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King Kong vs. Frankenstein Script?

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MonsterGuy95

King Kong vs. Frankenstein Script?

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Aug 14 12 12:29 PM

Is there a script out there? I was thinking of doing a recreation of the two beasts fighting. All i have for reference is these stills:

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Wich2

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Aug 15 12 9:21 AM

God bless Obie, but the idea of a gigundus Frankenstein's Monster is silly in the extreme. He might as well have used a space alien, or a dug-up caveman-era creature.

marbpl2.ozclubforums

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Aug 15 12 10:57 AM

Wich2

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Aug 15 12 7:05 PM

Thanks for proving my point!

Tim Smyth

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Aug 15 12 10:42 PM

Wich2 wrote:
God bless Obie, but the idea of a gigundus Frankenstein's Monster is silly in the extreme. He might as well have used a space alien, or a dug-up caveman-era creature.

Those are actually better ideas.
I agree with you, this was not O'Bie's shining moment idea wise.

Tim

Ted Newsom

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Aug 16 12 12:06 AM

I was struck with the peculilarly limited scope of O'Brien's ideas in Steven Archer's book. Steve goes into more detail than even Don Shay's lengthy Cinefex article, since he had many of the manuscripts available. The "comedy" ideas seemed about at the level of the old Edison shorts; most of the feature ideas were Gwangi rehashes, some critter in the desert.

The Frankenstein/Kong story seemed really dumb even when I read about it in FM, and I was probably 12, which ought to be the right age for that.

If you've got the Archer book from McFarland, MonsterGuy, you'll have as much as I know exists.

skull island escapee

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Aug 16 12 1:21 AM

I still wish this movie got made, though, and it was sitting in my DVD collection, and I could slip it into the machine right now! [preferably with the early [silent?] equally unrealized O'Brien 'Frankenstein' as an intruiging extra. ] Regrettably, no such fare exists at my fingertips, although there are hundreds of more commercial, 'tasteful' and 'professional' titles in my local DVD store I have no desire to see.

Even if this movie was a bona-fide stinker, it would have kept OBie in employment and I don't begrudge him his dreams and ambitions---all creative people come up with some badly-inspired stuff, or they wouldn't be human. Life would be pretty boring if every movie was a flawless masterpiece.Life is often boring today, at least movie-wise, with flawless but sterile CGI removing all traces of humanity from onscreen phantassie. The option of seeing this movie appeals to me a lot more than watching the most recent Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp vehicle.

I reckon that KING KONG versus FRANKENSTEIN ,if it existed, would get my full attention [even if it was a bad movie, which it more than likely would be] on it's first viewing, unlike many of today's fantasy offerings. I saw the recent CGI film set in Scotland and to be honest I can remember very little about it . It was skilfully-made and fairly tasteful, but it was just too similar-to-everything-else looking, it never made a great impression. I t wasn't a bad film, but I can't even remember the title of it, that's the honest truth.

I've never forgotten the title: KING KONG versus FRANKENSTEIN, though, which ain't bad going for a movie that never even got off the drawing board!

Revel in the impurities of human creativity! Imagine a world without 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' or 'Attack of the 50-foot Woman' or 'Fiend Without a Face', and everything looked like 'Citizen Kane' -----I'll take a world that includes the odd 'creative stinkers' without qualms.

'the horror..............THE HORROR!'

Cartoon-strip blog here [updated regularly]:

http://zoomertoonsrabsmith.blogspot.com/

Last Edited By: skull island escapee Aug 16 12 1:47 AM. Edited 6 times.

acker j forestman

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Aug 16 12 6:58 PM

Obie's story may have been seriously flawed, but, thanks to John Beck's thievery, it eventually was made into a very successful movie.

Last Edited By: acker j forestman Aug 16 12 7:06 PM. Edited 1 times.

The Giant Pacific Octopus

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Aug 16 12 7:46 PM

In the book Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C Cooper the author talks about the project briefly including quotes taken from correspondence between O'Shea and Beck. The project was actually referred to as King Kong Meets Frankenstein. As well its noted Cooper wanted to sue Beck and Universal over this.

