Stubs - Café Society

Café Society (2016) Starring: Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll and Ken Stott. Directed by Woody Allen. Screenplay by Woody Allen. Produced by Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum, Edward Walson. Color. USA. Runtime: 96 minutes. Comedy, Drama, Romance

Woody Allen, who started his career as a writer for Sid Caesar, has become one of the most prolific filmmakers around. Every year, it seems, he writes and directs (and occasionally now stars) in one movie a year. Working at such a steady pace and virtually alone in the creative process, it is no doubt that his films are either hit or miss. His latest, Café Society, lands somewhere in between.

A nostalgic look at an era before he was born, Café Society bears all the hallmarks of an Allen film. His persona hangs over every one of his films and in this case, we get a double-down-effect. Not only is Jesse Eisenberg’s Bobby Dorfman the character channeling the master filmmaker, but Allen himself provides narration, which allows the story to be told quicker, filling in the holes that the film's short run time don’t allow. Allen is nothing but an efficient storyteller as well as filmmaker.

Production on Allen’s 47^th film began in Los Angeles on August 17, 2015, with the director using video rather than film for the first time. Anyone familiar with Allen’s views on Hollywood can imagine how quickly he wanted to get back to the motherland, New York, where the production moved on September 8^th. In what is now a somewhat unique deal with Amazon Studios, but will no doubt become more commonplace in the future, the film was originally distributed by Lionsgate before moving to the website’s Prime video streaming service. Originally shown at the Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 2016, the film was released in theaters on July 15.

Bobby Dorfman is a young Jew (and I only mention religion since it fragrances the entire film) who wants to break free of the mundane life he sees his parents living. Like his older brother Ben (Corey Stoll), Bobby doesn’t want to follow into their father Marty’s (Ken Stoll) jewelry business. Unlike Ben, Bobby is not a street tough, so he heads out West to make his fortune. His mother, Rose (Jeannie Berlin), tries to help by calling her brother Phil (Steve Carell), who happens to be a very successful agent in Hollywood.

Steve Carell plays Bobby's Uncle, who is a successful agent in Hollywood.

Even though he reluctantly agrees to see the boy, he puts off the meeting for several weeks. When he finally is available, Phil decides, almost as an afterthought, that he can use Bobby to run errands for him, sort of what would be a personal assistant. He introduces him to his secretary, Veronica (Kristen Stewart), who offers to show him around town.

Veronica (Kristen Stewart) offers to show Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) around Los Angeles.

During their weekend excursions, the two talk about the hollowness of Hollywood and develop a bond. For Bobby it’s love, but Veronica, who calls herself Vonnie, wants to keep things platonic. She claims to have a reporter boyfriend that she is in love with.

Bobby wants to tell Vonnie how he feels about her, but can't.

Meanwhile, Bobby does well at work and Uncle Phil makes good by inviting him to some of his Sunday brunches. At one, he is introduced to Rad (Parker Posey) and Steve (Paul Schneider). Once a childhood movie star, Rad now runs a modeling agency in New York and Steve is an independent film producer, a bit of anachronism for the time. With Rad and his older sister Evelyn’s (Sari Lennick) 

encouragement, Bobby continues to pursue Vonnie’s affections.

At a Sunday brunch, Bobby is introduced to Rad (Parker Posey) and Steve (Paul Schneider).

Things seem to be moving forward quite nicely. Bobby gets a promotion and Vonnie offers to come over to place and make him dinner. But at the last minute, she backs out and goes to meet the other man, who turns out to be Uncle Phil. It is the clandestine couple’s first, paper anniversary, but things are not happy. Phil has waffled back and forth about leaving his wife of 25 years, Karen (Sheryl Lee) for her. He’s in love with Vonnie but can’t bring himself to end his marriage no matter how much he may say he wants to. Vonnie, who has never asked Phil for more than they already have, is heartbroken when Phil ends the relationship. And it is in Bobby’s arms that she seeks comfort.

Phil is in love with Vonnie and offers to leave his wife of 25 years for her.

Bobby doesn’t have a clue about Vonnie’s relationship with Phil when he is summoned to his Uncle’s side and hears his confession about considering leaving his wife to be with the woman he loves. And he doesn’t let on when Bobby talks about marrying Vonnie and moving back to New York with her. But Uncle Phil doesn’t try to hide things from Bobby, showcasing a letter from Rudolf Valentino that Vonnie had given him for the first (paper) anniversary when Bobby finds him in his office after finally leaving Karen.

When Bobby confronts Vonnie about whom she’ll marry, his heart is broken when she chooses Phil over him. So heartbroken, in fact, that he heads back to New York and starts to work for his brother Ben, who has opened a nightclub and is in need of a manager. The previous manager is shown dead being covered in cement, his punishment for having stolen from the club.

Ben (Corey Stoll), with one of his business associates, needs a new manager to run his nightclub.

