Finally! With DVDs having been around for nearly ten years,
Warner Home Video has seen fit to release the all-time classic King Kong in this
format at last. And to make it even better, Son Of Kong and Mighty Joe Young
have also been released as well. All three of these films are available either
separately, or as a special boxed set containing all the monkey movies. I chose
to get the set for this review because it fulfills a childhood memory of mine.
I was born in New York City, and when I was a little boy, my parents would take
me to my grandmother's house in the city every year for Thanksgiving. Back then
there was a local TV station that ran a marathon every Thanksgiving day that
featured King Kong, Son Of Kong, and Mighty Joe Young. I first discovered King
Kong as a little boy during one of these Thanksgiving get-togethers (and to this
day I always associate the delicious aroma of cooked turkey whenever I watch
this film). And later, after my parents and I were on our way home, I stared at
the streets of New York City with renewed wonder as I tried to figure out what
route King Kong must have taken to get to the Empire State Building.
Watching King Kong on DVD is doubly fun because the adventures of Carl Denham,
Jack Driscoll, and the fair Ann Darrow play even better uncut and without
commercial interruption. Although King Kong has been playing uncut and
commercial free for the past few years on Turner Classic Movies, this is the
first time I've seen the film since I was a kid, and I've soon realized that
I've never actually seen the real King Kong at all. I've never seen the
stegosaurus scene as a kid, where members of the expedition shoot and kill a
rampaging stegosaurus through the innovative use of rear screen projection. Nor
did I ever see the epic fight between Kong and a giant Loch Ness-type dinosaur
in a cave until now. And the scenes with Kong stepping on and killing the
warriors in the native village were completely verboten, as well--as was the
sequence with Kong tearing off Ann's clothes and then ticking her. I realize
now that that local TV station really wasn't doing me any favors by showing a
truncated Kong, but I guess it was better to be introduced to a shortened King
Kong than to have never have seen it at all.
One thing I've noticed now is how much of the film's running time is spent on
Skull Island--and this is a great thing, for the Skull Island part of the film
plays like a wonderful, imaginative adventure that's reminiscent of the best
work of Edgar Rice Burroughs. And then this is matched--if not topped--by the
exploits of Kong set loose in 1930s New York City. This culminates with the
majestically fitting climax atop the Empire State Building. Willis O'Brien's
stunning stop-motion effects work never fails to enthrall the viewer as
Kong--which is basically a lifeless puppet--in O'Brien's masterful hands comes
across as a real, breathing creature that you truly care for. Both the picture
and sound on King Kong have been restored to their original crystal clear
clarity. The big lug never looked or sounded better.
In Son Of Kong, showman Carl Denham returns. It's a month after Kong's rampage
through New York City, and Carl is flat broke, having lost all his money when
his main act went ape and inflicted all sorts of damage on the city. He's
living in a rented room while dodging process servers who are working for
lawyers that are trying to sue him left and right. When Captain Englehorn
offers him a berth on his ship, Denham gladly takes it. Working the shipping
trade in the East Indies, they wind up on the island of Dakang, where Denham
and Englehorn run into Helstrom, the Norwegian captain mentioned in King Kong
who told Denham how to get to Skull Island. When Helstrom tells them there's
hidden treasure located on Skull Island, they head back there to search for it.
However, there's a monkey wrench thrown into the proceedings when the crew
realizes that they have a stowaway in the form of Hilda, a former ballet dancer
who was performing in a really horrible show with little musical monkeys in
Dakang. She lost her gig when her tent burned down--but not before she managed
to free the musical monkeys--and having met Durham she wants to throw in with
him. But both Hilda and Denham's luck still isn't going too good when they get
chucked off the ship with several others when the crew mutinies. And so Denham,
Hilda, Englehorn, Charlie the cook, and Helstrom all wind up as castaways on
Skull Island, where they find the Son Of Kong.
Unfortunately the sequel to King Kong is not as good. It's shorter than the
original, and lengthy exposition scenes, which set up how our heroes wind up on
Skull Island, take up most of the film's running time. And while the last
twenty minutes or so is filled with plenty of great stop-motion effects from
Willis O'Brien, the whole story ends so abruptly that it all feels squandered.
Son Of Kong feels more like an afterthought to King Kong, rather than a proper
continuation of the story.
The same can't be said for Mighty Joe Young, the third and final film in this
set. On an estate in Africa, a young girl named Jill sees two native men with a
baby ape inside a wicker basket. She cuts a deal with them, trading a flashlight
and some other household items for the baby gorilla. Jill's understanding father
tries to convince the little girl that the baby gorilla, whom she named Joe,
will one day grow up to be too big to control. 12 years later, showman Max
O'Hara (played by Robert Armstrong) leads an expedition into deepest Africa to
collect animals for a show back in the States. The expedition consists of
cowboys under the leadership of a good ole boy named Gregg (Ben Johnson). When a
giant ape attacks their camp, O'Hara gets the idea to have the cowboys capture
the beast by lassoing it with ropes--which doesn't turn out to be a very good
idea, since the monstrous ape mops the floor with them until Jill (now played
by Terry Moore) shows up and calms him down. Amazed at the control that Jill
exerts over Joe, O'Hara convinces her to bring him to Hollywood, where untold
hijinks ensue.
Although it follows the same basic story formula as King Kong--with even the same
actor, Armstrong, playing essentially the same role--Mighty Joe Young is still a
lot of fun to watch. It's far better and more inspired than Son of Kong, thanks
once again to the amazing, Oscar-winning stop-motion effects by Willis
O'Brien--this time aided by a young man by the name of Ray Harryhausen, who
would become a stop-motion master in his own right in the coming years. Like
King Kong, the stop-motion work on Joe is so refined that it did more than just
make a gorilla move, it created a lovable character that you gladly cheered on.
It's the perfect bookend to this set, which enables me to recreate that special
Thanksgiving big gorilla marathon, only this time with crystal clear uncut versions of
the films, special features, and, best of all, no annoying commercials.
--SF
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