Kong to Kong: The com­plete screen his­to­ry of cinema’s great­est monster

Back in 1933, 20-odd years before Godzil­la laid claim to the kai­ju crown, there was Kong. The brain­child of pro­duc­er-direc­tor team Mer­ian C Coop­er and Ernest B Shoed­sack, brought to life for RKO Stu­dios by leg­endary spe­cial effects wiz­ard Willis O’Brien, King Kong’s ill-fat­ed ram­page through the streets of New York City was an land­mark moment in Hol­ly­wood cin­e­ma that went on to spawn count­less imitators.

With Kong: Skull Island in cin­e­mas, we took a good long look through the great ape’s size­able back cat­a­logue – from the numer­ous offi­cial sequels to the most brazen knock-offs. With the excep­tion of his ani­mat­ed adven­tures for tele­vi­sion (give us a break), here is a com­pre­hen­sive run­down of the good, the bad, but most­ly the ugly cin­e­mat­ic indig­ni­ties that men in mon­key suits have ever suf­fered in the name of Kong…

With the icon­ic cin­e­mat­ic simi­an hav­ing dec­o­rat­ed the pave­ments of 5^th Avenue, cre­ators Shoed­sack and Coop­er turned to his heir appar­ent for a large­ly for­got­ten quick­ie cash-in. Carl Den­ham is in a fix fol­low­ing the Man­hat­tan car­nage. Broke and with half the city out to sue him, he escapes back to Skull Island. ​“Believe it or not, there’s a lit­tle Kong! Just a lit­tle one, about 12 feet high. I know it sounds fun­ny but instead of shoot­ing him I helped him out of a jam. I felt I owed his fam­i­ly something.”

Turn­around on this offi­cial sequel was so quick it was in pic­ture hous­es the very same year as its pre­de­ces­sor, knocked out for a mea­gre $250,000. Tonal­ly, it’s all over the shop; posi­tion­ing Lit­tle Kong as a fig­ure of com­ic relief (replete with cross-eyed musi­cal cues when­ev­er he gets brained) prov­ing noth­ing short of mis­guid­ed. Yet there are some good sequences here, the best sans-mon­key, as an ear­ly escape from a fire is cap­tured in a nifty track­ing shot. Willis O’Brien’s crea­ture work con­tin­ues to impress, as Kong 1.5 dukes it out with a bear, some dinos and um, the weather.

While King Kong offi­cial­ly took to Japan­ese screens in the 1960s, he made his first appear­ance (of sorts) in a three-reel silent short for Shochiku, hitch­ing a ride on the suc­cess of RKO’s orig­i­nal. Both this and the lat­er, two-part take on America’s most famous kai­ju, King Kong Appears in Edo, are now con­sid­ered lost films.

The first car­toon to be land­ed with an H cer­tifi­cate in the UK, Woody Wood­peck­er cre­ator Wal­ter Lantz’s one-reel par­o­dy proves quite the charmer, despite being rid­dled with an approach towards eth­nic char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion that would plague near­ly every iter­a­tion of Kong. Con­dens­ing the film’s nar­ra­tive down to nine lark-filled min­utes, it peaks with Klunk’s New York ram­page, as Pooch the Pup takes to the air for a sky­scraper-strad­dling dog­fight. The film served as ground zero for a fierce bat­tle over prop­er­ty rights between RKO and Uni­ver­sal that would last for decades.

Kong gets the Dis­ney treat­ment in a sev­en-minute par­o­dy star­ring Mick­ey Mouse. Min­nie (seem­ing­ly on day release from the mad­house and off her meds) gets kid­napped by a Stan Lau­rel-imper­son­at­ing goril­la at Mickey’s new job, caus­ing him to enlist a menagerie of ani­mal pals to res­cue her from the ape’s grip atop a tow­er of bird-seed. Cute enough, and some­thing of a proto-Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Giv­en how poor recent incar­na­tions of Super­man have been, it’s a plea­sure to revis­it one of the best of the Fleis­ch­er Stu­dios’ icon­ic car­toons, how­ev­er ten­u­ous the link to Kong. Lois and Clark are sent to cov­er a cir­cus act, when a giant ape escapes its enclo­sure. The gorilla’s reveal is ter­rif­ic, all shad­ows and esca­lat­ing reac­tion shots before hell breaks loose. Supes turns up to dis­ci­pline a pan­ther and bodys­lam an ele­phant, before tak­ing out the mon­key – all in glo­ri­ous Technicolor.