In New York, we’re told, Bobby takes to running the club and becomes a fixture in Café Society, which is a vinegar and oil mix of intellectuals, the wealthy and the gangster fringe. One night Rad introduces him to Veronica (Blake Lively), a recently divorced woman, whose husband leaves her for a girlfriend who is better in bed. This Veronica works for the City and is fascinated by Bobby’s Jewish heritage, having never met a Jew until moving to New York.

Bobby meets Veronica (Blake Lively) at the club he manages.

Bobby is in love again and spends every minute he can with her. When she becomes pregnant, they marry. Bobby appears to have everything he’s ever wanted.

A new political regime takes power in the City and the Mayor tries to clean up the streets. Caught up in that clean sweeping broom is Ben. His thug life finally catches up with him and he is tried and convicted of many crimes, including multiple murders. One that he’s not convicted of is the one that bothers sister Evelyn. She had asked Ben to speak to their loud neighbor Joe (Brendan Burke), who has since disappeared. (Ben doesn’t know anything short of elimination when it comes to conflict resolution.) With the help of Rad and Steve, Bobby takes over ownership and the club only becomes more successful.

Vonnie and Phil come to New York and visit Bobby at his club.

Meanwhile, Phil and Vonnie come to town and go to visit Bobby at his night club. He soon discovers that Vonnie has become one of the shallow Hollywood-types that they used to make fun of. But he also finds that his love for her has not quite extinguished. Her interest is returned and the two begin to spend a lot of time together. She finally cooks him the meal that she was supposed to have years before and the two spend the night together, ending with a handsome carriage ride through Central Park at dawn.

On a subsequent trip to Los Angeles to scout possible locations for a new club there, Bobby and Vonnie continue to meet, even returning to their old haunts to reminisce.

In prison, while awaiting execution, Ben converts to Christianity, because of the religion’s promise of an afterlife. It is this conversion which mother Rose is more upset about than the crimes he committed.

The film ends on New Year's Eve with Veronica and Bobby together at his club,
 even though he's thinking about Vonnie.

The film ends on New Year’s Day. There is a party at the club which Veronica attends. As she’s getting ready for the party, she asks Bobby if he’s ever been unfaithful, to which he says an emphatic “no.” Meanwhile, Phil and Vonnie are also in New York but attending a private party. But even though they are miles apart, the film leaves no doubt that both Vonnie and Bobby are thinking of each other as the new year starts.

For the most part, the acting is really top drawer all around and it is not the performances that are lacking here. Allen is known for getting the most out of his actors, most recently directing Cate Blanchett to an Academy Award for Best Actress and a nomination for her co-star Sally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine (2013).

Like most recent Allen films, Café Society boasts a large cast of familiar faces. The film came close to starring Bruce Willis, who had to drop out due to other commitments. He was replaced by Steve Carell, a move that would, based on the end result, make the film better. While I’m a fan of Willis’, it seems hard to believe that he could have done a better job than Carell did in the film. Not having been a fan of Carell’s Michael Scott on the American version of The Office, he has proven to be a very good film actor, getting raves for his performances in such films as The Big Short (2015).

Jesse Eisenberg is the Woody Allen character in Cafe Society.

Eisenberg is the personification of Allen in this film, even appears to take on some of the older man’s mannerisms. Even though he’s supposed to be a young man, Bobby walks around with hunched over shoulders like one might expect more from a man in his mid-70’s, Allen’s age at the time the film was made. While Eisenberg does a good job, his character might be the least believable.

Kristen Stewart has grown into quite an actress. While she’s never looked prettier to me on screen, she also gives a very strong performance as the first Veronica Bobby falls in love with. Blake Lively, as the second Veronica, is perhaps not as strong here, but her character has much less to her than Vonnie, Stewart’s Veronica. She is much more one-dimensional.

The film revisits several themes that seem to reoccur in Allen’s films. There is always the LA versus New York debate, which Allen dealt with in more detail in Annie Hall, but his proclivity for his hometown is always bubbling under the surface. While New York was preferable back in the 1970s, it was apparently still true back in the 1930s as well.

Bobby is not the first Allen protagonist with a criminally inclined sibling. Most notably was Jack Rosenthal (Jerry Orbach), the brother of Judah (Martin Landau), who helps his sibling out of a jam by hiring a hitman to kill Judah’s mistress, Dolores Paley (Anjelica Huston) in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Ben (Corey Stoll) is much more visceral than Jack had been, but with the exception of one scene, most of his story is told through narration. Stoll is okay in the role, but he is capable of more. Better to leave them wanting more, I guess.

Ben’s conversion to Christianity is also a theme that Allen has touched on before. When Allen’s Mickey in Hannah and Her Sisters searches for the meaning of life, he briefly considers Christianity, but cannot stomach the Mayonnaise that comes with it. In Café Society with Ben on Death Row, he converts looking for salvation and forgiveness of his soul.

