose direction was no better or worse than his scripts. John Guillermin's most recent film was King Kong Lives (1986).

Dino De Laurentiis bio: A colorful and flamboyant producer, Dino De Laurentiis has produced a remarkable range of motion pictures ranging from art-house fare (e.g., Fellini's "La Strada" 1954), camp classics ("Barbarella" 1968), overblown spectacles ("Tai Pan" 1986) and popular entertainments ("Hannibal" 2001). In all, he has either financed, produced or distributed over 600 movies and with the dawn of the new millennium and his seventh decade in the industry, he has shown no inclination of stopping.

Born near Naples, Italy, De Laurentiis entered his father's pasta business while still a teenager, but the idea of selling spaghetti did not appeal to the young man. Moving to Rome, he enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and supported himself with acting roles and behind the scenes work until he decided to become a producer. In 1939, he debuted as the producer of "Troppo tardi t'ho conosciuta" but it was another nine years before he enjoyed a real international success with the neo-realistic "Riso Amaro/Bitter Rice" (1948). The film starred a buxom Sylvana Mangano whom De Laurentiis married in July 1949 and would star in "Il Lupo della Sila/The Lure of Sila" (1949), "Il Brigante Musolino/Outlaw Girl" (1950) and "Anna" (1951), all of which he produced.

In the 50s, De Laurentiis joined with Carlo Ponti in forming a production company that oversaw several prestigious Italian films, including Fellini's Oscar-winning "La Strada", "Attila" and "The Miller's Wife" (both 1955) and "Guendalina" (1957) before dissolving their partnership. By that time, he had branched out on his own, overseeing the epic "War and Peace" (1956), directed by King Vidor and starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda, and a reteaming with Fellini on the Oscar-winning "The Nights of Cabiria" (1957). In 1959, De Laurentiis oversaw his third Academy Award nominated foreign-language motion picture, "The Great War".

As the 60s unfolded, De Laurentiis built his own studio, Dino Citta, and alternated teaming with some of the European cinema's finest filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica ("The Last Judgment" 1962), Jean-Luc Godard ("Pierre le fou" 1965) and Claude Chabrol ("An Orchid for the Tiger" 1965) with more "popular" films like the religious-themed dramas "Barrabas" (1962) and the John Huston-directed "The Bible" (1966). This combination of art-house and commercial fare perhaps reached its most absurd in 1968 with the odd combination of Francois Truffaut's "The Bride Wore Black" and Roger Vadim's "Barbarella".

When Dino Citta failed, De Laurentiis relocated to the USA in the 70s and initiated a run of films that proved popular at the box office. He was producer of "The Valachi Papers" (1972), which was based on fact and purported to tell the "real" story that a film like "The Godfather" couldn't. "Serpico" (1973) garnered praise for its true-life tale of police corruption and for Al Pacino's magnificent portrayal of the title role. "Death Wish" (1974) perhaps tapped most into the zeitgeist, serving up a revenge tale that spawned several sequels and countless imitations. The spy thriller "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) combined the elements of pulp entertainment with highbrow aspirations, embodied in star Robert Redford and director Sydney Pollack. But De Laurentiis could also stoop low, as the dreadful "Mandingo" (1975) and its even more noisome sequel "Drum" (1976) can attest. Yet, perhaps the producer's biggest act of hubris was undertaking the remake of the 1933 classic "King Kong" (1976), which divided critics and audiences. Not losing his flair for the high-brow, De Laurentiis reteamed with Fellini one last time for "Fellini's Casanova" (1976), the director's ill-fated biopic of the great lover. He also produced Ingmar Bergman's venture into English-language filmmaking "The Serpent's Egg" (1978). Of this period, perhaps "Ragtime" (1981), the Milos Forman-helmed adaptation of E L Doctorow's historical novel, was the most intriguing.

In 1983, amid much fanfare he announced the formation of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) which included a state-of-the-art film studio in Wilmington, North Carolina. Serving as chair and CEO, De Laurentiis oversaw an ambitious slate of films, most of which proved to be box-office disappointments. Despite the presence of stars Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, "The Bounty" (1984), a retelling of the famous mutiny, did not find an audience. "Dune" (1984), David Lynch's overly ambitious, unsuccessful distillation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel, proved an expensive failure as did such other pedigreed projects like "Year of the Dragon" (1985) and "Tai Pan". In 1988, De Laurentiis ceded defeat and resigned from DEG. Perhaps a lesser figure would have been driven from the industry, but not this formidable producer.