The only film about a giant, ram­pag­ing ape to be pro­duced by John Ford, Mighty Joe Young gets a lot of stick for its rep­u­ta­tion as a poor man’s Kong; a con­cert­ed effort on the part of the orig­i­nal film­mak­ers to recap­ture the mag­ic of their 1933 hit. It may lack the eye for the icon­ic pos­sessed by its prog­en­i­tor, but the crea­ture effects by Willis O’Brien – aid­ed by Ray Har­ry­hausen, in one of his first gigs – remain unsur­passed by any­thing on this list (which admit­ted­ly isn’t say­ing much).

If the tar­get­ing of a fam­i­ly audi­ence lends pro­ceed­ings a sen­ti­men­tal streak, the set-pieces speak for them­selves, not least in the stage show tear-up. It’s the tint­ed finale that sees the cre­ative team at their finest, as Joe and co res­cue a bunch of kids from a burn­ing orphan­age. The com­bi­na­tion of opti­cals, minia­tures, stop-motion effects and live action are seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed; the expres­sive­ness of the star attrac­tion find­ing no rival in his mo-capped peers 50 years hence.

“Fan­tas­tic! There’s a huge mon­ster-goril­la that’s con­stant­ly grow­ing to out­landish pro­por­tions loose in the streets. He’s mov­ing towards the Embank­ment area.” The first of two British-made knock-offs on our list, Kon­ga sees erst­while Bat-but­ler and seem­ing love-child of Lee Mar­vin and Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, Michael Gough, as famous botanist and all-round creep, Dr Deck­er. Hav­ing sur­vived a plane-crash in the Ugan­dan jun­gle, dis­cov­ered the secrets of gigan­ti­cism and returned home with the chimp who saved his life, Deck­er dos­es his pet mon­key – inex­plic­a­bly trans­form­ing him into a boss-eyed goril­la – and sends him out to ​’ave a word with all who’ve dissed him.

If Kon­ga him­self appears more put-out than fero­cious (the cli­max sees him not destroy­ing Big Ben, more loi­ter­ing con­fus­ed­ly in the vicin­i­ty), it’s Gough who’s left to chew his way through the scenery. Whether hit­ting on his stu­dents (“Come San­dra, I want to show you my green­house…”), shoot­ing cats or insin­u­at­ing a clos­er rela­tion­ship with his spec­i­men than appro­pri­ate, Gough shows no inten­tion of being upstaged by his 50 foot co-star.

Kong’s first offi­cial on-screen reap­pear­ance since Son of Kong – and his first in colour and widescreen – Ishirō Honda’s film was the third in Toho’s Godzil­la fran­chise and marked a change in direc­tion for the studio’s kai­ju pic­tures. Aim­ing for a fam­i­ly audi­ence, the hor­ror ele­ments of the first Godzil­la films were tem­pered, much to Honda’s dis­may. It wasn’t the first of Toho’s kai­ju vs kai­ju smack­downs – that hon­our hav­ing gone to the Godzil­la vs Anguirus fight in 1955’s Godzil­la Raids Again – but it proved to be one of the most iconic.

Adapt­ed from a treat­ment by Willis O’Brien, Kong’s pop­u­lar­i­ty ensured top billing, just as Godzilla’s vil­lainy at this point in the fran­chise meant the vic­tor could only be… [no spoil­ers here]. It seems Leg­endary Pic­tures have the key play­ers in place for a rematch in the not-too-dis­tant future. And yeah, that’s a real octo­pus Kong is fighting.

This is the one where King Kong fights a mas­sive robot ver­sion of him­self, MechaKong, on top of the Tokyo Tow­er. It’s like a Roger Moore Bond film – with Kong as 007 – com­plete with mad vil­lain, Dr Who. The evil sci­en­tist has built MechaKong from a pic­ture some­one drew of the giant ape, designed to mine some­thing called Ele­ment X. When the robot breaks down, he goes after the real Kong to take his place. It’s amaz­ing just how much anthro­po­mor­phic emo­tion­al res­o­nance suit-mation mae­stro Eiji Tsub­u­raya man­ages to trans­mit through the suits. Or maybe not. What­ev­er, Kong fights a mas­sive robot.

More pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment than movie, this one. Giv­en the title, and the pic­ture of a mas­sive ape on the poster, you’d be for­giv­en for think­ing this has some­thing to do with King Kong. Or might even have a giant ape in it. Or might be set on an island. Nope. If we’re being gen­er­ous, it almost works as a take on The Island of Dr More­au. With tits. Some mon­key-men do turn up – in the mang­i­est suits com­mit­ted to film – theirs minds con­trolled by a mad sci­en­tist liv­ing in the jun­gle. With every­thing so half-arsed and plod­ding, it’s hard to enjoy even the basest Z‑grade lols. One for the most com­mit­ted of Ital­ian exploita­tion afi­ciona­dos only.

Anoth­er film brave­ly vying for bot­tom spot on our list, but one which at least sports a giant goril­la. Bar­rel-scrap­ing in its that’ll-do suit man­u­fac­ture, the last 15 min­utes or so aren’t with­out their Ed Wood-inspired charms – not least when the epony­mous Gor­ga takes on what appears to be a T‑Rex sock pup­pet. But it’s one hell of a drudge to get there, and best we don’t even get start­ed on the white actors play­ing natives. Oh boy.

You’ve got to hand it to Dino De Lau­ren­ti­is for his com­mit­ment to get­ting the first remake prop­er up on the screen, despite the final results. Cost­ing an astro­nom­i­cal $24m – which is real­ly a lot to pay for a clunky mon­key and a big fake hand – the pro­duc­tion dif­fi­cul­ties were legion. While one can lay part of blame at the hairy feet of the imprac­ti­cal­ly opti­mistic effects work (despite some effec­tive minia­ture car­nage late in the game), the real trou­ble lies in Guillermin’s bland direc­tion and a list­less screen­play. Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin and – in her first role – Jes­si­ca Lange all seem to be act­ing in dif­fer­ent films; bored, smug and over­board respec­tive­ly. There’s a plus three-hour TV edit out there too, for the masochis­ti­cal­ly inclined.

“This movie hates you,” begins one of the user reviews on IMDb. There’s real­ly noth­ing more to add.

There comes a point when you’ve been binge-watch­ing one too many Kong knock-offs that you step back and won­der if you might have hal­lu­ci­nat­ed one of them. Queen Kong is that film. The sec­ond UK fea­ture on our list, as its title sug­gests, is a gen­der-flipped take on the usu­al mon­key busi­ness. Rula Lens­ka is Luce Habit (yep), who kid­naps Robin ​“Con­fes­sions of a Win­dow Clean­er” Askwith’s Ray in a bid to make him the star of the film she’s direct­ing in Lazan­gawherethey­dothekon­ga. What begins with a trip aboard her boat, The Lib­er­at­ed Lady – com­plete with a musi­cal num­ber that namechecks Ger­maine Greer and ​‘The Female Eunuch’ – soon sees our female Kong being encour­aged to kick a T‑Rex in the nads.

A pseu­do-fem­i­nist bent only gets you so far (about 15 min­utes) before the offen­sive racial stereo­types kick in, mak­ing ear­ly ​’70s British tele­vi­sion appear a font of pro­gres­sive enlight­en­ment by com­par­i­son. The com­mit­ment to the mate­r­i­al and its end­less stream of appalling gags by the cast might only be explained by the pres­ence of their respec­tive fam­i­lies, off-cam­era with guns to their heads.

Now we’re talk­ing. You know you’re liv­ing in a gold­en age of home video when a film as out-there as The Mighty Peking Man gets a spank­ing new Blu-ray release. (Take a bow, 88 Films.) Maybe we’ve got Quentin Taran­ti­no to thank too, who re-released it the­atri­cal­ly on his Rolling Thun­der imprint back in the late ​’90s. An atyp­i­cal excur­sion away from mar­tial arts for the pro­lif­ic Shaw Broth­ers, Kong goes Hong Kong for this exploita­tion doozy.

Chen Zhengfeng is sad because he caught his broth­er shag­ging his mis­sus, so he joins an expe­di­tion in search of Ah Wang, the epony­mous giant ape-man with a scream that’s the stuff of night­mares. He meets up with a Swiss mod­el in the jun­gle, who’s been liv­ing with Ah Wang since the plane crash that killed her parents.