Allen never delves too deeply into any of these subjects, more giving them lip service than any real examination. But developing these themes is not what the film is about, rather it is that they all play a part in our lives.

A gifted writer, Allen seems to take a somewhat lazy way out here. The narration, which makes Allen a part of the story as a God-like presence rather than a participant, also allows for him to tell rather than show things. We learn a lot about how people feel not from their mouths but from his. The narration allows him to take short cuts with progressing the story.

Some of the dialogue is a little bit of a stretch. I’m not sure many lovers meeting covertly talk like Phil and Vonnie do, or that many women would really be wooed by some of what comes out of Bobby’s mouth, either. Only in Allen’s films do gorgeous women, like Blake Lively’s Veronica, fall for neurotic tweebs like Bobby.

One sequence that seemed to go nowhere is when Bobby, having been alone in Hollywood for nearly a month, finally gives in and calls for a hooker. What we take it is his first time to pay for sex, is also hers as well. Candy (Anna Camp) is not only a newbie in the world’s oldest profession, but she is also Jewish to boot. Her inexperience and religious background really play a number on Bobby, who can’t seem to make up his mind if he wants to have sex with her or not. He finally ends up sending her on her way without making her go through with her assignment. For someone whom we learn so much about, when Candy goes out the door, she is also out of the movie. 

Woody Allen directing Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in Cafe Society.

As a director, Allen is still capable of delivering the humor when he decides, even making some of the violence laughable through juxtaposition. Allen no longer has to rely solely on his writing to carry him or to cover up for other shortcomings. As a filmmaker, Allen has reached a certain level that few directors ever do. He is allowed to make films as often as he wants, which is roughly one a year. While his lack of box office success has even driven him overseas in search of financing, his stature has been such that he has always been able to find distribution.

The film does a good job of recreating 1930s Hollywood.

Café Society looks gorgeous and not only when Lively and Stewart are onscreen. Thanks to the cinematography of Vittorio Storaro and production designer Santo Loquasto, the 30’s are captured with a sort of spot-on nostalgia. Details are delivered with a muted wistfulness.

While not the best of Allen’s films, Café Society is still very good. It is nice to see an adult film released during the summer that has nary a special effect or touch of vulgar humor. There is a lot that more hip filmmakers, directors, and writers could still learn from him. There may be issues, but a Woody Allen film is always worth seeing. The fact that this one is as good as it is, is a bonus.

Stubs - The Founder

The Founder (2016) Starring: Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini, Patrick Wilson, B. J. Novak, Laura Dern. Directed by John Lee Hancock. Screenplay by Robert D. Siegel. Produced by: Don Handfield, Karen Lunder, Jeremy Renner, Aaron Ryder. Run Time: 115 minutes. U.S. Color Biography, Drama

If you’re looking for another reason not to eat at McDonald’s then look no further than The Founder, the story of how Ray Kroc, played here by Michael Keaton, basically stole the McDonald’s restaurant and franchise away from the two brothers who founded the original restaurant in San Bernardino, Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald.

The original McDonald's opened by the Brothers in 1948.

In 1954, Kroc, a schemer for most of his adult life and then a traveling salesman hawking Prince Castle brand milkshake multi-mixers, is finding it difficult to find buyers for his wares. That is until his assistant, June Martino (Kate Kneeland), informs him that they received an order for six of his machines. Curious about the order, he calls the McDonald’s restaurant to confirm. When he speaks to Dick, the brother ups the order to eight.

 

Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) can't believe anyone was interested in buying six of his multi-mixers.

Wondering about the demand for his product, Kroc drives out to San Bernardino and observes the restaurant in action and is surprised when his order is accurate and ready in 30 seconds. Mac offers to show Ray the restaurant and he is impressed by the efficiency of the operation.

Kroc can't believe his order is ready in 30 seconds.

He takes the two brothers out to dinner and hears their story. It seems the Speedee process was developed mostly by Dick as the two brothers tried to maximize profits and reduce costs. Having been in the drive-in business before, they are well aware, as is Kroc, of the expense and shortfalls of that type of restaurant: wrong orders that take too much time and cost too much to make.

Mac (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick (Nick Offerman) McDonald.

When Kroc returns home to suburban Chicago, he tells his wife Ethel (Laura Dern) what he’d found.  She’s heard this sort of story before, as Ray has been involved in several get-rich-quick schemes and can’t-miss ventures. But Ray is undeterred by her lack of excitement. He believes that persistence is the key to success and goes back to the brothers to pitch his idea of franchising the restaurant. The brothers seem disinterested, having been down this path before with little success, blaming the problems with keeping the quality up to their standards.  But he persists and the brothers allow him to lead their franchising efforts, with Kroc receiving 1.9% and the brothers to receive .5% of the franchisee’s profits.

