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King Kong

King Kong (1976)

December. 17,1976
|
6
|
PG
| Adventure Fantasy

An oil company expedition disturbs the peace of a giant ape and brings him back to New York to exploit him.

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Reviews

Matialth
1976/12/17

Good concept, poorly executed.

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CommentsXp
1976/12/18

Best movie ever!

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Dynamixor
1976/12/19

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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Allison Davies
1976/12/20

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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George Taylor
1976/12/21

This is just a terrible movie. It's slow, at the time Jessica couldn't act worth a damn, had so many fake posters showing things that never happened. I saw this on a double feature with the equally dull Bug (read the book the Hephaestus Plague instead) and nearly fell asleep during both. The so called 'Robot' barely got used, instead falling back on Rick Baker in a beautiful ape suit. Just an abomination.

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swilliky
1976/12/22

A new iteration of the giant ape tormenting humans hit the screen in 1976 with a different, yet similar, storyline. In this edition, an exploratory crew searches for a large oil find. Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin) runs the expedition betting a lot of money that there would be land amidst a cloud of fog somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. Sneaking aboard the vessel is Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), a paleontologist, interested in the rumor surrounding the island. Picking up lost in the ocean is a young actress Dwan (Jessica Lange) who is at first in shock after surviving yacht explosion but determined to join the search crew as they land on the island. The group encounters the native people performing a ceremony and chanting "Kong". Like in the original film, the islanders see the golden-haired woman and offer to trade six of their women but the explorers refuse and return to the boat. Dwan is captured and used as the new center of the ceremony. When the beast shows up, it's apparent that they used a monkey suit that is filmed to look large. Kong grabs Dwan and takes her off into the jungle as the explorers mount a rescue led by Jack.Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

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Hitchcoc
1976/12/23

We so fondly remember the classic 1931 film with Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray. This is pretty much the same movie, in color, with different motivations, using modern iconic structures (the World Trade Centers). But it all gets down to the invasion of an island by outsiders where a primitive tribe continues to sacrifice young women to a god (King Kong). Unfortunately, the gorgeous young Jessica Lange, who has been picked up on the open sea (certainly one of the great cinematic contrivances), is captured and about to become a snack for the big monkey. Along the way, Kong falls in love with her. Maybe he saw the original movie and Fay was a bit long in the tooth. Lange is rescued and the big gorillas strapped to an empty oil tanker and brought to New York where he is going to be exhibited for big bucks. Well, hope many horror stories have you seen. I'm not going to spoil the fun, but nature takes its course. It's not a bad movie. It just doesn't have any surprises.

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talisencrw
1976/12/24

I had first seen the outstanding original of 'King Kong', still transcendent and captivating in its then-prescient use of special effects wizardry, then Sir Peter Jackson's recent remake, which was still extremely impressive. I had only heard horrible things about the 70's version, but I have come to admire Guillermin's films that I had watched, and look at that cast, so when I found the blu used, for a good price, I took a chance. It's definitely the runt of the litter, but is by no means a disaster. It's intriguing that they had originally wanted Joseph Sargent to direct with Peter Falk starring, and that Meryl Streep was considered for the role that eventually went to Jessica Lange. The changes they made to update Kong for the seventies were intriguing (as they wanted the script to be completely different from the Cooper/Schoedsack masterpiece), and I'm left curious, had Sir Peter Jackson chosen to make Kong a 21st-century schizoid apeman instead of doing a period piece, how that would have transpired. Even being Canadian, seeing the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center made me wistfully nostalgic. The only part of the film that was excruciating to watch was when Kong is made to perform for the American Bicentennial festivities, and at the ending, I was curious how Lange got down from the rooftop of one of the towers so fast. The answer probably lies on the cutting room floor, and the editing was probably rushed for release date, so no one must have noticed...

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