The long quote from the book is nice and informative.  With due respect to the author(s), I think it's subject to interpretation.  It's inaccurate vis what's actually shown on screen, the extant photo of Gibson at work, and the techniques involved and available in 1932.
Buzz Gibson animated Kong's climb up the Empire State Building, wiring the model into position with each step of the ascent up a ladder of dowels. Kong was positioned on the side of the real edifice in two scenes and on a miniature building in others by means of the blue-backing process.
If you look at the photo of Gibson animating the puppet climb, it's obvious the puppet is not actually on a miniature building, or somehow matted on top of a photo of the real Empire State Building.  The "building" in the on-set photo is no more intricate than a cat's scratching post.  It's simply a vertical base upon which to position the puppet. 

The writer shows his inaccuracy by stating "blue backing" was used to composite the model onto anything.  Bluescreen work did not even come into existence until the mid 1950s.  "Dunning shot," maybe.  Matte, certainly.  Using the term "blue backing"-- jeeze, why not just say "chroma key" if you want to be anachronistic?  Close enough, right?  The light background behind Gibson in the photo indicates they were generating a white-backed matte and counter-matte, not dissimilar to tricks used in The Lost World, though those were mostly with live actors inserted into a plate of miniature monsters and jungle (same way Jack Rabin did the Superman flying shots years later).  Blue screen was developed for color work.  So if the author is that wrong is this particular, I tend to suspect he may be off in others.

I don't see any reason for "wires" to be used to secure the puppet, nor do I see that detail in the photo. It could be, I just don't see it.

As for the long shot of the E.S.B. being a miniature-- I think not.  Even given the relatively small 18"-20" stature of the puppet climbing the building (or falling, in the last shot), this would indicate a miniature 10 or 20 times the height of the puppet... a mini Empire State Building 15 to 30 feet tall.  If that had been created, where is it?  Where are the on-set photos of the guys standing around a backlot Empire State Building as big as a bungalow?  Or even if it were a perspective cheat, you mean some miniature guys spent weeks making a five or six foot high detailed model of the skyscraper and nobody-- not the publicity department, not O'Brian, not somebody's visiting wife, not shutterbugs from the Hearst syndicate-- nobody took a picture of it?

That, and the angle on the building, is perfect-- an angle I have never seen anywhere in real photos. My guess-- it's a matte painting.  That would be a LOT cheaper and faster to do. 

So you'd just resize the gorilla elements in an optical printer and position them correctly vis a via the outline of the building.  That would work with both the animation cats and the "real time" falling ape dummy.  And any fringing one might pick up from the matte process would be disguised by the white-out exposure of the cityscape in the background. 

I'd buy a 20-inch dummy for the fall (packed with sawdust, sand or sushi. Or a combination thereof).  The size would give it enough heft to bounce and flop semi-realistically-- certainly better than those little 5" guys in the spider pit-- and adding some weights in the extremities would give it some credible (if loose) heft. The smallish 20" size would make shooting the fall more practical.  You'd still have to have a camera 20 or 30 feet away to catch the entire fall, but with a full-sized dummy, you'd have to move back twice as far or more.


Last Edited By: Ted Newsom Mar 13 10 2:57 PM. Edited 1 times.