Kroc opens his own McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois and uses it to solicit wealthy investors from the golf club he and his wife belong to. But he finds that they do not abide by the guidelines that led to the failure of the first franchises. Upset with them, he quits the club without telling his wife and starts to solicit middle-class franchisees. This is a successful formula and expansion happens fast, too fast for the original McDonalds, but they can’t control Kroc, who goes so far as to designate his store as #1.

Ray is a big hit when he gets to Minnesota.

When the franchise reaches Minneapolis, Ray is introduced to successful restauranteur Rollie Smith (Patrick Wilson), who is an admirer of his. But Ray is an admirer of Rollie’s wife, Joan (Linda Cardellini), with whom he openly flirts with. Rollie does open a franchise which Joan runs and to which Ray pays close attention.

Ray tracks the expansion of his empire.

Despite the success of franchising, Ray is running short of cash based on the low percent he gets per his contract with the brothers. They refuse to renegotiate as well, which drives Ray to try to secure an extension on the mortgage payment, since he put up his house as collateral, without telling Ethel. Though the bank turns him down, his plight is overheard by Harry J. Sonneborn (B.J. Novak), a vice president of finances at Tastee Freeze and an admirer of Kroc’s success. He recommends that Kroc get into real estate, buying the sites for future franchises, then leasing the land to the franchisees as part of the deal. This will give Ray a constant source of income. He would found the Franchise Realty Corporation later changed to McDonald’s, in order to execute Sonneborn’s plan. (McDonald’s would end up being one of the largest landowners in the world.)

Of course, the brothers don’t like this, but Ray stands up to them, telling them that while they control how the restaurants are run, their influence stops at the door.

Still, there is the issue of the cost of operation, much of which is tied up in refrigerating the ice cream that goes into the shakes. Enter Joan, who has found a solution, an instant milkshake that only requires water. The brothers push back, but eventually, Ray decides to go through with it anyway, deciding that he’s tired of dealing with them.

Joan (Linda Cardellini), who already has Ray's attention, comes up with a money-saving plan.

First, Ray decides to divorce Ethel, something that he announces without fanfare at dinner one night. While he’s willing to give her alimony, the house, the car and the insurance, he’s not willing to give her any shares in his McDonald’s Corporation.

Ray tells his wife Ethel (Laura Dern) that he wants a divorce.

Ray’s next legal battle is with the brothers. Push has come to shove over the powdered milkshakes. Mac, who is diabetic, collapses and is sent to the hospital. His recovery isn’t helped when Ray shows up with a blank check. But the brothers don’t accept just yet. His lawyers negotiate a $2.7 million buyout. The brothers want to keep their own restaurant and a 10% share of profits in perpetuity, but Ray refuses to put it in the contract, telling them that his lenders wouldn’t go for it. He asks them to take his handshake on the deal, which they do.

The McDonald brothers don't know what hit them.

Afterward, when Dick asks Ray about why he didn’t just take the SpeeDee method they had shown him and started his own restaurant with that, he tells him that what he wanted was the name. To Ray, McDonald's is American. But when Dick tells him he didn’t get the name, Ray asks him are you sure? Turns out the naming rights went with the deal. While they got to keep their store, they had to change their name. Eventually, The Big M, as they called their restaurant, was put out of business by a McDonald’s Kroc opened across the street. (Oh, and to make things worse, as we learn in the epilogue, the brothers were never able to prove the handshake and therefore lost out on what would amount to $100 million a year.)

The film ends with Kroc prepping himself to meet, the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, presenting himself as the founder of the great food empire. His new wife, Joan, tells him that the car is downstairs.

As with almost any biographic film, not everything happened exactly as portrayed in the movie. For example, while Ray did divorce Ethel, there was another wife before he married Joan, Jane Dobbins, who is nowhere to be found in this picture. Another example of omission is that Ray had to pay for the McDonald’s name before he could open his first store. Apparently, the brothers had sold the name to the Frejlack Ice Cream Company for $5,000. It cost Kroc $25,000 to buy it back.

Michael Keaton shows himself once again to be a very fine actor, playing a rather evil man as a regular guy just trying to make good. He is joined in the cast by Nick Offerman, the voice of Axe Cop, and John Carroll Lynch, who play the innovative, but conservative, McDonald brothers whose whole world is turned upside down by the huckster from Illinois. They prove hapless to stop him. Their own openness gets turned against them. Before they know it they’re left holding the paper bag.

It’s odd to see Laura Dern playing such a middle-aged cipher as Ethel. She plays the character as a sort of clone to Pat Nixon and sets up the difference between her and Joan, who screams vivaciousness by comparison.

