8mm Forum: LOOKING BACK AT KONG S8 DIGEST

This is topic LOOKING BACK AT KONG S8 DIGEST in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Laksmi Breathwaite (Member # 2320) on February 03, 2012, 01:27 AM:

Here is my review of the quality of my print and the movie.Print quality is sharp and crisp, with no yellowing or green tints anywhere. The black and white print is nice with good strong blacks and has no splices. The print has nice contrast and has very good sound track.I don't know if mountian or Black Hawk made this print but it came all the way from Ireland. And has a standard white box with some art work on the first box. This is a 3X 400 Super 8MM sound movie.The art work was a poster of a oil painting I never saw before showing Kong fighting the byplanes . It has a very long leader and count down on each reel, And the best scenes of the movie are on each real giving you a good clear digest. There is also some narration in a few places to give you the whole story. Here is the movie review.
King Kong may forever be the king of monster movies. A fantastic and lasting adventure, King Kong works on multiple levels. Although it was a spectacular feat in special effects for its time, the injection of, dare I say, "humanity" in this creature feature makes what could have been rather exploitative into one of the most riveting, and tragic, stories that has ever graced the silver screen. Although the effects may not be stunning by today's CGI standards, it is amazing just how well this ambitious 1933 film holds up in this regard, using stop-motion animation, rear projection, and many other old school techniques that, while not 100% convincing, still are a marvel to behold in the pre-computer era. It should go without saying, they created one of the great icons of the modern era, with simple story so primal, it goes right into the psyche and engages with a story everyone can relate to on a fundamental level.
The story concerns an expedition headed by famed animal and nature filmmaker Carl Denham (Armstrong, The Most Dangerous Game) and his mission to find out just what is on an uncharted island that is making the natives build great walls to keep it out. After finding the beautiful young starlet named Ann (Wray, Mystery of the Wax Museum) to be the eye-candy for his big piece, he and his crew head out to explore, only to find that the natives are about to sacrifice one of their women to some god they call Kong. The natives spy the golden-haired Ann and deem her to be more appealing for Kong, and in the middle of the night, steal her away for the sacrifice. Kong turns out to be a giant ape of unprecedented size, and he instantly becomes Ann's possessor and protector. Sensing untold millions can be made from his discovery, Denham seeks to capture Kong to return him to New York City, where people all over the county will pay money to see this Eighth Wonder of the World he has dubbed "King Kong".
Perhaps the one aspect of Kong that makes him different from typical movie villains is his vulnerability. If anything, Kong is a victim of circumstance, thrown from one world of violence into another, just wanting to live a life of peace with his newfound "bride", but everyone keeps trying to take her away from him. It's hard not to feel for the beast, especially when he has done nothing wrong, knowing nothing about laws or morality, other than survival of the fittest. Credit the filmmakers for making every effort to make Kong as facially expressive as realism allows, and especially in not going the route taken by other ape films in just putting a guy in an ape suit, which would have proven disastrous.
Despite some dated aspects to the film, particularly in the very pronounced post-silent era acting style of the performers and often corny dialogue, as well as a racial subtext that is hard to ignore outright, King Kong still remains to this day one of the grand spectacles of cinema, and also one of the most studied of metaphoric films in the world of psychology and sociology. Even though it is evident today that Kong is wholly an animated creation, nevertheless, there is a lot of heart that beats within this beast, and ironically, a certain beauty as well.
The phenomenal success prompted a hurried sequel later the same year, The Son of Kong.
Remade in 1976 and 2005. Also remade into a 1998 straight-to-video animated feature-length cartoon, The Mighty Kong.

[ February 03, 2012, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: Laksmi Breathwaite ]

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on February 10, 2012, 07:14 PM:

Thanks for the review!

That sounds like a good digest. 3x400 would be a nice length for King Kong in digest format. I never knew a digest had been made for this film.

I'm thinking maybe Mountain Films, but I could be wrong. Would love to know for certain who released this.

And thanks for taking time to post screen shots Laksmi, that always adds character to the review!

James.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on February 11, 2012, 05:20 PM:

That was one helluva revue and backed up by some good shots
from the film.The version you've got their Laksmi sounds very
much like the Mountain abbreviated release in separate 400'
spools each with a different illustrated box.The quality on the
first run of full length feature releases were taken from a 16mm
positive and the later run was done using a 35mm negative
which I understand was the same negative that the print that
Ray Harryhausen and Forry Ackerman viewed when they did a
special showing of KONG over here.The change from 16positive
to 35neg meant an improvement in print and I still have my copy
purchased from Bill Davison reviewer in Movie Maker magazine.
the film is still popular and full length prints regularly turn up on
lists.

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