Jack the Giant Killer (1962) is a United Artists feature film starring Kerwin Mathews in a fairy tale story about a young man who defends a princess against a sorcerer’s giants and demons. The film was loosely based on the traditional tale “Jack the Giant Killer” and features extensive use of stop motion animation. The film was directed by Nathan H. Juran and later re-edited and re-released as a musical by producer Edward Small.
Trivia:
Producer Edward Small re-released this film as a musical. Songs were dubbed onto the soundtrack. Some of the footage was doctored to make it look like some of the original cast were singing rather than speaking their dialog.
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This was producer Edward Small’s attempt to cash in on the huge success of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). He even hired the same director (Nathan Juran), hero (Kerwin Mathews) and villain (Torin Thatcher).
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The film was unreleased in the UK until 1967 and then received cuts for an ‘A’ certificate to edit the witch attack on the ship, Princess Elaine being attacked by the giant, and Jack’s fight with the dragon.
King Kong is a film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling gorilla-like creature called Kong who dies in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman. The film stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong and Bruce Cabot, and opened in New York City on March 2, 1933 to good reviews. Kong is distinguished for its stop-motion animation and its musical score. The film has been released to video and DVD, and has been computer colorized. In 1991, the film was deemed “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Trivia:
The models of King Kong built for the island scenes were only 18 inches high. When producer/director Merian C. Cooper decided Kong needed to look bigger while in New York, a new 24-inch armature was constructed, thus changing Kong’s film height from 18 feet on the island to 24 feet while in New York.
Body count: 40.
Special effects genius Willis H. O’Brien, who earlier used stop-motion animation of dinosaur models in The Lost World (1925), had created several dinosaur models for his unfinished production Creation (1931). Producer Merian C. Cooper sold the idea for King Kong (1933) to RKO executives in New York by showing them a test sequence using O’Brien’s models. The executives were stunned, never having seen anything like it, and green-lighted production of King Kong (1933) . O’Brien also used many of his “Creation” models in King Kong (1933) , including the T-Rex and the pteranodon (giant bird).
The project went through numerous title changes during production, including “The Beast” (original title of draft by Edgar Wallace in RKO files), “The Eighth Wonder”, “The Ape”, “King Ape” and “Kong”.
Both Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack had been wrestlers, and they acted out the fighting moves for the battle between the T-Rex and Kong in the effects studio, before the animators shot the scene.
This film was successfully reissued worldwide numerous times. In the 1938 reissue, several scenes of excessive violence and sex were cut to comply with the Production Code enforced in 1934. Though many of the censored scenes were restored by Janus Films in 1971 (including the censored sequence in which Kong peels off Fay Wray’s clothes), one deleted scene has never been found, shown publicly only once during a preview screening in San Bernardino, California in January 1933. It was a graphic scene following Kong shaking four sailors off the log bridge, causing them to fall into a ravine where they were eaten alive by giant spiders. At the preview screening, audience members screamed and either left the theatre or talked about the grisly sequence throughout the subsequent scenes, disrupting the film. Said the film’s producer, Merian C. Cooper, “It stopped the picture cold, so the next day back at the studio, I took it out myself.”
Originally, there was supposed to be an overhead shot of Kong falling from the Empire State Building. This was accomplished by adding Kong in post-production, falling towards the ground. Real footage of the building was used, but when the producers watched the scene they realized that viewers could see through Kong, especially as he passed the darker ledges, so it was cut. This clip has made its way into documentaries on the film but, more commonly, can be found in stills of the scene.
The trees and plants in the background on the stop-motion animation sets were a combination of metal models and real plants. One day during filming, a flower on the miniature set bloomed without anyone noticing. The error in continuity was not noticed until the film was developed and shown. While Kong moved, a time-lapse effect showed the flower coming into full bloom, and an entire day of animation was lost.
King Kong’s roar was a lion’s and a tiger’s roar combined and run backwards.
Close-ups of the pilots and gunners of the planes that attack Kong were shot in the studio with mock-up planes. The flight commander is director Merian C. Cooper and his observer is producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. They decided to play the parts after Cooper said that “we should kill the sonofabitch ourselves”.
