King Kong (DVD)

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Moreover, you can't say the film's studio, RKO, didn't get its money's worth out of the "King Kong" sets. They used the Skull Island sets simultaneously for "Kong" and "The Most Dangerous Game," then in "The Son of Kong" and "She," and eventually they used the great gate as a part of the burning of Atlanta in "Gone With the Wind."

Besides, how many action-adventure films today are civilized enough to begin with a four-minute overture? "King Kong" stands as an innovative trailblazer, to be sure, but mostly it continues to be just plain fun.

Video:
The restored, 35 mm, black-and-white print, which is presented in close to its original 1.37:1 screen ratio, shows more film grain than I would have expected, especially in the foggy shots at sea, but it probably looks just as it did in 1933. The restoration has cleaned up any telltale evidence of age--scratches, blemishes, smears, spots, and flecks; and the high-bit-rate transfer points up the B&W contrasts nicely, while maintaining intense black levels, which, unfortunately, also intensifies the grain. To be sure, the picture quality looks inferior to today's best photography, but it remains good enough to enjoy, and I doubt that anyone alive has seen it look any better.

Audio:
There's not a lot to be said about the film's sound except that it comes up as well as can be expected for a film made a mere half dozen years into the talkie era. The Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural sonics are not very wide or very dynamic, but they convey a good sense of being on the spot, with a smooth midrange and an exceptionally quiet background. For its age, the sound is remarkable. The accompanying commentary track, incidentally, is in two-channel.

Extras:
Warner Bros. have decked out "King Kong" with a full complement of extras on two Special Edition discs. The first disc contains the feature film; an English soundtrack; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and thirty-five scene selections. In addition, disc one includes an audio commentary by visual-effects veterans Ray Harryhausen and Ken Ralston, with archival excerpts from Merian C. Cooper, Fay Wray, and other filmmakers. It's one of the most fascinating commentaries you'll hear because of the diversity of its participants. Finally, there's a Merian C. Cooper movies trailer gallery, which includes trailers for seven movies that Cooper directed or produced: "King Kong" (1933), "Son of Kong" (1933), "Flying Down to Rio" (1933), "Fort Apache" (1948), "3 Godfathers" (1948), "Mighty Joe Young" (1949), "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), and "The Searchers" (1956).

Disc two contains only a few items, but they're plenty enough. The first is a fifty-six-minute documentary, "I'm King Kong! The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper," that outlines the career of the famous filmmaker. It's divided into twelve chapters and narrated by Alec Baldwin. Turns out, Cooper was a real-life Indiana Jones, an explorer and adventurer who would be the actual inspiration for the Carl Denham character in "King Kong." Cooper and his friend, director Ernest Schoedsack, would cross the globe in search of sensational stories to film, just as Denham and Driscoll do in "Kong."

The second extra is even more monumental. It's a documentary on the making of the film, "RKO Production 601: The Making of Kong, Eighth Wonder of the World," that's over two-and-a-half hours long. Obviously, it covers virtually every aspect of the film's creation and features interviews and commentary by a host of people--directors, historians, authors, technicians, and such--including the late Fay Wray and a newly svelte Peter Jackson. The massive production is broken down into seven parts: "The Origins of King Kong," "Willis O'Brien and Creation," "Cameras Roll on Kong, the Eighth Wonder," "A Milestone in Visual Effects," "Passion, Sound and Fury," "The Mystery of the Lost Spider Pit Sequence," and "King Kong's Legacy." The second documentary is followed by a repeat showing of "The Lost Spider Pit Sequence," which was reconstructed by Peter Jackson and his crew, and about four minutes of O'Brien's original test footage for "Creation," another "Lost World" type film that was never completed, with commentary by visual-effects specialist Ray Harryhausen.

Parting Thoughts:
At first blush "King Kong" may seem outmoded, with its exaggerated histrionics, its stilted dialogue, and its wooden acting, but then there's Kong, and how can you not still love him? When he falls from the Empire State Building, he takes us all with him. Yet we know, thanks to the magic of movies, that he'll be back, again and again, better than ever, whenever we want to see him once more. He wasn't called "King" for nothing.

Warner Bros. have made the two Special Edition discs of "King Kong" available in several formats. One configuration is the regular issue, which WB announce comes in a Double Amaray or O-Sleeve Amaray case. Another configuration has the two discs as a part of a box set, "The King Kong Collection," which also includes the single-disc editions of "Son of Kong" (1933) and "Mighty Joe Young" (1949). And yet another configuration is the Collector's Edition, which includes a beautifully illustrated and embossed aluminum container; the two discs housed in a Digi-Pack, further enclosed in a colorful slip cover; a small collection of "King Kong" postcard-sized posters; a coupon for a free, full-sized poster; and a reproduction of the original program booklet from the film's première at Grauman's Chinese Theater on the night of March 24, 1933.

"Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

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