This being a film that they were doing a lot of effects experimenting on, I mean they were breaking a lot of new ground here and doing things for the first time, it is hard to take the word of even some of the folks that worked on the film as gospel.  Even in eyewitness accounts of say, only 40 years after the fact.  I'm sure that many of the scenes were shot in several different ways in attempt to get the desired effect, only to be scrapped and abandoned later for something that worked better.  An example being that fabled close ESB fall shot that was taken out before release because Kong was partly transparent.  So sure, someone may correctly remember a particular scene being shot a certain way, then someone else correctly recall it being shot yet another way.  Which one ended up in the completed film?  Who knows, even if they worked on it.

I've seen the film on a big theater screen several times and recently watched just that sequence again on my big high-def home screen. Those two Empire State climbing shots are just weird.  Most notably the second one, because if you watch closely, other than doing the weird streaching motion with the legs, there is that slide right up in the curve of the building cloer to the top section.  It is as if they shot it with a guy in a suit, then "fixed" the placement of the character (hence the slide) by rotoscoping the footage.  It makes sense, because no detail of Kong was needed there, all that was required was an almost backlit distant outline shape.  Rotoscoping that and adding to the original image could have fixed the arm legnth of a suit as well.

For all we know, old Carmine Negro could actually be telling a grain of truth, having been hired to portray Kong (complete with a tiny motorizrd Fay doll in hand) just for that one quick scene, then was rotoscoped over.


I don't think a full-legnth ESB model was ever built either, or we'd have seen photos of it by now.  Most likely, they shot footage of the real thing and just added Kong and the planes later.  Or, I wouldn't have put it past them even using a still photo enlargement sandwiched between two panes of glass, then shooting those other elements in the distance, through the glass.  Today's low-tech answer was high-tech back in 1933.


EL VAMPIRO image
Former TV Horror Host
and current Industry Insider
Hollywood / Transylvania / Parts Unknown

Staff Writer - www.TheHorrorDrunx.com