Ted Newsom wrote:
I agree about the movement of the climb... it is unlike, superior to, and smoother than ANY other shot in the movie.

But an ape suit? Like the mythical "miniature Empire State Building," where did the costume go? Why didn't it appear in any RKO movie afterward... or end up in bad Lugosi Monograms 10 years later? Or to over to MGM on loanout to fight Johnny Weissmueller about 8 times?


Slight difference in proportions to the articulated models be damned, this is the best damned gorilla costume ever made, and not only does it match the ape in the rest of the movie, they figured out how to foreshorten the legs and extend the arms to emulate a real gorilla's physique, complete with musculature-- AND had enough technical savvy to give the hands flexing ability enough to grasp wooden dowels (or a ladder?) AND curl to ball into a fist and wave.


Man, those costume boys at Radio Pictures knew what they were doing. Rick Baker, eat your heart out.


Where did it go? Oh, grumpy old Merian Cooper probably burned the costume after the movie like the Spider Pit footage. The bastard.
Hey Ted,
In all the prints that I have ever seen, the Kong, in the shots of Kong going up and down the Empire State Building he is really just a featureless silhouette. Could be rotoscoped off a person doing the climb, after all they did have cel animation birds earlier in the movie. Or did they, I always get confused on the seagulls. 
Also I don't think that the movement is superior in those shots, just smoother. Actually I prefer every other shot in the movie to this Empire ones, I just don't think that those shots look like stop motion.


Tim