It all goes tits-up when a pro­duc­er with dol­lar signs in his eyes brings the mon­ster back to Hong Kong, lead­ing to an impres­sive demo­li­tion der­by of mod­el-work. Before we get there though, we get to see a man fight a tiger before it bites his leg off, a leop­ard do bat­tle with a snake, and one of the great frol­ick­ing-and-falling-in-love mon­tages (unim­pressed leop­ard includ­ed) ever com­mit­ted to film.

“It was beau­ty killed the beast,” goes the 1933 film’s famous last line. If you’ve seen King Kong Lives, you’d be for­giv­en for think­ing he was actu­al­ly done in by John Guiller­min. The offi­cial sequel to Dino De Lau­ren­ti­is’ 1976 remake sees Kong find a part­ner in a female goril­la brought in to save his life, a decade after his tum­ble from the Empire State Build­ing. Posi­tioned as a Christ­mas block­buster, whol­ly incom­pe­tent in both direc­tion and design, it’s aston­ish­ing to think this film cost upwards of $10m. You have to won­der what Car­lo Ram­bal­di was smok­ing when he came up his crea­ture, or what Lin­da Hamil­ton was think­ing in the wake of her post-Ter­mi­na­tor suc­cess. It did spawn a video game called King Kong Lives: Mega­ton Punch of Rage, so at least there’s that.

Six gor­geous min­utes from The Simp­sons’ third ​‘Tree­house of Hor­rors’ episode see Homer cast as the great ape. As Kong par­o­dies go, it’s top of the heap; not just in the gags that land but its affec­tion for the char­ac­ter. The one-lin­ers zing (Smithers, on hear­ing Marge is join­ing the expe­di­tion: ​“I think women and sea­men don’t mix”), but it’s Homer’s attempt to sum­mit the Empire State Build­ing that lands the final blow, as he falls from the sec­ond floor, exhaust­ed. ​“He’s not dead!” cries Marge. ​“No, but his career is,” replies Mr Burns, ​“I remem­ber when Al Jol­son ran amok at the Win­ter Gar­den and climbed the Chrysler Build­ing. After that, he couldn’t get arrest­ed in this town.”

Disney’s take on the 1949 film, Mighty Joe Young cap­tures none of the mag­ic of Shoed­sack and Cooper’s orig­i­nal. In fact, it’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine the intend­ed kid­die audi­ence tak­ing more from this noisy and sen­ti­men­tal refit than they would from the visu­al wiz­ardry of O’Brien’s ear­li­er work. Which isn’t to the say that the effects here are with­out mer­it; Rick Baker’s cre­ation of Joe arguably sur­pass­es the dat­ed dig­i­tal effects employed by Peter Jack­son sev­en years lat­er. The finale atop Grauman’s Chi­nese The­atre pales in com­par­i­son to the orphan­age cli­max of the first film, although kudos for the nod to Coop­er and John Ford with the Wag­on Mas­ter poster on dis­play in the foyer.

Quite how Warn­er Bros got away with retelling the sto­ry of King Kong so explic­it­ly, with just a mere title change, is anyone’s guess. A DTV joint for the kids, The Mighty Kong bills itself as ​‘an ani­mat­ed musi­cal’, although ​‘shit car­toon with songs’ would be more accu­rate. Not that it doesn’t have some pedi­gree; its musi­cal num­bers were penned by same the Sher­man broth­ers, who wrote for Disney’s Mary Pop­pins, and the voice cast includes Dud­ley Moore, wild­ly over­act­ing in his final role. The only way to enjoy such soul­less dreck is to imag­ine a com­men­tary from Moore’s erst­while part­ner in crime Peter Cook, in char­ac­ter as Clive, let­ting him have it every time he opens his mouth. ​“What a c — ”

With 70 years of Kong remakes and knock-offs to draw on, you’d think Peter Jack­son might have come up with a more dig­ni­fied approach to the human inhab­i­tants of Skull Island. Else­where, his heart is large­ly in the right place, even as his film suf­fers from a Kong-scaled case of gigan­ti­cism. While the effects work hasn’t aged bril­liant­ly, and Jack­son can’t escape the sen­ti­men­tal incli­na­tions that serve to under­mine his star attrac­tion, his visu­al sen­si­bil­i­ties pay off in the film’s major set-pieces – not least when we (final­ly) get back to New York. There’s a bet­ter, short­er movie in here some­where (prefer­ably one with­out Jack Black). As it stands, Jackson’s roman­tic rev­er­ence gets the bet­ter of him.