The great
success of King Kong even during the
worst of the Depression gave RKO the confidence to produce an inevitable
sequel. The speed of its release was unprecedented, a mere nine months after
the original at the end of that same year of 1933. The rush to capitalise on Kong fever however resulted in cut
corners, a much smaller budget and production schedule that showed in the final
result. Amongst the team reunited for it was effects supremo Willis O’Brien who
under the circumstances chose to leave much of the sub-par animated work to his
assistant and asked for his name not to be credited (although he is , in bold
font size, as Chief Technician).
The film betrays
the lack of expense firstly in the script’s structure, again written by Ruth
Rose, by being an exotic sea-faring melodrama sparked by Carl Denham (returning
Robert Armstrong) needing to escape an impending Grand Jury indictment and
constant shower of writs being served to him in the aftermath of Kong’s New
York rampage. The opening shot of the poster proudly boasting Kong’s debut not
only haunts him but will also do the same to us. “I’m sure paying for what I did to you” he says softly to it. He re-teams with the S.S. Venture’s old Captain
Englehorn, Frank Reicher, who makes him an offer to begin again in partnership using
the ship as a freight business. With Victor Wong once again as the
pidgin-speaking cook Charlie, they set sail for the Orient, landing in the port
of Dakang.
Armstrong
said he preferred The Son of Kong to
the original due simply to its greater emphasis on his character’s development.
He is probably alone in
shouldering this as well as the burden of Denham’s law-suits. Admittedly it’s true that the human story
very much focuses on him, his latent humanity and a delicately-developed
romance; but this is supposed to be a Kong film, promising plentiful ‘Hulk-smash’
special effects more than love among the Tropics. There is an early hint as to
how disappointingly the simian creatures will be respected when he and the
Captain take in a show at the port. They see a ropey stage act beginning with
performing chimps in costumes playing instruments, an uncomfortable sight if
you consider the cruelty of how monkeys can be treated for this type of entertainment.
The compere
is a moth-eaten alcoholic ex-ringmaster, played by veteran movie actor Clarence
Wilson, who then introduces to the rubes the charming ‘Helene’, Hilda in the
credits, to perform the song ‘Runaway Blues’. While this is obvious padding, it
gives us an opportunity to see the one true find of the film in the casting of Helen
Mack. She makes a beguiling and memorable leading lady, possessed of a still,
soulful quality and a streetwise wisdom behind her dark eyes that gives Son its only layer of heart and depth.
Mack later appeared in high-quality comedies, with Harold Lloyd in The Milky Way and the super-fast screwball
delight His Girl Friday. Here, she
endures the drama of her father being killed after a drunken brawl with
ex-Captain Nils Helstrom (John Marston) which results in their show-tent
livelihood being burnt down. She has nothing left to lose and after making a
tender impression on Denham, stows away aboard his ship.
The shady Helstrom
proves that he will do anything to get away as well. In return for safe passage
aboard the Venture, he persuades
Denham to send the party back to Kong’s home of Skull Island with a faked
promise of treasure there. Despite telegraphing his inherent dodginess
facially, he awakens Denham’s adventurous side as well as his greed. Helstrom was
the one who gave him the original map for his first voyage. (The fact this incentive
was never mentioned before is brushed aside). At least Hilda is smart enough
not to trust him. The ship’s crew are equally shrewd and mutiny at the thought
of re-living their monster nightmare of before. They pack Denham, Hilda,
Englehorn and, as an after-thought, Helstrom off in a life-boat.
Shamefully,
we’re already into the third act of Son,
thus testing our patience that we may have been sold a plodding ‘B’ picture programmer
in disguise. Once the principals wash up on the island, here the plot becomes all-at-sea.
Immediately, they are met by Noble Johnson’s tribal chief and his natives from
last time with such promptness it’s as though they’d been on the shore expecting
him since March’s King Kong premiere.
Once that obligatory cameo is dismissed, our cast row to another cave inlet
where we see a first glimpse of how much the effects quality has deteriorated.
