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?
EnochS
November 28, 2009 at 8:02 pm
“Baron-in-Furness”? Shurely shome mishtake? Barrow-in-Furness more like…
Richardpd
April 1, 2024 at 12:09 pm
I remember watching this years ago with my Dad, who kept saying it wasn’t as good as the original.
Roman Polanski was another director asked to direct, but was an even worse fit than Michael Winner would have been! Same with Sam Peckinpah, who was also asked!