The rest of the supporting cast is good as well, with B.J. Novak being perhaps the most dynamic of them. Justin Randell Brooke plays Fred Turner, a hamburger cooker (grill operator) who caught Ray’s attention early on and stayed with the company and rose through the ranks to eventually replace Kroc as Chairman and CEO in 1977. He is shown to be mostly in the background and while he speaks a few lines of dialogue, they aren’t really memorable and his role is sort of undefined in the movie.

Kate Kneeland plays Ray’s secretary/bookkeeper, a role that doesn’t change much during the film, though we’re told she would eventually own part of the McDonald's Corporation. While I’m sure Kneeland is a fine actress, the women’s roles in this film are mostly background characters as business, in the early 50s , was still a male dominated arena.

The film, mostly shot in Georgia as a stand-in for California and the Midwest, is very involving and while it got fairly good reviews upon release, did not do well at the box-office during its theatrical run, earning less than it cost to make, $25 million. But new films don’t die and this will be around in various forms for years to come and if you have a chance to see it, you will be drawn in.

Ray Kroc liked to pretend he was the Founder of McDonald's.

If you really hate McDonald’s, and there are more than a few of you out there, then The Founder will just give you one more reason to stay away. Kroc stole the company, name and golden arches (Dick’s idea) out from under the true founders of the company. While I’m not a habitual eater there myself, I might also stay away, if it weren’t for those Shamrock shakes in March. I’m willing to overlook Kroc’s misdeeds for one of those.

Stubs - King Kong (1933)

King Kong (1933) Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack. Produced by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack. Screenplay by James Creelman, Ruth Rose. Run Time: 104 minutes (with overture). U.S.A. Black and White. Action. Adventure.

Almost as big as King Kong is the story of its creator, Merian C. Cooper. He is one of those larger than life characters that we don’t seem to have many of these days. Once a member of the Georgia National Guard so he could help down Pancho Villa, Cooper would go on to fly in World War I and even survived his plane getting shot from the sky in 1918. He would later volunteer as a part of the Kościuszko Squadron, which supported the Polish Army in their fight against Soviets between 1919 and 1921, even spending 9 months as a prisoner of war before he managed to escape.

Returning back to the states in 1921, Cooper, through his job at the New York Times, made the acquaintance of Ernest Schoedsack on a sea voyage to the Ethiopian Empire, where he met prince regent, Ras Tefari, later known as Emperor Haile Selassie I. He would later work with Schoedsack on the film Grass (1925), which was picked up by Paramount Pictures. A documentary, Grass follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Lurs in Iran as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures.

The film got the attention of Jesse Lasky, who commissioned the two to make Chang (1927), another documentary, this one about a poor farmer in Northeastern Thailand and his daily struggle for survival, which Famous Players-Lasky, a division of Paramount Pictures, released. Cooper and Schoedsack also co-directed, with Lothar Mendes, The Four Feathers (1929), which starred Richard Arlen, Fay Wray, and Clive Brook and was produced by David O. Selznick.

But flying never quite left Cooper, because, in 1926, he helped form Pan American Airways with John Hambleton. During his time on the board, Pan Am, as the company was called, established the first regular Trans-Atlantic service. But you can take the boy out of Hollywood, but not Hollywood out of the boy and Cooper’s interest returned to filmmaking. While still on the board at Pan Am, he started to develop the screenplay for what would become King Kong.

After reading The Dragon Lizards of Komodo (New York, 1927), a nonfiction book written by his friend, W. Douglas Burden, in which Burden describes his exploration of the East Indian island of Komodo and his study of the rare dragon lizards that inhabit the island.

In a letter to Burden written in 1964, Cooper states: “Then one day, after one of my conversations with you, I thought to myself, why not film my Gorilla ... I also had very firmly in mind to giantize both the Gorilla and your Dragons to make them really huge. However, I always believed in personalizing and focusing attention on one main character and from the very beginning I intended to make it the Gigantic Gorilla, no matter what else I surrounded him with... I had already established him in my mind on a prehistoric island with prehistoric monsters, and I now thought of having him destroyed by the most sophisticated thing I could think of in civilization... My very original concept was to place him on the top of the Empire State Building and have him killed by airplanes... I thought that by mattes and double printing and the new technique called rear projection it could be done... I personally conceived and initiated development of the photographic process afterward called 'miniature projection'...I ... went ahead and wrote a number of outlines of King Kong in the years 1929-30.”

In 1931, while Schoedsack was in Sumatra filming a picture called Rango, David O. Selznick became the production head at the financially desperate RKO.

Meanwhile, Cooper tried to buy out MGM’s financial interest in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, hoping to make two films at the same time in Africa, Tarzan, and King Kong, but Irving Thalberg, head of production at MGM, wouldn’t play along.

Cooper then went to Hollywood in the fall of 1931 to discuss the possibility of making his gorilla picture. But he was turned down by everyone, though Selznick did hire Cooper to help reign in the production of Creation, a stop-action motion picture that had been in production for over a year.  While Cooper shut down that production, he thought Willis H. O’Brien’s stop-action techniques, first developed for First National’s The Lost World (1925), would be perfect for his “giant gorilla” idea, allowing the film to be made without costly shooting in Africa.

