FORMAT: BLU-RAY
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
(As posted on July 17th, 2007)
A lot of people bitch about this remake, but it still remains fun, goofy entertainment. The filmmakers took great pains to “update” many aspects of the original 1933 classic to the “modern” ‘70s era. Instead of awesome stop motion animation, we get a man in a monkey suit. (Created and played by Rick Baker, doing an excellent job.) Instead of greedy movie makers going to a mysterious island, we get greedy oil men. Instead of Kong climbing The Empire State Building, Kong climbs The World Trade Center. The result is a film that actually feels more dated than the 1933 version, but that’s one of its charms.
Jeff Bridges (who sports a beard that was the obvious inspiration for Teen Wolf) stars as the hero along with Charles Grodin as the cranky oil entrepreneur and Jessica Lange (making her film debut) in the Fay Wray role. She also gets the best line when Kong whisks her away, she yells, “Put me down you goddamn chauvinist pig ape!” The standout scene is when Kong battles a giant snake in the pit of a volcano.
The energy crisis references and (unfortunately) the sight of the World Trade Center add to the film’s datedness. There actually was an actual size 40 foot mock-up of Kong created (by Carlo Rambaldi) for some scenes. Director John (Shaft in Africa) Guillermin returned ten years later with the awful King Kong Lives, also from producer Dino De Laurentiis.
KING KONG TV CUT (1978) ***
I know it might seem odd to younger generations, but it used to be a big deal when theatrical movies played on television, especially in the days when you only had four channels. (Boy, I’m really dating myself here, aren’t I?) To make the event even more special (or mostly just to pad out the time slot), some movies would have extra footage not present in the original theatrical cut. (It was kind of like a precursor to DVD director’s cuts.) I don’t remember when King Kong ‘76 came on TV, but I do remember when Superman 3 was broadcast with brand new scenes, and it was a big fucking deal to me. (Where’s THAT Special Edition?) Scream Factory has dug through the vaults and restored the TV cut of Kong, which adds something like forty minutes’ worth of footage. To people that hated on this movie since day one (mostly Kong purists), that won’t mean squat. However, if you’re like me and have a soft spot in your heart for this goofy flick, you’ll love it. (Naturally, days after I watched it, Paramount announced they were releasing it in 4K in a few months… DOH!)
There’s a full account of the new and alternate scenes on IMDb, so you really don’t need me to catalogue all the differences between this and the theatrical version. It’s been a while since I’d seen the film, so I didn’t spot too many new scenes. (Of course, the only subtractions were the removal of brief bits of nudity and less gore during the snake battle.) I was too busy digging the flick. I’d say the additions were more marinade than meat.
This was a big deal when it hit TV and it was spread out as a two-night event. The Blu-Ray version even recreates the recap of the first night’s showing that kicks off Part Two, which I thought was pretty cool. Another neat thing this version preserves from the TV cut is the fade-ins and outs for the commercial breaks, which I enjoyed immensely. Watching it for the first time in a while, I was also struck by how good the John Barry score is. Of course, it’s not a patch on Max Steiner’s original, but it has a feel similar to Barry’s Bond scores of the era.
Seen in either version, King Kong ’76 is highly enjoyable monkey business.
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