Late Night Classics – King Kong Lives

November 10, 2010 is the day that we lost prolific film producer Dino De Laurentiis at the age of 91. He modeled himself after Samuel Goldwyn, and he truly was the last of the great movie moguls. His resume speaks for itself, and no one can deny he had a little Frank Sinatra in him; he did it his way.

His overblown grandiose spectacles are usually the ones I felt the most drawn to. I am not afraid to admit that I like a good bad movie, and Dino made more than his fair share. One of them being King Kong Lives [King Kong 2], a sequel to his own horrid 1976 remake.

What better way to pay tribute to Dino De Laurentiis but to find someone who not only met him, but an individual who worked on one of his pictures who has great stories to tell. Let me step aside for this one and let visual effects wizard Al Magliochetti take over with his witty and comical take on the bigger than life Italian showstopper.

Part 1: In Memoriam

A few weeks ago there was a major change in the film industry. You probably didn’t notice; most people wouldn’t. But there’s a person who’s no longer with us and it’s left a bit of a void whether you realize it or not. To those of you without a sense of film history and who believe that any film made before 1990 is worthless, you probably won’t care much about this individual, if you even knew of his existence in the first place. But he made his mark on the film industry and I sincerely doubt there’ll ever be another like him.

I’m speaking about Dino De Laurentiis.

Now, before you all start squawking, kindly hear me out. I know he’s made a lot of bad films. I know he’s made a lot of mistakes. It wasn’t that many years ago that I voiced the same shrieks that some of you are cussing out right now and for exactly the same reason. The guy had a penchant for making some not-so-great movies and he spent millions of dollars doing so. And it drove me nuts.

But here’s the thing. They were his movies.

We now live in a world of corporate branding, hostile takeovers and clueless, chickenshit studio executives who are terrified to gamble on original scripts since they don’t know what constitutes a good story. Nowadays everybody with the power to greenlight a movie is so terrified of losing their cushy jobs they’ll remake The Blob a dozen times over. Why? Because they can’t be blamed for a bad choice if they pick a script that was already successful once – and they can also pass the blame to somebody else if it tanks.

But Dino wasn’t a corporation. He owned his own studios. He answered to absolutely nobody. Dino De Laurentiis was, quite frankly, the very last movie mogul. And he took responsibility for every single misfire that was ever released with his name on it. He’s gone on record as saying “If a film is a success it is the director and actors who are celebrated. If the film is bad it is my fault, and I accept that.”

But he tried. And when he got it right he did pretty well. Nobody really realizes that Dino single handedly re-started the Italian film industry when it was pretty much decimated by World War II. Or that he took a shot on a struggling filmmaker named Federico Fellini and knocked it out of the park with “La Strada” – an absolute classic in every sense of the word which not only won the very first Academy Award for Best Foreign Film but is shown in just about every film appreciation class to this day. They shot in the streets with no money, no real actors and only the most meager of equipment merely because they loved making movies.

No, he’s remembered mostly for his bloated, disastrous epics like 1980’s “Flash Gordon” or the insidious 1976 remake of “King Kong” (and its equally heinous sequel “King Kong Lives”, which I’ll get to in a minute.) But did you horror geeks know he gave a shot in the arm to some of your favorite filmmakers when they most needed it and really put them on the map?

David Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone” – produced by Dino De Laurentiis.
Sam Raimi’s “Army of Darkness” – also produced by Dino
David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” – Dino
Mario Bava’s “Danger Diabolik,” Tom McLoughlin’s “Sometimes They Come Back,” Stephen King’s “Maximum Overdrive”

Dino, Dino and Dino.

My point being that the epic failures have cast far too much of a shadow on a lifelong career that not only turned out some really good films, but also started off or gave a boost to some of the best filmmakers the industry has ever seen, including Michael Mann, Sidney Pollack, Milos Forman, Lewis Teague, John Milius, William Friedkin, Robert Altman, Roger Vadim and even Ingmar Bergman. Funny thing, though. To Dino, the only real star of a movie was its writer – and in all my years in the film industry he’s the only producer I’ve ever heard of who actually respected the writer’s profession more so than any other job on the film set. He knew that any successful movie – any good movie – began with an idea; whereas most producers look upon the writer as a mere annoyance.

He was also self-taught, y’know. Before becoming an award-winning producer Dino De Laurentiis was an everyday ordinary Pasta salesman. Wanna know how many films that ex-pasta salesman personally produced in his career? Not “Associate Producer” or some secondary credit – but actually full-on produced all by himself.

Twenty? Fifty? Maybe eighty films?

Nope – try One Hundred and Sixty Six feature length films. Show me anybody else in the film industry with ‘nads like that. (As a comparison, Alfred Hitchcock’s entire film output totaled only 67 films.)

I was fortunate enough to be invited to Dino’s memorial service at Los Angeles’s massive Cathedral. When I finally got inside after wading through the literally thousands of people I was absolutely astounded that everywhere I looked in the massive crowd I saw a recognizable face. Not just actors, but directors, agents, executives, power brokers – you name it, they were all took the time out of their busy Hollywood lives to pay their respects. Even in death Dino packed in more celebrities than the Oscar ceremonies.

