TV Cream

Films: K is for...

King Kong

Imagine the disappointment kids felt on seeing this ’70s remake from the stable of Dino DeLaurentiis, the well-known typing error. “Life-size King Kong robot!” Read the pre-publicity. “None of yer six-inch high stop motion baloney!” When what they really meant was “Large, unconvincing rubber statue which snorts a bit and jerkily moves one arm slightly for about twenty seconds of screen time, padded out with Rick Baker in a monkey suit and the same “giant hand” trick used in the original”. All the Fascinating Facts about this – the Michael Winner was nearly the director, the mechanical hand doing a giant V-sign and getting stuck like that just as Dino entered the room, that Hammer were halfway through a version but scrapped it when this was announced, despite the great David ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and clearly not the one out of Gong’ Allen doing a faithful if slightly Chewitsy stop-mo recreation of the Empire State scene – have been chewed up and spat out like the roofs of so many Baron-in-Furness bus depots. So, er, we’ll just trot them out again, shall we?

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  1. EnochS

    November 28, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    “Baron-in-Furness”? Shurely shome mishtake? Barrow-in-Furness more like…

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