He made a proposal to Selznick to shoot a couple of scenes with the gorilla “to see how lifelike and terrible a character it can be made.” Selznick agreed but still had to push hard to get the studio’s New York executives to finance the one-reel test. With the go-ahead, Cooper assigned modelmaker Marcel Delgado to build a miniature, “almost human” ape figure. It took Delgado some a couple of tries, but he managed to make an 18-inch model which satisfied Cooper. The scene in the test featured Kong tossing terrified sailors off a log to their deaths, and Kong fighting an allosaurus. The scene was capped by the doomed men being eaten by giant crab spiders. (The scene was later edited from the film after a preview in San Bernardino because Cooper thought it slowed down the pace of the film.)

An attempt was made to try and make the setting for the film be as “realistic” as possible. After investigating scientific records and consultations with Paleontologists it was decided that the most likely location was an island off the Malay Peninsula, so backgrounds were painted with that in mind.

Production of the test reel began in January 1932. During its shooting, Selznick brought English mystery writer Edgar Wallace in to write a draft of the screenplay based on Cooper’s treatment. Unfortunately, Wallace would come down with pneumonia on February 10, 1932. While Cooper would reject the idea that Wallace contributed much to the story, some argue that his draft, written between January 1 and 5, 1932, details many aspects of the story that ended up in the film.

After Wallace’s death, other writers were brought in to work on the screenplay. One of those rumored to be have worked on it was Dudley Nichols, who would later write the screenplay for Stagecoach (1939) as well as other John Ford films. But that is only a rumor as no records indicate Nichols as involved. Another writer, Leon Gordon, is credited with being the treatment writer, but there is no evidence he contributed anything to the film.

James Creelman wrote two drafts of the screenplay but quit over differences with Cooper, who in turn hired Ruth Rose, Ernest Schoedsack's wife, to complete the screenplay. While not a novice writer, this was her screenplay debut. She simplified the story and eliminated some scenes Creelman had written, such as Kong’s trip to New York. Cooper instructed her to put her husband and himself in the story, so it said that the character of Jack was modeled on her husband and Denham was based on Cooper. Cooper also wanted to take their time introducing Kong, being sure to explain everything before Kong appears so there is no need afterward.

While the cast seems synonymous with the film, they were not the first choices of the producers. Fay Wray, who had worked previously with the filmmakers, was far from the first choice. Cooper first thought of Jean Harlow for the Ann Darrow part and had also asked Dorothy Jordan, his wife-to-be, but was turned down by both women. Joel McCrea was the first actor approached about the role of Jack Driscoll, but Cabot was chosen because it was thought he would be a better fit for the rigors of the role.

During production, Cooper concentrated more on technical scenes, including the later New York, jungle, and ship scenes, while Schoedsack directed the remaining sequences, including the village scenes and some of the New York footage. The scene depicting the sacrificial ceremony, which involved hundreds of extras, three camera crews, a flotilla of costume and makeup personnel and sixty-five electricians, was shot by Schoedsack in one night. Live action sequences were shot beginning in June 1932 in three and four week stretches with weeks off in between. In some cases, filming went on non-stop. Fay Wray, in her autobiography, recounts that she spent twenty-two straight hours on her test reel scene. The animation crew, in order to achieve a constant look to any scene, would work continuously as well. The film was in production for eight months, concluding in February 1933.

With a long production schedule, then as now, costs were of concern. After a successful test reel, RKO gave Cooper a $500,000 budget, but that would rise to $672,000 before all was said and done. Selznick is even quoted as saying that he squeezed monies from other RKO productions to finish the picture. They even used sets from one film, The Most Dangerous Game (1933), which Schoedsack was shooting during the day with Armstrong and Wray. Sets from Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings were repurposed to serve for the village sequences. Those sets would later be burned as part of the burning-of-Atlanta scene in Selznick’s Gone With the Wind (1939).

One way the studio hoped to save money was to have studio composer Max Steiner re-use music from other productions. But Cooper insisted that Steiner write an original score, offering to pay him out of his own pocket. Steiner’s score took 8 weeks to compose and recording required a large 46-piece orchestra. The cost ended up being $50,000. Parts of his score would also find their way into other films including The Son of Kong (1933) and White Heat (1949) among others.

The film opened on March 7, 1933, in New York. The Los Angeles premiere got caught up in the politics and finances of the day. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President that year, he called for a Bank Holiday, which caused a week delay in the LA opening as well as a drop in the price of tickets to the premiere from $5.50 to $3.30.

Filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is sitting on a boat in New York harbor. He is leaving the next day to start production on a new wildlife film in some faraway place that not even Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) of the Venture knows where they’re going. Because he’s being so mysterious about the film, he is having trouble finding an actress to play the lead in his film. Having a woman in one of his jungle films is not his idea, but he needs a love interest to sell tickets.

Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) saves Ann Darrow (Fay Wray)
from being arrested for stealing an apple from a newsstand. 

When agents let him down, Denham goes out into the streets to look for a possible actress. His search proves futile, that is until he happens upon a penniless woman, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), who is caught stealing an apple for her dinner at a news stand. Ann is hungry enough to listen to Denham’s pitch over dinner and just desperate enough for work to accept his offer of leaving the next morning on a long sea voyage.

First Mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) is not happy about
a woman onboard the ship, but still falls in love with Ann.

During the voyage, First Mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), a bit of misogynist about women onboard a man’s ship, falls in love with Ann.

Denham does some camera test with Ann...

Who practices her reactions to something big on deck.

Besides some camera tests and coaching Ann on screaming in horror, Denham is mum on his plans for the ship’s final destination. Finally, after weeks of secrecy, Denham tells Englehorn and Driscoll that they’re headed for Skull Island, which can only be found on a map in his possession. Denham is after a mysterious creature he’s heard stories about that lives there: Kong.

Denham tries to capture a native ritual on film.

When the ship finally anchors offshore, they see a native village. A landing party goes ashore, they see that a high wall separates the village from the jungle. They witness as native men dressed in gorilla skins dance and a young native woman is being prepared as a sacrifice, of the “bride of Kong.” When Englehorn, who understands the native’s language, attempts to make friends so that the camera-wielding Denham can shoot the scene, the native chief (Noble Johnson) stops the ceremony. Seeing the blonde Ann, the chief states cryptically that she would make a good bride for “Kong.” The chief offers to make a trade for the “golden woman.” Denham has no interest in trading Ann and orders his group back to the boat.

When he sees Ann, the native chief (Noble Johnson) wants to make a trade for the "golden woman."

But that night, a band of natives sneak aboard the Venture and kidnap Ann. When the crew discovers she’s gone, they go ashore in time to see her tied to an altar as the offering for Kong. At the sound of a gong, a large gorilla-like ape of enormous proportions emerges and carries her off into the jungle.

Kong emerges from the jungle when he hears a gong and carries Ann away.

The men open the gates and take chase, following broken branches Kong leaves in his wake. They find that Kong is not the only large prehistoric creature on the island. A horny-tailed stegosaurus charges at them, but they manage to kill it with their guns and gas bombs.

Ann is helpless in Kong's large hand.

The group constructs a raft and sets out across the swamp after Kong, but a Brontosaurus capsizes them and they lose their supplies and several men. The survivors make it to shore and flee through the jungle, but soon encounter Kong, who tries to stop them from following him across a ravine by shaking them off a fallen tree the men are using as a bridge. Only Driscoll and Denham, who are on opposite sides of the ravine, survive.

Kong shakes the log that the men have used as a bridge, sending most to their deaths.

Meanwhile, Ann, whom Kong has left in the nook of a tree, is threatened by a tyrannosaurus. Hearing her screams, Kong comes to her rescue and kills the dinosaur.

Kong battles a tyrannosaurus that threatens Ann.

While Denham goes back to the village to get more men and ammunition, Driscoll continues to follow after Kong and Ann. In Kong’s lair, a mountain cave, Ann is once again about to be attacked, this time it’s a snake-like Elasmosaurus and once again, Kong comes to the rescue, wrestling the snake and ultimately killing it.

The prehistoric encounters don’t stop there. When Jack accidentally makes noise, Kong goes to investigate, leaving Ann unprotected. A Pteranodon swoops in and tries to fly away with Ann, which means Kong has to kill it. Distracted, Kong doesn’t notice Driscoll, who reaches Ann and they climb down a vine dangling from the ledge of a cliff. Kong notices and starts to pull them up. To thwart him, they let go of the vine and fall unharmed into the water below.

Kong rampages through the native village.

Driscoll and Ann run through the jungle back to the native village where Denham, Captain Englehorn and the rest of the crew are waiting. Kong follows them, breaking the gate, and rampages through the village. Out on the shore, Denham, who is determined to bring Kong back with him, knocks the big ape unconscious with his gas bombs. Seeing Kong unconscious, Denham gets the idea that he could make a fortune and decides to carry Kong on an enormous raft back to New York.

Back in New York, Kong is put on display as The Eighth Wonder of the World.

Back in New York, Kong, who is chained and shackled, is to be presented at a Broadway theater as "Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World." Denham has Ann and Jack, who are now a couple, brought up on stage with him. He then invites a group of press photographers to take their photo. But Kong thinks the flashes are actually an attack and thrashes about, breaking loose from his chains. The audience, filled with terror, flees out of the theater. Ann is taken away to her hotel room on a high floor.