People seemed to think that this was O'Bies last project but he actually came up with another one before he died called

CARL DENHAM AND THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1962)

This would be a comedy featuring the character of Carl Denham (to be played by Robert Armstrong again). While sitting in his office overlooking the Empire State Building, Carl Denham is startled to see a huge dark object moving up the side of the ESB. It turns out to be a tarp that workers are hoisting up the building. Seeing that makes Denham reminisce about King Kong. Just then Denham's associate comes in and tells him he can't get the giant elephant that Carl wanted but jokingly said he could get him a giant gorilla. Enraged, Denham throws the associate out. Before leaving, the associate refers to Denham as the abominable showman. This gives Carl an idea to try to recreate his glory with Kong by planting and then capturing an Abominable Snowman in the Himalayas. O'Brien suggested this idea to Cooper via a letter from Jan 1962. Cooper wanted to do it, but realized he wasn't Kong's sole copyright owner as he had previously believed and this (among other potential projects featuring Kong) fell by the wayside. This would be O'Bie's last idea as he died in November of that month.

The Catch of the Day!

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skull island escapee

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Aug 17 12 3:08 AM

sounds pretty good to me, GPO! Such a shame so many of OBie's ideas never got of the ground. If Hollywood never liked his ideas, maybe he should have teamed up with a more business-savvy collaborator to rein in some of his more boundless proposals-----Hollywood is notorious for stifling real creativity.

It must have been really frustrating at times for O'Brien---he never even got seriously rich through Kong [although Cooper kick-started Kong, they should have shared the spoils of a future percentage deal, maybe even giving Delgado a slice ---these 3 contributed the most towards KK ]. Cooper still ended up pretty rich through his other interests.

'the horror..............THE HORROR!'

Cartoon-strip blog here [updated regularly]:

http://zoomertoonsrabsmith.blogspot.com/

ryanbrennan

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Aug 18 12 4:00 PM

skull island escapee wrote:
sounds pretty good to me, GPO! Such a shame so many of OBie's ideas never got of the ground. If Hollywood never liked his ideas, maybe he should have teamed up with a more business-savvy collaborator to rein in some of his more boundless proposals-----Hollywood is notorious for stifling real creativity.

It must have been really frustrating at times for O'Brien---he never even got seriously rich through Kong [although Cooper kick-started Kong, they should have shared the spoils of a future percentage deal, maybe even giving Delgado a slice ---these 3 contributed the most towards KK ]. Cooper still ended up pretty rich through his other interests.

O'Brien needed the same sort of producer/partner Harryhausen had, someone like Charles Schneer. Schneer is likely the central reason that Harryhausen was able to thrive in the industry. Otherwise, he might have ended up just like Obie. I've sometimes wondered why Schneer didn't endeavor to produce similar stop motion showcases using O'Brien. But I've also wondered if Obie could have adapted to low-budget filmmaking, picked up the pace, and employed the techniques of his student/apprentice. THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and BLACK SCORPION indicate that he could.

skull island escapee

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Aug 18 12 4:10 PM

Some well=put points, Ryan: O'Brien got a bad deal out of Hollywood [post-Kong], maybe he was just too much of an individualist. Still. his best work still shines on for us enthusiasts, all this time later.

'the horror..............THE HORROR!'

Cartoon-strip blog here [updated regularly]:

http://zoomertoonsrabsmith.blogspot.com/

Tim Smyth

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Aug 18 12 4:21 PM

O'Brien was a product of his time, there were no giant monster movies being made for him to use his talents, his real job was to bring stop motion to new heights for Kong, so to inspire others. Harryhausen came along at the right time, met the right people and that is how it was. It is too bad for us that O'Brien didn't do more movies, but he really had a great career with many highlights.

Tim

The Giant Pacific Octopus

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Mar 19 13 11:58 AM

Here is an interesting letter I found on Ebay

The Catch of the Day!

DonM435

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Mar 22 13 11:58 PM

I'm reminded of the 1941 Edgar Rice Burroughs short story "John Carter and the Giant of Mars.." One of the synthetic men of Barsoom has created a giant by splicing together the tissues of hundreds of men.

http://www.erbzine.com/mag3/0351.html

(This story isn't typical ERB. It was adapted from a juvenile story created by ERB and his illustrator-son John Coleman Burroughs.)

Stormsworder

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Mar 28 13 12:06 PM

A beast-monster built by Frankenstein is an interesting idea (the writers of Dr Who obviously thought so, as they used it in one of their shows) but I think that drawing of the monster just looks like a giant trog or missing link. If it's been built by Frankenstein surely it should be made up of various pieces of different creatures put together. For example, the monster in the Dr Who story I mentioned had one humanoid arm whilst its other arm was a giant lobster claw.

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King Kong vs. Frankenstein Script?

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