Scenes cut over the years of release and re-release: Kong chewing on the natives of Skull Island; two scenes with Kong squashing one native each with his giant foot; the brontosaurus biting and throwing the men in the water; Kong putting a New Yorker in his mouth then throwing him down to the ground; a scene where Kong climbs a building, pulls out a sleeping woman with his giant hand, examines her, and when he finds it’s not Ann Darrow, tosses her down to the sidewalk below; and, of course, Fay Wray’s clothing being peeled off. The censor committee once stated that this was at least six minutes of editing. These scenes were all restored to the actual film in 1971. Of course, we still have yet to see the famous spider pit sequence, although in the 2005 remake, we get an idea of what it was like. Also, the 2005 DVD release of the 1933 film has Peter Jackson’s recreation of that scene.
Grossed $90,000 its opening weekend, the biggest opening ever at the time.
For the shots of the airplanes taking off from the strip, the pilots were paid US$10 each.
The native village huts were left over from RKO’s Bird of Paradise (1932). The Great Wall was part of the Temple of Jerusalem set for Cecil B. DeMille’s Biblical epic The King of Kings (1927). The Great Wall set was later reused in Selznick’s The Garden of Allah (1936) and finally redressed with Civil War era building fronts, burned and pulled down by a tractor to film the burning of Atlanta munitions warehouses in Gone with the Wind (1939).
The success of this film is often credited for saving RKO from bankruptcy.
Kong’s “official” height (from the posters) is 50 feet. He was closer to 19 feet tall in the jungle and close to 25 feet when in New York City.
The whole idea allegedly originated when co-director/co-producer Merian C. Cooper had a dream about a massive gorilla attacking New York City.
Was voted the 47th Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Edgar Wallace died in Hollywood in February 1932 while working on the story for this film.
There was more than one model of Kong used in the film. There are considerable differences between the Kong on Skull Island and the Kong in New York. For instance, the Skull Island Kong has a longer face, which the filmmakers thought made the ape look “too human”.
In his review in The New York Times (3 March 1933), film critic Mordaunt Hall incorrectly refers to Fay Wray’s character as “Ann Redman”.
Jean Harlow refused the lead part.
The laserdisc edition of the film includes the first ever audio commentary.
Merian C. Cooper was partially inspired by W. Douglas Burden, who brought the world’s first captive Komodo dragons to the Bronx Zoo in 1926. Cooper was intrigued how the once mythic, massive predators quickly perished once caged and displayed for the public.
As a child, Merian C. Cooper lived close to an elevated train which kept him awake at night when it clattered across the tracks. This was the inspiration for the scene where Kong destroys an elevated train.
The two-legged lizard that attacks Jack Driscoll was actually meant to be an aetosaur, a reptile from the Triassic Period. However, because of the high price of armatures (the metal skeletons for the puppets), RKO cut costs by not having hind legs made for it. As a result, the aetosaur has two forearms, no hind legs and a snakelike appearance.
Fay Wray claimed that she personally insisted that her character be a blond, and personally chose her wig at the Max Factor shop in Los Angeles.
Sensing a huge hit from industry buzz, MGM offered to buy the film outright from RKO for $1.072m (some $400,000 over its negative cost), figuring the little studio was reeling from losing $10+m in 1932. RKO was smart to decline the offer. The film smashed attendance records nationwide and ended up grossing $1.761m during its initial release. RKO would periodically, and extremely profitably, re-release the movie through the 1950s.
Jungle scenes were filmed on the same set as the jungle scenes in The Most Dangerous Game (1932), which also happened to star Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong.
Art drawn for the press book associated for the original release of the film was contributed to by actor Keye Luke, who was a highly regarded illustrator before he became an actor and whose works have appeared in films themselves, such as The Shanghai Gesture (1941).
The 2005 DVD restoration further details the risqué liberties of a 1933 pre-code film release in two scenes. The first is when Ann is on the ship’s deck while Charlie is peeling potatoes, and the second is where Denham is shooting some test footage of Ann (“Scream for your life, Ann, Scream!”). The thin material used for Ann’s dress and gown in both scenes makes it obvious that Fay Wray is not wearing a bra; a wardrobe decision that may not have made it past the Breen Code the following year.
Executive Producer David O. Selznick left RKO midway through production of this film. But Selznick’s last act of business at RKO – and probably his biggest contribution to the film – was to write a memo changing the name of the production from ‘Kong’ to King Kong (1933).
According to the book “David O. Selznick’s Hollywood” by Ron Haver, costume designer Walter Plunkett (later noteworthy for Gone with the Wind (1939)) worked uncredited on this film. Specifically, he designed the “Beauty and the Beast” costume that Ann Darrow wears while Carl Denham is filming her screen test.
Ranked #4 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 10 greatest films in the genre “Fantasy” in June 2008.