In rushing this sequel out, the matte glass painting work that created sumptuous
levels and depth in the original is delivered here in noticeably sloppy superimposed
form.
More
demoralising is what comes next. Denham comes face to rear-projected face with
the small but familiar head of what emerges as Little Kong. “I never knew that Kong had a son” he
says with awe. Unfortunately, what passes for junior is a disappointment to his
legacy. Don’t get me wrong, Little Kong has a certain child-like charm. He’s
definitely a gorilla, albino, smaller in stature naturally and manages a few
gestures that are cute, yet the stop-motion is jerkier, much less finessed than
before, resembling a crude screen-test for the earlier film instead of building
on its amazing technology. As Denham helps free him from quicksand, Little Kong
emits odd all-too-human sound effects of cooing and grunting that don’t help in
suspending our disbelief that this is slapdash animation - in fact, it reminds
me of the facetious Kong creature in Flesh
Gordon.
(A more successfully-rendered
creature is the Styracosaurus that chases our heroes into a cave. It is
smoother and shown on screen just long enough to make an impact without
exposing any shortcomings).
The big
fight scene for Kong Jr is against a giant black bear, which intriguingly is made
bigger than him for dramatic effect. We may be meant to regard this as an echo
of his father’s titanic clash with the T-Rex in Kong, which could have worked if the animators didn’t ruin it with
the fatal decision to go for laughs instead of tense action. Mid-battle, Kong
falls dazed against a rock and does the rolling eyes and cartoon tweety-bird
reaction that robs him of any dignity. Moreover, he wins by merely chasing the
bear off with a tree-trunk. Kong Snr would have covered his face in shame. “Say, can he scrap just like his old man”, says Denham, showing he hasn’t lost his
instinct for turd-polishing sales hype. Poor little Kong sustains a finger
wound that Denham dresses with a bandage ripped from Hilda’s skirt (by her I
should add). This is a nice pathos moment slightly undermined by those of us
who notice it’s his middle finger and unintentionally has him ‘flipping the
bird’ for a moment. Kong rewards their Florence Nightingale ministrations by
shaking the coconut tree’s contents down in a shower for Hilda.
We then get
to the location of what actually turns out to be treasure, guarded by a huge
carved idol encrusted with jewels. Kong wades into another fight, this time
with a lizard-esque Nothosaurus, but it’s so hurried that when he tweaks its
lifeless jaw at the end (another reference to his dad’s playful curiosity,
post-T-Rex rumble) the move plays too quickly to score with us.
Helstrom
reveals his lie, leading to his comeuppance via a Cetlosaurus chowing down on
him which only leaves us the final set-piece, a frustrating effects sequence in
that it hints at what could have been a really powerful climax as the island is
sunk by a huge storm. Denham is rescued by Kong, to begin with in poorly-realised
long-shots of him hoisting the human onto a dry mound and then in an
almost-effective ending, is hoisted above the waves by the gorilla’s mighty arm
to be taken by his friends to safety aboard a small boat. The sharp editing suggests initially that the
show-man was going to die in a bravura showbiz finish by drowning with Kong, an
uncommercial ending to be sure, but arguably a poignant and poetic demise. By
salvaging Denham and wiping out Kong, it only reminds us that the undeserving
humans survive and that it’s never a good idea for gorillas to trust us.
Ruth Rose cannily
surmised that since The Son of Kong
was not going to compete with its predecessor on spectacle, it could at least on
the humour front. Whilst the broad comedy slapstick and goonery of his
offspring cheapens the attempt to create a worthy follow-up to King Kong, a lightness of touch is at
least partly successful in the romance between Denham and Hilda. When she coyly
suggests at the close that they might make a nice couple, combining their
treasure shares, he gently agrees with her. “It’s
alright”.
If only
Universal had the confidence to hold off a sequel until they could have made
the time and budget to produce a carefully-planned and better successor.
Instead, it’s a case of ‘how are the mighty fallen’…
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