(And I have to admit, till my dying day I will NEVER forget Arnold Schwarzenegger doing an impersonation of Dino, sounding like a croaking-troll version of Eric Cartman with a really thick Italian accent and telling “Schwarze-NEGG-er” that the secret to success was in using the brains, the heart “anna the BALLS” – after which Arnold excused his language to the three Monsignors behind him amid the riotous laughter of the mourners.)

So, yeah, the guy made quite a few good films and more than a few bad ones. But he did them his way and as a filmmaker I have nothing but respect for that.

He definitely had balls.

Part 2: King Kong Lives – and it’s all my fault.

I got the job on King Kong Lives courtesy of Greg Nicotero, long before his KNB days. I believe he was at Dino De Laurentiis’s North Carolina studio working on a film called “Triple Identity” – which eventually became “Raw Deal”, as budget cuts only permitted  Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character to have two identities rather than the original three that were scripted. Such is life.

They needed modelmakers for King Kong Lives and I’d had some experience building miniatures for some New York-based projects, so I flew down to Wilmington, NC for an interview and was offered a job in the model shop for the princely sum of $10 an hour. There I was at the North Carolina Film Corporation AKA the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, AKA Dinoland.

It was a fun experience, and definitely educational on many levels. It was my first experience in an actual studio environment and it took a little getting used to. Because it was such a casual place it wasn’t unusual to turn around and suddenly see Kim Basinger curiously wandering in and checking out our work. There was one spooky morning where David Lynch was hovering over me wayyy too closely, like a malignant vulture while sipping a cup of coffee and not saying a word.

What was most interesting were the people. It really was an international crew, with Italian designers, British craftspeople, California supervisors, and local townspeople filling in the gaps – including a colorful group of reprobates from the work relief program at the prison down the street (led by a grizzled old toothless hillbilly sporting a Captain’s cap who insisted that he did the voice of Marvin the Martian and that Mel Blanc took all the credit. I am not making this up.) There was also some local nutcase who called himself Bulaka (presumably since he started every sentence with that word) who had apparently done far too much acid in his youth and was kind of like a cross between Jim Henson and Dennis Hopper. I didn’t see much of him after that unfortunate incident with the forklift.

I knew nothing about this project when I took the job – other than it’d been written by Ron Shusett, the co-creator of Alien. That was good enough for me. So it was actually a bit of a shock when I finally got settled in my apartment, read the script and discovered that it was quite possibly the worst script I’d ever read. There I was and a deal is a deal. At least that’s what I thought. I reported to work the first morning to find that my salary had changed and I was now making a whopping $7.00 per hour instead of the $10 I’d been promised. Welcome to Dinoland.

Except for the Californians, the people were wonderful. The locals were extremely warm and friendly, the Brits were hysterical. But the Californians, for some reason, thought that they were the only ones who knew how to make a proper movie and that the rest of us were all idiot peons who should be appreciative to be in their presence. Needless to say that caused a bit of friction. There was one nice guy from California – one Bill Bryan who was hired as a “foamsmith” to create Kong’s diseased heart which had to be removed in a massive surgical operation. Bill single-handedly created both the heart and surrounding chest cavity from sheets of soft foam, gluing and sculpting them with incredible intricacy into a very organic looking simulation. You may know Bill in his better known incarnation as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from the original Ghostbusters. Bill not only wore the suit but he sculpted it in the exact same way from sheets of foam.

I wound up moving over to the British unit where I was assigned to work with three other people to create Kong’s gigantic artificial mechanical heart. The two Brits on that unit were a lot of fun and were always telling stories of working on the James Bond films, since that was their usual steady bread-and-butter. The third person was a North Carolina boat builder whose first question to me was “do they really teach y’all up north that YOU won the war,” which I politely declined to answer.

It turned out that moving over to the British unit was probably better for my health since the Kong model shop was downsized not long after my transition into a space about 1/8th its original size, causing modelmakers to be taken to the hospital on the average of once or twice a week due to the inhaling of noxious fumes from all the chemicals in that enclosed space and that procedure actually continued through the end of production. In another instance we were all cutting 16-foot long blocks of Styrofoam with an electric wire when a bee happened to fly through the black smoke we were generating. It fell to the floor, dead. I’m amazed any of us survived at all.

The actual shooting was fascinating to me. It was the first time I’d seen a real international film crew all pulling together under epic circumstances. It was also the first time I realized that various actors could be somewhat unpredictable. At one point I was waiting for the crew to finish their setup so I could get back in to work out some final tweaks and I realized that Brian Kerwin was walking toward me with Linda Hamilton. I heard him say “So, yeah, when we shot that other scene you were standing right about here.” Whereupon he stopped right next to me and walked away, leaving Linda alone in my presence with nobody else around.