Kong climbs the side of the Empire State Building with Ann in his hands.

Kong climbs up the side of the building and reaches in through the window and snatches her. Carrying her in his hand, Kong rampages through the city, wrecking a crowded elevated train before climbing up the Empire State Building, then the tallest in the world, like he was back in the jungle.

Once on top, Kong faces biplanes sent up to shoot him down.

Denham urges city officials to call in planes with machine guns to shoot it down. When he reaches the top of the building, Kong is attacked by four military airplanes. Setting Ann down, Kong battles the planes, managing to down one of them in the process. But outmanned and outgunned, Kong finally is wounded by a plane flown by Cooper with Schoedsack as the gunner. Kong lets go of the building, falling to his death and into the street below.

Pilot (Merian C. Cooper) and gunner (Ernest B. Schoedsack) shoot Kong down.

Ann and Jack are reunited when Denham pushes through the crowd surrounding Kong's body When a policeman remarks that the planes got him, Denham tells him, "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast."

Kong lies dead on the streets of New York City, while Denham looks on.

Advertising for King Kong was elaborate and costly. RKO even went so far as to buy thirty minutes of air time from the National Broadcasting Company and, on 10 Feb 1933, broadcast a thirty-minute radio “teaser” for the film. The special featured a specially written script and sound effects. In their Feb 1933 issue, Mystery magazine even ran a serialized version of the story, which they advertised as “the last and the greatest creation of Edgar Wallace.”

Despite the Great Depression, the film opened and was an enormous success, earning $2.8 million at the box-office. It would be released in 1938, 1942, 1946, 1952 and 1956. The film would be so successful that a sequel was rushed into production and released the same year: The Son of Kong (1933). The creative team of Cooper, Schoedsack, Rose and Armstrong would return to big apes with Mighty Joe Young (1949).

As with any successful original story, King Kong would be remade more than once. Not counting Japanese films that used the character and an American/Japanese anime series “The King Kong Show,” American studios can’t seem to get their fill.

Paramount Pictures released King Kong (1976), made by Dino De Laurentiis, starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange. There was even a sequel to that film, King Kong Lives (1986). Peter Jackson, fresh off the success of his Lord of the Rings trilogy, used his newly found clout to make his own version at Universal, King Kong (2005), starring Jack Black, Naomi Watts, and Adrien Brody. Not to be outdone, Warner Bros. released Kong: Skull Island (2017), a reboot of the story, starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson and, of course, John Goodman. The studio has plans to make yet another sequel to this film, Godzilla vs. Kong, slated for 2020.

Even though the special effects are low-tech by today’s standards, the achievement is still somewhat remarkable. It was good enough to convince and terrify its original audience and to be seen over and over again throughout the years.

The acting, on the other hand, is not as good as the special effects. Robert Armstrong will never win any awards for his acting chops, though he does have 183 acting credits to his name, spanning from The Main Event (1927) to For Those Who Think Young (1964). He’s likeable enough as Denham, though he does not take away from the main character, a stop-action animated ape.

Likewise, Bruce Cabot was not going to steal focus away from Kong either. An actor in the vein of John Wayne, Cabot would go on to become one of “Wayne’s Regulars” appearing alongside him in such films as Angel and the Badman (1947).

Perhaps the most memorable cast member is Fay Wray, who had been making films since the short Gasoline Love (1923) and would continue acting until Gideon’s Trumpet (1980). Fay is cute as Ann Darrow and has more presence as any live actor in the film. But again, she is no match for the King, in this case, Kong.

Fay Wray in her memorable turn as Ann Darrow in King Kong.

The original Kong has sadly not aged well. He is not as scary to modern audiences as I’m sure he was in 1933. Some of that has to do with the progression of filmmaking since. Computer animation has replaced stop-action animation as the primary form of special effects, making him look sort of homey by comparison with modern monsters. While I am not a dinosaur expert, I would imagine that many of the concepts that seemed relevant about them back in the 1930s have been altered or disproven by now. But if you’re trying to watch this for its scientific accuracy, then you shouldn’t watch it.

At the time King Kong was released, the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression and audiences were eager to spend an hour and a half not thinking about it. Ann Darrow is truly one of them and is plucked up and taken on the adventure of her life. By following her, audiences were able to escape high unemployment and poverty for a while. This is the power of the movies, to transport us away to some place we’ve never thought to go and let us leave the worries of daily life in the lobby.

Watching a classic film is not always about escapism. There is a historic quality about some films that beg for them to be watched. The original King Kong is one of those films. A bigger than life story from a bigger than life man, Merian C. Cooper’s film has aged, but it is still a film worth watching. While not suitable for really small children, it is a film most of the family can and should enjoy. Word of caution, though, if you’re planning to eat dinner while you watch, be aware that there is an overture before the film starts and you might find yourself through with dinner before the movie actually gets going.