To keep in line with the use of most of the cast from The Most Dangerous Game (1932) the role of Jack Driscoll was intended for Joel McCrea. According to Fay Wray however, McCrea’s agents demanded more money so the role was given to Bruce Cabot.
It has been said that King Kong (1933) was the first Hollywood film to use a fully symphonic musical score. As memorable and effective as the musical score was, some have made the same claim about RKO’s Bird of Paradise (1932), released earlier. (Perhaps that claim should be revised to “the first memorable film…”) Regardless, Max Steiner, composer for both films (and many later classics, including Gone with the Wind (1939) and Casablanca (1942)) was a visionary, forward thinking man.
The character of Carl Denham was inspired by the film’s director, Merian C. Cooper. They both died on the same day.
When describing Kong to Fay Wray, Merian C. Cooper said “you’ll have the tallest darkest leading man in Hollywood”. She thought it was Cary Grant.
Premiered at the famed Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
The 56-cm-high model of King Kong used in the film sold at auction in 2009 for about $203,000 (US). It was originally covered in cotton, rubber, liquid latex, and rabbit fur, but most of the covering has decomposed over the decades.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) is an American slasher film. It is the fifth film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. The film’s general tone was much more gothic and dark than the films before, and used a blue filter lighting technique in most of the scenes. The film’s main titles do not display the “5″ which was used in all of the promotional material, TV spots, trailers, and merchandise. The main titles simply say “A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child“.
Freddy Krueger returns to deliver a whole new breed of terror in his most fiendishly perverse frightfest yet!
Unable to overpower the Dream Master who vanquished him in A Nightmare of Elm Street 4, Freddy (Robert Englund) haunts the innocent dreams of her unborn child and preys upon her friends with sheer horror. Will the child be saved from becoming Freddy’s newest weapon or will the maniac again resurrect his legacy of evil?
On DVD here!
For this eye-popping installment, director Stephen Hopkins (Lost in Space, Predator 2) enlisted make-up wizard David Miller (The Terminator), original creator of Freddy’s hideous visage. The result: a face that not even a mother could love, and terror beyond your wildest nightmares!
Trivia:
This is one the only “A Nightmare On Elm Street” movie where the famous song is changed. Original: One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, gonna stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again. Edited: One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, he’s back again…
Both horror author Stephen King and comic book writer Frank Miller were offered the job of writing and directing this movie.
During the sequence in which the nun (Amanda) is raped by the criminally insane, Robert Englund is wandering around in the background without his Freddy makeup—including one shot in which the camera lingers on him for a few seconds.
Lisa Wilcox’s name appears on the opening credits, but not on the ending credits. Due to this mistake, New Line offered her top billing on all promotional materials in fear of her suing them.
Bruce Dickinson, famed singer of heavy metal band Iron Maiden, wrote and performed the song Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter for this movie’s soundtrack. The song, later re-recorded by the band Iron Maiden itself, went on to be their first (and so far, only) #1 UK single.
Make Up Department Howard Berger … special makeup effects artist
R. Christopher Biggs … special makeup effects artist
Lynne K. Eagan … key hair stylist
Kathryn Miles Kelly … key makeup artist
Nedra Hainey … makeup artist: second unit
Robert Kurtzman … special makeup effects artist
David B. Miller … makeup artist
Gregory Nicotero … special makeup effects artist
Louis Lazzara … makeup artist: Robert Englund (uncredited)
Brian Wade … special makeup effects artist (uncredited)
Special Effects Department Gino Acevedo … effects crew: David Miller Studio
David Beneke … effects crew: Art and Magic
Howard Berger … supervisor: Freddy’s head de-merge effects
Paul Berg … prosthetics creator: Todd Masters Company
Doug Beswick … supervisor: “Diving Board” and “Phantom Prowler” sequences
R. Christopher Biggs … creator: Dan’s mechanical suit and Freddy’s bike
R. Christopher Biggs … special effects makeup
Brian Blair … effects crew: David Miller Studio
Theresa Burkett … fabricator: Doug Beswick Productions
Camille Calvet … effects crew: Art and Magic
Yancy Calzada … stop-motion effects animator: Doug Beswick Productions
Helen Cohen … special effects coordinator: Todd Masters Company
Mitchell J. Coughlin … effects crew: Art and Magic
Barry Crane … moldmaker: Todd Masters Company
Lisa Doering … effects crew: David Miller Studio
Ryan Effner … special effects
Mike Elizalde … effects crew: David Miller Studio
Mike Elizalde … sculptor: Todd Masters Company
Earl Ellis … sculptor: Ted Rae Effects Crew
Thomas Floutz … cosmetics creator: Todd Masters Company
Bruce Spaulding Fuller … sculptor: K.N.B. Effects Group
Mark Garbarino … prosthetics creator: Todd Masters Company
Mecki Heussen … effects crew: David Miller Studio
Robyn Jacobs … special effects coordinator: Todd Masters Company
Robyn Jacobs … special effects technician
Bradford Johnson … special effects technician
Lynette Johnson … miniature costuming: Ted Rae Effects Crew
Adam Jones … effects crew: The Character Shop Inc.
