Saw this film many times in the 1970s,1980s on television but
TCM aired tonight a longer version with overture music and more importantly,
Kong ransacking the native village prior to being put down by the gas bombs. We see him tearing apart and squashing a few natives underfoot and tearing up some model thatch structures. Very interesting.
No commercial breaks and it is a full 120min airing tonight.
I love TCM for including footage that used to be edited. Oddly, in the Fifties, when this often was aired as filler, I vividly recall many of those moments that were edited later. Maybe they didn't watch the old movies that were used in the days before lots of programs/series.
My younger sister and I, along with our cousins, would gather and our grandparents' house, where we would sit in a semi-circle on the living room floor, enraptured by our umpteenth viewing of "King Kong".
I recall seeing it in the late Sixties and into the Seventies. I would wonder if I imagined the scenes. Now, I know I didn't!
I'm watching it right now on TCM and wondered how many times I've seen it. I now it must be far past the "century" mark. I'm in my early 60s and have watched it many times each year, as I also have it videotaped, along with "Son of Kong". I don't doubt that I'm heading for the 200th time! I shall never tire of it.
However: What a weird programmer! "King Kong" is erotic to him?! Keep away from that man!
(W)hat are we without our dreams?
Making sure our fantasies
Do not overpower our realities. ~ RC
With you all the way on this one - dozens of TV viewings, videotape, Son of Kong, etc. I saw the Janus Films version with the restored footage in a theatre in the 1970's, and the sight of Kong on a big screen instead of an 18" B&W Philco blew me away.
shareI've always wanted to see it on a theater screen! I was trying to imagine while watching it the other night what that was like for people in the Thirties. Only those who might have seen "The Lost World" would have been a bit prepared.
(W)hat are we without our dreams?
Making sure our fantasies
Do not overpower our realities. ~ RC
I saw it on the big screen at a classic movie night five or six years ago. It was really incredible.
BTW to the OP. You hadn't seen that footage? Do you mean where he puts that one native in his mouth and he steps on the guy's head? I've never seen a copy where it wasn't in there.
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I did sixty in five minutes once...
Kong's more brutal moments, plus the scene where Kong peels Ann's clothes off, were censored in a 1938 rerelease. These censored prints debuted on TV in 1956, and the cut footage was discovered sometime in the 70s. The restored version didn't become widely seen until about 1978 or '79.
Yes! The scenes were cut for the rerelease. We are fortunate that the man who made the cuts had the foresight to hold onto them and take them home.
sharephillipsdan83:
Kong's more brutal moments, plus the scene where Kong peels Ann's clothes off, were censored in a 1938 re-release. These censored prints debuted on TV in 1956, and the cut footage was discovered sometime in the 70s. The restored version didn't become widely seen until about 1978 or '79.
michael-abatemarco:
Yes! The scenes were cut for the re-release. We are fortunate that the man who made the cuts had the foresight to hold onto them and take them home.
Hays office censorship certainly resulted in some scenes being cut from "King Kong".
I may be wrong but some of the scenes where Kong was stumping and chewing on natives were said to have been edited out during the late thirties There was also a scene where a giant spider attacks some of the characters was removed by RKO because it grossed out test audiences. The scene has never been found.
An even worse problem with old movies, including "King Kong", is that they bought up by TV distributors who made further cuts. TV schedules result in time limits and local TV channels use a lot of it for used car lot and fast food place ads. A ninety minute movie would often be edited down to an hour. When TCM started running classic movies without cuts I was often surprised with how much I hadn't seen before.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
I agree with the statement about the TV cuts; we've all noticed entire scenes cut from movies that render them senseless. But I wonder how a 1933 audience wold have reacted to some of the scenes we take for granted. Would they have been horrified in 1933 at the sight of Kong biting a native? Remember that people supposedly passed out at Dracula screenings in 1931, and we consider that picture to be kids' stuff now. Go back to the classical stage, and the Greeks never showed violence on their stages; violent acts were always off stage and were related by other actors.
shareDuring the "Pre-Code" Hollywood era, you might see a married couple having sexNo... I think I would have remembered that. share
The movie was made in 1933 and I was born in 1946 and I remember seeing it in a theater so it must have been re-released in the early 50's. I also remember him removing Ann's dress along with him chewing people up. I began to wonder if I had a faulty memory because I never saw those scenes again. But now I am watching a restored version that was shown on Turner 12/10.16 and all those sense that I thought I imagined were in the restored version, thank you Turner network
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