After an incredibly dumb and awkward moment where I had no idea what to say (yeah, I know, I was an idiot) she stuck out her hand and said “Hi, we haven’t been properly introduced, my name is Linda.” My retarded reaction was to respond in an Ahhnold voice and say “I thought your name was Sarah Connor.” The flash of murder in the eyes was almost imperceptible but I still caught it, followed by her angrily flipped her hair, twisting around and stomping off saying “You must have me mistaken for somebody else!” I was later told that she had a hobby of cozying up to various crewmembers and spending some quality time with them off set (ahem) but as I was still at the young and stupid portion of my life I did not recognize the situation for what it was. I tried to talk to her again at the wrap party and was even more rebuffed. Didn’t know she was bipolar at the time but I guess that explains a lot.

The director, John Guillerman really didn’t want to be there. I’d heard that his adult son had just died in some kind of an accident and he was trying to escape into his work but this really shouldn’t have been the project to do it on – plus the fact that he’d just recently come off the incredibly wretched “Sheena-Queen of the Jungle” which was hardly a pleasant experience. I just knew he was the guy who directed “The Towering Inferno” and I figured I could learn a lot from him.

The first time I heard him speak was when he shrieked across the stage in his British accent “WHERE’S THE FAHCKING MONKEY??” – as he was apparently tired of waiting for the performer in the Kong suit. It was a cry that was subsequently uttered so frequently I voted to have it put on the crew T-Shirt, (another slogan which was suggested by modelmaker Patrick Read Johnson of “Baby’s Day Out” fame – and who disavows any involvement with this project – was “King Kong Lives and It’s All My Fault.” Unfortunately that too was deemed somewhat unsuitable.)

Guillerman also had the best line I’ve ever heard of any director ever. During one particular screw-up he screamed out “Cut, cut, CUT – FAHCKING CUT! I’m not even gonna say CUT anymore I’m gonna say FAHCK!!”, and for the next several takes he did exactly that.

We also had Lady Kong – the costume of which was disturbing enough with her rubbery breasts that didn’t respond to gravity but the fact that there was a little bald Greek man in that costume made her love scenes with Kong downright unsavory. Combine that with the fact that for each of them there was a cadre of a half dozen puppeteers off to the side, each pulling on a four-foot tall lever which in turn tugged on a 20 foot long bicycle cable which finally caused an eyebrow or a cheek muscle in the ape masks to move about a half an inch. It’s quite possibly the most inefficient use of mechanics I’d ever seen, so much so that when Dave Kindlon (a master mechanical designer who designed Elmer’s internal workings for Frank Henenlotter’s “Brain Damage” among many other classic creatures) visited the set on a break from “Trick or Treat” (which was shooting at the same time) he had to run out of the stage to keep from laughing hysterically in the presence of Kong’s designer, Carlo Rambaldi.

And if Lady Kong was disturbing, Baby Kong was a downright disaster.

Now, mind you, Carlo Rambaldi was a nice guy but being pleasant doesn’t have anything to do with having any actual talent. Dino apparently used Carlo’s services back in the 1960′s in Italy and Carlo used to cobble together various little props in his garage for Dino’s projects. But in the mid 1970′s he apparently convinced Dino that he could actually build a 50 foot tall ape robot that would actually climb real buildings if Dino threw enough money at it. The monstrosity that came out of that meeting speaks for itself in Dino’s 1976 King Kong remake.

Anyway, Carlo’s idea was that Baby Kong have the proportions of a human fetus; that is to say have a proportionately larger head on a smaller body. The result of this notion was like a fuzzy life-sized bobblehead gone bad. The head itself wound up being larger than a beach ball and the eyes alone were the size of dinner plates. The front office ordered a camera test and the resulting footage was so awful the entire head was scrapped and rebuilt. To my knowledge no photos of this earlier Baby Kong were ever released but I managed to squeeze off one shot of the stunt head being worn by one of Carlo’s assistants during a lunch break. I figured posterity couldn’t afford to lose this one.

Carlo started from scratch and rebuilt a brand-new Baby Kong by cutting up old Kong masks and patching them together with a different look. There wasn’t really time for any other solution and he wound up staying up about 48 hour straight to get it accomplished in time for the scene to be shot. As he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken I asked if he’d be ok doing all this work himself. He just shrugged and said “Ey, if I getta sick, dey’s-a no movie.”

Dino liked to do everything big. Unfortunately “big” didn’t necessarily mean “better” in some circumstances and that applies to his building the largest backlit bluescreen on the planet. Granted, it was impressive but not only did it not work well because there was too much blue light all over the place, but you couldn’t shoot any sync-sound on that stage since the hum from the hundreds of florescent bulb ballasts behind the screen interfered with recording the dialogue. But it did look cool.

To say I was disappointed with the final product is an understatement, but it wound up looking pretty much as I expected. It’s an awful script that even the best direction and effects couldn’t rescue. I don’t think my name is actually in the credits and I’m still thankful for that.

As the years have gone by, however, there’ve been other attempts to cash in on the Kong legend, including Asylum’s opus “King of the Lost World” and this nightmare from Bangladesh.

Consequently, I no longer feel guilt about having contributed to the worst Kong movie of all time. In fact, after watching that clip again I’m feeling a lot better.