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Dwarfs in the Jungle - It's little known that in the mid-'70s, an era that saw Dino De Laurentiis throw wads of money at an insipid Kong remake, Universal had plans of their own to do a Kong epic. An optimistic Burns caught wind of the planned production and decided to get involved. "I tried to talk them into stop motion animation," he recalls. "Animator Dave Allen constructed a new Kong model and put together an 18 second test. I cut together a soundtrack from the original movie, and the finished product was very nice." Since Allen's studio let them use their facilities to do the work, they asked that the finished product be put on the company's promo reel. "That's how the people at Volkswagon saw it and decided they had to have Kong in a commercial," Burns said. "Dave worked on that as well. Ad people are funny - Kong was so impressive that nobody could remember that the commercial was for a car, so it didn't run for long." The newer Kong model, in perfect condition, now lives in a bell jar at Burns' home. Despite Allen's efforts and the presence of animation expert Jim Danforth on the payroll as a consultant, Universal nixed the costly stop motion option and decided to try an actor in a suit. Burns, of course, just happened to have a gorilla outfit, and a friend involved in the production made sure he got the call when it was time to shoot test footage. "It was a real experience," Burns recalls with a sigh. "Universal decided they didn't want to use my gorilla outfit, so they got the Bigfoot costume from The Six Million Dollar Man and put it on me. This thing was made for Andre the Giant, so they had to fold up the legs and arms - it really looked awful." Worse yet was the mask situation. Since Universal wouldn't expend the money necessary to do a cast of Burns' head, the makeup man was forced to sculpt an ape on a cast of Joe Don Baker. "He's a big guy," Burns noted. "I'm big rotund, but Baker is big giant. The mask was way too large and kept popping loose. They used a new kind of adhesive to secure it to my face - the kind of stuff made for holding artificial limbs in place - and at the end of the day they had to destroy the mask to get it off my face, which ended up looking like hamburger for weeks." The footage shot that day may never be seen, since Universal aborted its Kong production in the face of pressure from De Laurentiis. The question is: Could Universal have done a better movie? "The script was very good," Burns remembered. "It was set in the '30s, and very true to the original." The production values were another story. "They made a jungle and beach set, and I was to walk up and grab a Barbie doll that represented Ann Darrow. After one take, the director came over and said, 'That was nice, but on this next take, can you kind of shake and jiggle a lot so it looks like animation?'" Burns recalls laughing under his mask all day. "They brought back Clifford Stein, Universal's head effects man for years and years, to do this thing. I remember him saying to me as we stood near the set, 'I don't know why I ever came out of retirement to do this piece of crap!'" At some point, it was decided that a dwarf in the ape suit would save some money because they could build smaller sets. "Oh yes, he was there while I was there," Burns laughed. "I'd get done with my turn, and they'd put this guy on the same set to do his thing. The funny thing was that the dwarf was actually smaller than the prop trees! For much of the time all one could see was some stirring in the bushes until he came out to a clearing." As if it makes any difference, Universal also planned to use "Sensurround." Bad movie or not, the aborted Universal effort opens up intriquing collecting possibilities. Scripts are floating around, and enough pre-production had been done to mean that poster designs and set sketches were drawn up. Although no cash values can be placed on these items at the present time, look for the future of Kong memorabilia collecting to include Universal-Kong material as a "hip" and hard-to-get addition to legitimate items. Still the KingRecently a Kong one-sheet from 1933 sold for a whopping $52,000, testimony to the enduring commercial appeal of the unfortunate ape. King Kong is indeed cinematic royalty that has stood the test of time proudly. Unfazed by a "serio-comic phantasy" sequel (Son of Kong), numerous blank-eyed affronts by Toho studios (King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes), bungled attempts at resurrection (De Laurentiis' misguided remake and awful sequel, King Kong Lives), and initial disregard for its artifacts (today they see fit to put a naked Sylvester Stallone prop on the ceiling of Planet Hollywood, but in the '30s everything went into the trash heap), the frightening image of Kong continues to turn up in pop culture. A product of meticulous craftsmanship and superhuman behind-the-scenes effort, the film is broadcast on TBS and AMC so regularly that no one in this generation need suffer my long wait to see the real thing. Even children whose grandparents weren't yet born when the film was released identify the Empire State Building as "the skyscraper King Kong climbed." Rest assured that, machine gun-armed biplanes or not, he will outlive us all.
(c) 2006 John Michlig |
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