King Kong

Director John Guillermin and producer Dino De Laurentiis teamed up for this remake of the 1933 classic. The Oscar-winning special effects sit happily with the tongue-in-cheek performances of the three leads – Charles Grodin as the oil executive who is after the deposits under Skull Island; Jeff Bridges as the hippy anthroplogist who wants to capture Kong; and Jessica Lange, in her screen debut, as a starlet who’s tagging along for the ride. And the superb John Barry score is among the best of his long career., Derided at the time, largely because it was produced by the then king of schlock Dino De Laurentiis, John Guillermin’s remake of the 1933 classic actually has a lot going for it. The Oscar winning special effects sit happily with the tongue-in-cheek campiness that the three leads (Charles Grodin as the oil executive after the deposits on Skull Island, Jeff Bridges as the hippy anthroplogist after Kong and Jessica Lange, in her screen debut, as a starlet tagging along) play along with and there’s a superb John Barry score that is among the best of his long career., Remak of the classic 1933 film in which a group of explorers discover an island inhabited by hostile natives and stumble across their sacrificial ceremony in honuor of their god ‘Kong’, a giant ape., A colourful remake of the 1930s classic about geologists working on a remote island who discover a tribal cult that worships Kong, a 50-foot ape. They transport the ape back to America as a sideshow attraction, with catastrophic results for the people of New York., Director John Guillermin and producer Dino De Laurentiis teamed up for this remake of the 1933 classic. The Oscar-winning special effects sit happily with the tongue-in-cheek campiness of the three leads – Charles Grodin as the oil executive after the deposits on Skull Island; Jeff Bridges as the hippy anthroplogist after Kong; and Jessica Lange, in her screen debut, as a starlet tagging along – and the superb John Barry score is among the best of his long career., Producer Dino De Laurentiis gives the 1933 beauty-and-the-beast classic a big-budget face lift but proves you shouldn’t monkey around with success. Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange (her film debut). Bagley: Rene Auberjonois. Ross: John Randolph. Boan: Julius Harris., A colourful remake of the 1930s classic about geologists working on a remote island who discover a tribal cult that worships Kong, a 50-foot ape. They transport the ape back to America as a sideshow attraction, with catastrophic results for the people of New York. John Guillermin., Remake of the classic adventure fantasy about a giant ape on a rampage in New York City, in search of the woman who stole his heart before he was dragged from his primitive island domain. Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange, John Randolph., Producer Dino De Laurentiis gives the 1933 beauty-and-the-beast classic a big-budget face lift but proves you shouldn’t monkey around with success., Famed producer Dino De Laurentiis tries to steal the thunder from Jaws, then the top-grossing film of all-time, in this big budget remake of King Kong. (De Laurentiis related his tactics to Tom Snyder: “When Jaws dies, nobody cries. When Kong dies, they all cry.”) Updated to the 1970s, the original Robert Armstrong character is now Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), a big-shot oil magnate from Petrox Oil, looking for new petroleum deposits on a recently discovered Pacific island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) is a counter-culture paleontologist, stowing away on Wilson’s ship, who warns that they are headed for “Skull Island,” where prehistoric monsters still live and roam free. Also along for the ride is Dwan (Jessica Lange, in her film debut), a down-on-her-luck starlet, shipwrecked in the ocean after the sinking of a yacht. She really becomes down-on-her-luck when the group lands on the island and a giant ape, Kong, takes a shine to her. Kong kidnaps her and Dwan takes umbrage when the ape tries to remove her clothes by shouting, “You male chauvinist ape!” But Prescott comes to her aid and rescues her from the gorilla’s big mits. Wilson, seeing money to be made on Kong, locks him in the cargo hold of his ship and transports him to New York City. Once there, Kong manages to escape and wreak havoc upon the beleaguered town, before being compelled to climb up the World Trade Center for sanctuary.