Don Glut wrote:
Actually, I had both shots in mind -- going up and then falling down, bouncing a bit along the way, both seemingly from the same set-up. And something about the "weight" of that figure, going both up and down, always suggested to me something shot in "real time."

I suspect we have opened what could become a Kong-sized can of worms, the kind of which would have felt right at home down in that spider pit. But I think its one very worthy of discussing.


Don,

I agree.  I never have thought the shot of Kong falling was animated either.  It is obviously a dummy, or stuffed costume of some kind falling because it has definite weight and physics behind it.  Especally in the bounce.  It is just a matter of figuring out the scale.  I think that it was fairly big, human sized, certainly with the camera overcranked to slow down the action.

I can see these three shots (the two going up and one coming down) possibly being a bone of contention with O'Brien and others that wanted to push the agenda that a guy in a suit was never used and it was all model animation.  Apparently there was a model animation scene of the Empire State Building fall that was shot, but never used in the final release print.   Once it was put together with the live footage of the city, it just didn't look right because Kong was transparent.  ...Think of the shots of the transparent Karloff monster scene, matted atop the windmill model at the end of Frankenstein here, except on a larger scale.  The dummy Kong falling scene may have been shot later as a replacement, the one nobody ever wanted to admit to because it was not as first intended and was one they had to settle for.


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