September 15, 2020

20,000 vinyl LPs 240: King Kong & Fay Wray

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King Kong vinyl LP front cover detail
album graphics & design by Bob Cato
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®
   

Today is the birthday of "Scream Queen" Fay Wray who wailed her way through the 1933 fantasy film, King Kong as Ann Darrow,  enamored by the gigantic gorilla, Kong.    


Fay Wray (Ann Darrow) 
King Kong vinyl LP front cover detail
album graphics & design by Bob Cato
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®


Kong & Ann Darrow
publicity photo


King Kong is an American pre-Code monster adventure film directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose was developed from an idea conceived by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. In addition to Fay Wray it starred Bruce Cabot and Robert Armstrong as Carl Denham. It opened at the at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on March 2, 1933, to rave reviews. It has been ranked by Rotten Tomatoes as the fourth greatest horror film of all time and the thirty-third greatest film of all time (link below).      


King Kong vinyl LP front cover
album graphics & design by Bob Cato
photo of album cover by Styrous®


The film portrays the story of a huge, gorilla-like creature dubbed Kong who perishes in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman, Ann Darrow (Wray) (link to plot below).         


Fay Wray - 1933 
 publicity photo

    
Canadian-born, September 15, 1907, Wray played bit parts in Hollywood until cast as the lead in the Erich von Stroheim silent film, The Wedding March (1928). She met Kong co-directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack when cast as Ethne Eustace in The Four Feathers (1929). Cooper cast her as Eve Trowbridge in The Most Dangerous Game (1932). After the RKO board approved the Kong test, Cooper decided a blonde would provide contrast to the gorilla's dark pelt. Dorothy Jordan, Jean Harlow, and Ginger Rogers were considered, but the role finally went to Wray who wore a blonde wig in the film and was inspired more by Cooper's enthusiasm than the script to accept the role. According to her autobiography, On the Other Hand, Wray recounts that Cooper had told her he planned to star her opposite the "tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood". She assumed he meant Clark Gable until he showed her a picture of Kong climbing the Empire State Building. On the film's 50th anniversary in 1983, one New York theater held a Fay Wray scream-alike contest in its lobby. Through an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, Wray attained international recognition as an actress in horror films. She has been dubbed one of the early "scream queens".    


King Kong vinyl LP front cover detail
album graphics & design by Bob Cato
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®


The graphics for the album design were by Bob Cato an American photographer and graphic designer whose work in record album cover design contributed to the development of music and popular culture for five decades. He was vice president of creative services at Columbia Records, and later at United Artists.


King Kong vinyl LP back cover detail
album graphics & design by Bob Cato
detail photo by Styrous®


King Kong contains stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien and a music score by Max Steiner. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.         

The film's romantic angle (rather than its jungle or animal angle) was played-up after animal films fared poorly at the box office in the early months of 1933. One exhibitor displayed a promotional still of Wray swooning in Armstrong's arms with the caption, "Their Hearts Stood Still...For There Stood Kong! A Love Story of Today That Spans the Ages!". Although the film's romantic subplot belongs to Cabot and Wray, established star Armstrong was chosen for the ad rather than the unknown Cabot.         


publicity photo 


Bruce Cabot & Fay Wray - 1933 
unused publicity photo 

        
While on the subject of her loves, in her book, On the Other Hand, Wray mentions an affair with writer Clifford Odets and that the writer Sinclair Lewis fell in love with her and wrote poems to her which she has included in the book.  


Fay Wray - On the Other Hand


Before King Kong entered production, a long tradition of jungle films existed, and, whether drama or documentary, such films (for example Stark Mad) generally adhered to a narrative pattern that followed an explorer or scientist into the jungle to test a theory only to discover some monstrous aberration in the undergrowth. In these films, scientific knowledge could be subverted at any time, and it was this that provided the genre with its vitality, appeal, and endurance. 


King Kong - 1933 


From the first time I saw King Kong when I was a little kid, each and every time I see it I feel great sorrow for the King who loved too well.        

