by August » Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:08 am
Here's the scoop on the '33 KING KONG from someone that remembers the discovery of the missing footage in the 1970s (for anyone who is still paying attention or cares):
In 1939, when KING KONG was re-released, the Hayes Office was in full swing. The Hayes Office was essentially a censorship board that started the Motion Picture Code. When KONG was made in 1933, there was no Hayes Office and no censorship office, so there were some very violent and risque things in the film, which didn't pass muster in 1939, and there were several edits made to the film.
These included close-ups of Kong with people in his mouth, peeling off Fay Ray's clothes, stomping on and biting the heads off Skull Island natives, dropping the brunette to her death, etc. (The infamous "Spider Pit" sequence was edited before KONG was first released in 1933 and is not longer extant.)
This edited version was the only version circulated for decades, until someone found a can of 16mm footage with the missing footage in the mid-1970s (reportedly, as the legend goes, in a shed in Northern California). Even with the discovery, the version that continued to play on television was the 1939 version (some stations would even run the "lost footage" reel as a supplement to the broadcasts). Some time in 1978-1980, the 16mm footage was blown up to 35mm and reinstated into the film for theatrical screenings. When Ted Turner acquired RKO's library in the 1980s, his company issued this version for Home Video and Cable for the first time (it was a big deal back then).
When KONG was being restored for DVD release in 2005, a full-length, uncut 35mm negative (IIRC) of the 1933 version was found in the UK, which was the source used to produce the said DVD.
Last edited by
August on Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
August Ragone
Showa GAMERA Special Features Producer
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