Rebounding, De Laurentiis made his first foray into American television with the CBS adaptation of "Stephen King's 'Sometime They Come Back'" (1991). He signed Madonna to star in "Body of Evidence" (1993), a "Basic Instinct"-inspired knockoff. For Showtime in 1995, De Laurentiis returned to the biblically-inspired films of the 60s and oversaw a remake of "Solomon and Sheba" as well as the tale of Joseph and his relationship with Potiphar's wife (misleadingly titled "Slave of Dreams"). Although "Unforgettable" (1996) wasn't, he enjoyed a critical hit with "Breakdown" (1997) and then reteamed with that film's writer-director Jonathan Mostow for the WWII-era tale "U-571" (2000).

De Laurentiis' production company had long held the rights to Thomas Harris' novels and was behind the Michael Mann-helmed "Manhunter" (1986), but when it came time to film "The Silence of the Lambs" in 1990, the company passed, only to see the film become a phenomenon and multiple Oscar winner. Despite the critical drubbing the original novel took and the defection of star Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme, De Laurentiis was determined to bring the long-awaited sequel "Hannibal" to the screen. Securing Anthony Hopkins to reprised his now signature role of Dr Lector, and rounding out the creative team with Julianne Moore (as FBI agent Clarice Starling) and Ridley Scott in the director's chair, the high profile project opened in theaters in 2001, just before its producer received the Irving G Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Lorenzo Semple Jr. credits:

Sheena (1984)
Johnny Dangerously (1984)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
Flash Gordon (1980)
Hurricane (1979)
King Kong (1976)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
The Drowning Pool (1975)
The Parallax View (1974)
Papillon (1973)
Daddy's Gone A-hunting (1969)
Fathom (1967)

Rick Baker, "Man in an Ape Suit":
After reading the script, Rambaldi determined that they would need seven masks, each one animatronically controlled to provide a range of expressions. More than one mask was necessary because there wasn't room in a single mask to include all the cables and mechanics required for all the expressions. Rick Baker, though hired to wear the costume, was also called upon to sculpt the mold used to make the outer latex skins of the masks.

The masks were built up much like a real face, starting with a plastic "skull" over which were placed artificial muscle groups activated by cables which entered the costume through Kong's feet. Though the full-size Kong used hydraulics to provide movement, there wasn't room in the masks for the tubes which a hydraulic system would require. Hence the use of cables controlled by operators working at control boards just off the set.

As revolutionary as the animatronic masks were, the rest of the costume was itself a feat of engineering which set the standard for later costumes, and served as the suitprecursor for everythingsuit from Batman's muscled-up Batsuit to Hellboy's "ripped" scarlet torso. (You didn't really think Ron Perlman looked like that, did you?)

Far from being a simple zippered boo-suit, the costume invented for Kong '76 (actually four costumes were used) realistically depicted the appropriate musculature beneath the fur through a special undersuit with silicone filled muscles.

The costume's hands used animatronic extensions, again controlled by operators off set, so as to give Kong appropriately gorilla like long limbs. It was pointed out that the only parts of Rick Baker actually visible on film were his eyes -- and even those were gorilla-fied using contact lenses! (Rick Baker explained that the key to a good gorilla suit is in the eyes. If they look too human, the entire effect is lost.)

So complex was the result of all this technology that to use the word "costume" seems wholly inadequate. It was more nearly a state-of-the-art, remotely-controlled, mechanized "exo-skeleton".

Sadly, Rick Baker had few good memories of his work on Kong '76, feeling under appreciated, that his suggestions were too readily ignored (he wanted Kong to knuckle-walk) and that his contributions were unfairly downplayed -- which of course they were. The credits merely read: "With special contributions from Rick Baker."

Nonetheless, he had little reason to worry as, in spite of the misleading press, it was well known that he had played Kong in the "ape suit", and he received only praise, even from those who pilloried the film itself. And it seems likely that Baker owes his present status as a top Hollywood make-up man to the initial boost given him from the publicity surrounding King Kong 1976.

But who'd have thought a guy could make a life-time profession out of dressing up like gorillas?!