Robert Kurtzman … supervisor: Freddy’s head de-merge effects
Rick Lazzarini … creator: womb with a fetal view canal
Mark Maitre … sculptor: K.N.B. Effects Group
Robert J. Marino … prosthetics creator: Todd Masters Company
Todd Masters … “Gretta” prosthetics and supplemental prosthetic effects
Bud McGrew … effects crew: Art and Magic
Mike Measimer … moldmaker: Todd Masters Company
David Mesloh … armature machinist: Ted Rae Effects crew
David B. Miller … creator: Freddy’s baby and resurrection sequence
Dave Nelson … effects crew: David Miller Studio
Gregory Nicotero … supervisor: Freddy’s head de-merge effects
Scott Oshita … lab technician: K.N.B. Effects Group
Ron Pipes … lab technician: K.N.B. Effects Group
Jon Curtis Price … effects crew: The Character Shop Inc.
Ted Rae … stop-motion animation
Joe Reader … effects crew: The Character Shop Inc.
Mike J. Regan … effects crew: David Miller Studio
James Rohland … effects crew: Art and Magic
William Russell … special effects camera assistant
Andy Schoneberg … additional special effects assistant: Todd Masters Company
Stacie Sharp … special effects coordinator: Ted Rae Effects Crew
Shannon Shea … effects crew: The Character Shop Inc.
Brian Simpson … effects crew: The Character Shop Inc.
Mark Sisson … effects crew: David Miller Studio
F. Lee Stone … mechanical effects: K.N.B. Effects Group
Mark Tavares … lab technician: K.N.B. Effects Group
Candace Van Woerkom … seamstress: Todd Masters Company
Steve Wang … sculptor: Ted Rae Effects Crew
Chuck Williams … sculptor: Ted Rae Effects Crew
George Wong … effects technician: Doug Beswick Productions
Brannon Wright … effects crew: Art and Magic
Roland Blancaflor … special effects technician (uncredited)
Sandy Collora … creature effects crew (uncredited)
Richard Miranda … special effects assistant (uncredited)
Anthony Simonaitis … special effects foreman (uncredited)
Don Waller … special effects technician (uncredited)
Tom Williamson … animatronics (uncredited)
AJ Workman … special effects design: Chris Biggs shop (uncredited)
Visual Effects Department Robert D. Bailey … titles & opticals
Jammie Friday … animator
Tom Gleason … model maker
Peter Kuran … special optical effects photography
Jeff Matakovich … visual effects optical supervisor
Alan Munro … visual effects supervisor
Jim Aupperle … stop-motion crew (uncredited)
Chris Dawson … effects camera assistant (uncredited)
Robert Stromberg … matte paintings (uncredited)
Don Waller … stop motion animator (uncredited)
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962) is a Cinerama film directed by Henry Levin. George Pál was the producer and was also in charge of the stop motion animation. The film was one of the highest grossing movies of 1962. It won one Oscar and was nominated for three additional Academy Awards. Several famous actors, including Laurence Harvey, Jim Backus, Barbara Eden, and Buddy Hackett, are in the film, and it uses a rarely found feature in filming wherein an overlay of two separate screens was utilized to produce various effects. George Pal’s Puppetoons are featured as “the Elves”.
The film won an Academy Award and was nominated for three more:
Won
Best Costume Design
Nominated
Best Art Direction (George Davis, Edward Carfagno, Henry Grace, Dick Pefferle)
Best Cinematography
Best Music
Make Up Department Sydney Guilaroff … hair stylist
William Tuttle … makeup designer
Special Effects Department Jim Danforth … special effects technician (uncredited)
David Pal … stop-motion animator (uncredited)
Visual Effects Department Tim Barr … special visual effects
Wah Chang … special visual effects
Robert R. Hoag … special visual effects
Gene Warren … special visual effects
Jim Danforth … stop-motion animator (uncredited)
Jim Danforth … visual effects technician (uncredited)
Tagline: WONDERFUL THRILLS! ADVENTURE! ROMANCE!
