Critics of King Kong 1976 frequently harped on the robot Kong as proof
of the project's "failure", special effects wise. Because the
robot ultimately failed to live up to its billing (whether
intentionally or not), and barely appeared in a few brief glimpses in the final film, critics
contended that the film was not the special effects triumph which its
fans claim. But in their emphasis on the robot, those critics
seemed strangely blind to the movie's true special effects
accomplishments. Along with the animatronic masks worn by Rick
Baker, King Kong 1976 boasted the creation of a pair of Kong-size hands
that were alone a triumph of mechanical engineering.
While a full-sized Kong hand had been used in the original 1933 King
Kong,
it was little more than an inanimate prop. The fingers had to be
man-handled into position around
Fay Wray's body by stage hands, and it could not move during the
actual shot. For his 1976 remake, Dino De Laurentiis wanted more
-- a lot more.
He wanted the hand (which was about twice as big
as the one in the original) to convey emotion and character, to be
tender one minute, then terrifying the next, to be capable of being
submerged in a pool or slammed into the earth in a fit of simian
rage. And perhaps most
amazingly, he wanted it to gently undress the heroine in one classic
scene, all without breaking her neck!
For Lange it must
have been like being fondled by a Buick!
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Given that the hand was essentially a giant hydraulic steamshovel
covered with rubber and Argentinian horse tails, what Carlo Rambaldi
and Glen
Robinson, its creators, accomplished was truly remarkable.
Operated by a team of six technicians through a remote control
board,
in one scene the hand gently caresses Jessica Lange with a gargantuan
index finger, delicately stripping away her necklace a strand at a
time, and
finally pulling off her dress, all with a seeming gentleness which must
have been at complete odds with the reality of the situation.
Consider that reality. As soft as the hand appears, it was made
of
duraluminum metal under the rubber. It was huge, ungainly, and
its movements
were
conveyed from a distant control board. Thus, there was a delay
between a command to move and the movement itself. If Jessica
Lange had placed herself in the wrong position -- if she somehow found
herself even an inch out of
place -- the hand could have seriously
injured her. As gentle as the hand appears, for Lange it must
have been like being fondled by a Buick!
Without warning, the hand
just suddenly went limp,
closing around the helpless stunt double...!
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Of course, precautions were taken. Special bolts were placed
in
the knuckles to prevent the hand from closing too tightly, even if the
main cable in the wrist broke. It was a good thing this was done,
because that
was precisely what did happen, during a rehearsal with a stunt double
in the hand. Without warning, the hand just suddenly went limp,
closing around the helpless stunt double who, knowing her profession,
knew to go limp to prevent injury. But the bolts worked and, even
though the main cable holding up the hand had snapped, the fingers were
prevented from squeezing too tightly. Nonetheless, Dino De
Laurentiis was not pleased by the delay caused by the broken cable -- a
cable which he had been assured would be strong enough for
the job.
There were actually two hands. They were designed by Carlo
Rambaldi, an Italian "line artist and sculptor" who had initially
made his name creating a very famous
animatronic puppet "Pinocchio" for an Italian television special.
As well as designing
both the Kong costume worn by Rick Baker and the giant robot Kong,
Rambaldi later went on to design the animatronic head of the alien in
Ridley Scott's Alien (based
on the art of H.R.
Giger, of course) and the alien in Steven Spielberg's ET.
Although
King Kong 1976 was produced by Paramount Pictures, much of the design
work was done at the larger MGM facilities. Along with the robot
Kong, the hands were
constructed at the MGM construction department under the supervision of
"special mechanical effects expert" Glen Robinson. Initially an
aircraft manufacturer was approached to build the robot and hands, but,
when they reported it would take a year and a half to do the job,
Robinson and crew decided to do it themselves. It took them four
and a half months, with Robinson noting: "Which, I guess, is pretty
good."
Such being the case, it
doesn't take much to see Danforth's
reaction to the Academy Award as a response to that uncomfortable truth.
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Glen Robinson, Carlo Rambaldi and Frank Van der Veer (in charge of
optical effects) won a "Special Achievement Award" at the 1977 Oscars,
an award which they shared with Logan's
Run. A minor controversy
raged over the award, with one of the judges, Jim Danforth, reportedly
resigning in protest. In hindsight, the controversy seems
absurd. For the animatronic hand alone, King Kong clearly
deserved the
award, and the animatronic mask was nothing less than
groundbreaking. Whatever weaknesses there may have been, no film
up to
that date had come close to matching the quality and quantity of
special effects techniques showcased in
King Kong 1976. And it certainly deserved it as much as Logan's
Run!
But Jim Danforth was a loyal disciple of Ray
Harryhausen, the master of stop motion animation, with Danforth himself
not far behind the teacher, having most notably done the stop motion
work for 1970's When Dinosaurs Ruled
the Earth. It is not surprising then that, as Forrest
Ackerman reported in Famous
Monsters of Filmland Magazine, Danforth had made it clear even
before King Kong 1976 opened that he was opposed to any remake of King Kong that didn't
use stop motion.
King Kong 1976 wasn't the end of stop motion; but it was certainly the
beginning of the end. Other than Ray Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans, the technique
was henceforth relegated to minor effects, with Jurassic Park essentially putting
the final nail in the coffin. Such being the case, it doesn't
take much to see Danforth's reaction to the Academy Award as a response
to that uncomfortable truth.
(In the wake of 1993's Jurassic Park
and its combination of CGI with Kong-style animatronics, Rod Bennett's
essay "Jurassic Park and the Death of Stop-Motion Animation"
had this to say:
"Jurassic Park's mighty Tyrannosaur has
bellowed out his arrival... and current stop-motion practitioners Jim
Danforth, Dave Allen, Phil Tippet, & company are jumping out of
windows, like so many Wall Streeters on Black Tuesday."
Instead of asking "Why did Danforth resign in protest?", we
should
be asking, "Why didn't he
disqualify himself from the judging process,
given his obvious professional bias?")
Kong's height was chosen
first by establishing the size of the hands
compared to Jessica Lange, then scaling the body to the hands.
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In the 1933 movie, King Kong varied noticably in height.
At
different times, he might be as small as twenty feet, or, in the city,
as tall as fifty. It all depended on the effect required for that scene. For King Kong 1976,
Kong's height remained consistently slightly over forty feet.
That height was chosen first by establishing the size of the hands
compared to Jessica Lange, then scaling the body to the hands.
Two full size legs were constructed as well to allow such scenes as
where Jessica Lange, in the oil tanker, climbs down off Kong's leg, and
in the Shea Stadium scene when he stomps on Charles Grodin.
Finally a full size styrofoam Kong was constructed for the climax
filmed in New York, which simply required Kong to lie on the shattered
cement after his fall (drenched in red karyo syrup to simulate
blood). According to Glen Robinson, in total they
constructed four full size Kongs: the non-mechanical styrofoam Kong
used in New York; the robot Kong; a Kong model used to make the horse
hair skin; and the extra legs and arms.