The Giant Pacific Octopus wrote:
Don Glut wrote:
But Cooper apparently liked the ape suit idea enought to consider it seriously before seeing the CREATION footage and meeting Obie.
I'm just curious as to where you got that info from? Its not mentioned in either The Making of King Kong (The definitive book on the production of the film) or Living Dangerously : The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper (the definitive book on Cooper's life). Both books mentioned that Cooper wanted to use a real gorilla through miniatures before he saw the Creation footage. There is even a quote in the book David O. Selznick's Hollywood (page 77) about how he didn't want to use an ape suit when he was having discussions with Selznick at RKO before he saw The Creation footage or O'brien's work.

There is some quotes from him in the Dangerously  book about how silly he thought the gorilla suit gag was. One of the reason's he was so upset about King Kong vs Godzilla (he sued John Beck, Universal, and Toho in 1963 to block distribution of the film) was because he saw Kong being played by a man in a suit. (Dangerously Pg.361)
  
I don't believe for one second, that Cooper ever had a conversation with Selznick, about his gorilla picture, at RKO, before seeing the Creation footage. He was not brought to RKO to make movies, just help pick out the rotten apples. Creation was the new spark of inspiration which made Kong possible. Cooper stated that the first time he told Selznick about the Giant Terror Gorilla, was when he told Selznick to dump Creation, and then showed him the Kong painting by OB and Crabbe, and told him that this is the picture we ought to make. Not that I believe everything that Cooper ever said either, but I do think that Creation played a far bigger role in Kong than Cooper admits. O'Brien's ideas run rampant though Kong as well.

Tim


Tim