Origi-Kong on DVD
King Kong: Collectors Edition
Warner Brothers
If you happened to take a peek at last month’s Best Of 2005 list in this very magazine, you’ll remember I ranked this as the best DVD release of the year. (Pay attention, kids. You never know when there’ll be a quiz.) Sure, it’s been out a couple of months, but since the hoopla over the Peter Jackson remake has died down, now is a better time to take a closer look at this marvelous set.
First off, it’s almost unfathomable this film has not been released on DVD until now. Even the underrated and unfairly maligned 1976 remake has been on the market. Still the wait has paid off handsomely.
Instead of a hastily rushed product thrust on the public to make a buck or two, Warner Bros. have gone out of their way to do it right on the two-disc set. The restoration of the actual film is immaculate — with the cracks and pops from the original negative almost completely eliminated. That’s just the beginning, however.
Kong‘s use of stop-motion animation, created by Willis O’Brien, revolutionized the field of special effects. Thus, the commentary track on the disc is provided by stop-motion animation legends Ray Harryhausen and Ken Ralston. Harryhausen took what O’Brien started to the next level on films such as One Million Years B.C. and The Valley Of Gwangi, and actually got his start on one of Kong‘s successors, Mighty Joe Young. It’s only natural that he should be the one doing the commentary. Interspersed with Harryhausen and Ralston is archival interviews with Kong’s producer and co-director Merian C. Cooper and the lady in the hand, Fay Wray.
Disc Two brings RKO Production 601: The Making Of Kong, Eight Wonder Of The World. This fascinating two-and-a-half hour documentary (produced by the aforementioned Peter Jackson) is quite simply one of the best behind-the-scenes features ever put on a DVD release, topping the equally long Empire Of Dreams doc on the Star Wars trilogy set. Not only do you get revelations on all things Kong, but there is also an in-depth discussion of one of the great “lost” films, O’Brien’s Creation. O’Brien started the animation on Creation, but spiraling budgets caused the production to grind to a halt. While some of the footage ended up surfacing in other films, most of it was never seen. Production 601 takes the existing footage and combines it with storyboards and narration to give a complete reading of what the film would have been.
Also on 601 is Kong‘s fabled “spider pit scene.” This was a scene originally in the script (and subsequent novelization of the film) that was either cut from the final release, or never filmed at all. Jackson’s special effects team uses the technology and stop-motion techniques of the ’30s to re-create it.
The other documentary on the disc is I’m King Kong: The Exploits Of Merian C. Cooper. Cooper was truly one of the more fascinating people in Hollywood history. A fighter pilot in World War I who went on to become an adventurer and filmmaker, Kong‘s Carl Denham character is based on him.
Cooper of course went on to produce other classics, most notably John Ford‘s masterpiece, The Searchers.
Kong is available on its own, in a collectors tin, or packaged with its two offshoot films, Son Of Kong (the official sequel) and Mighty Joe Young. While the hastily produced Son is a mere shadow of the original, I will risk the cries of blasphemy form Kong-o-philes when I say female lead Helen Mack turns in a better performance than the original’s Wray.
Film: **** DVD Features: *****
Also Available . . . Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: The Road To God Knows Where/Live At The Paradiso (Mute). The first disc of this two-disc set, the Nick Cave tour film The Road To God Knows Where, sure lives up to its name. With cameras following him around during his 1990 U.S. tour, Nick and the boys redefine the phrase “milling about.” Lotsa sitting backstage, sitting on the bus, and standing then sitting for interviews. Live At The Paradiso fares better, cause at least they’re doin’ stuff.
Timothy Hiatt