Producer Merian C. Cooper explained the deeper meaning of the film. The inspiration for the climactic scene came when,
" . . as he was leaving his office in Manhattan, he heard the sound of an airplane motor. He reflexively looked up as the sun glinted off the wings of a plane flying extremely close to the tallest building in the city... he realized if he placed the giant gorilla on top of the tallest building in the world and had him shot down by the most modern of weapons, the armed airplane, he would have a story of the primitive doomed by modern civilization."        



    
Although the score for King Kong, written by Max Steiner, gets funky at a couple of places, considering the times, it is quite remarkable and was the progenitor of the Fantasy/Sci-Fi film scores to follow. He also wrote the score to the Kong sequel, Son of Kong.    
      

King Kong vinyl LP back cover
photo by Styrous®



King Kong vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos by Styrous®



King Kong was remade in 1976, produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. Jessica Lange played the role of the blond love of the giant ape but her name was changed to Dwan. The film was Lange's first and it made her a major film star. 


King Kong poster - 1976


King Kong has been translated into many languages . . .


 
King Kong poster - France  


King Kong poster - Italy


King Kong poster - Argentina


King Kong poster - Spain


King Kong poster - Czech


In 2004 Fay Wray was approached by director Peter Jackson to appear in a small cameo for the 2005 remake of King Kong. She met with Naomi Watts, who was to play the role of Ann Darrow. Wray politely declined the cameo, and claimed the original "Kong" to be the true "King". Before filming of the remake commenced, Wray died in her sleep of natural causes on August 8, 2004 in her apartment in Manhattan, five weeks before her 97th birthday. Two days after she died, the lights of the Empire State Building were dimmed for 15 minutes in her memory.             


 
King Kong vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


photo by Styrous®




photo by Styrous®

      
      
Tracklist:        
         
Side 1:

A1 - Main Title     2:12
A2 - At The Ship's Rail / Mysterious Seas - 1:01
A3 - The Last Port Of Call - 3:26
A4 - Approaching Kong's Island / Love Theme - 1:46
A5 - Jungle Dance / Anne Is Offered To Kong - 4:47

Side 1:

B1 - Rescue Team Follows Kong And Meets Brontosaur - 3:43
B2 - The Cave And The Snake - 2:52
B3 - Rescue Of Anne And Capture Of Kong - 3:04
B4 - And That Children, Is Why There Is No 6th Avenue "L" Today - 2:22
B5 - Death On The Empire State - 2:57

Notes:

Features "Steiner Out Of Kong By Cooper, a recognition by Ray Bradbury" editorial on the back of the album. Inner sleeve contains images of other United Artists Records releases. Vinyl label refers to sides as "Side 1" and "Side 2."

Max Steiner ‎– King Kong - The Original Motion Picture Score
Label: United Artists Records ‎– UA-LA373-G
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1975
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack, Score
       
       
       
       
Viewfinder links:        

Bob Cato       
Clark Gable     
Jean Harlow         
King Kong       
Jessica Lange     
Sinclair Lewis             
Ginger Rogers           
Max Steiner       
Fay Wray                
 
Net links:        
        
Cast        
Plot      
CBR ~ A Brief History of Kong           
Fandome ~ King Kong  
Hollywood Reporter ~ How the Giant Gorilla Has Evolved Since 1933 
Language Log ~ Nias, Komodo, and "Kong"         
Life ~ King Kong: When the Awesome One Showed His Might   
NY Daily News ~ Original Review: King Kong captures Radio City 
NY Times ~   
     Fay Wray, Star Who Stole Kong's Heart, Dies at 96   
     Fay Wray Writes The Story of Her Life   
NPR ~ King Kong: The Eighth Wonder of the World         
Publisher's Weekly ~ On the Other Hand: A Life Story       
Roger & Ebert ~ King Kong     
Rotten tomatoes ~ King Kong
Time ~ How King Kong Gripped Audiences, Despite Ham-Handed Effects 
USA Today ~ Why King Kong is one of the greatest films of all time
Vanity Fair ~ The Monkey and the Metaphor       
The Washington Post ~ A Hollywood love story         
 
YouTube links:        
        
King Kong ~       
      
movie & music ~      
     Full Movie  HD (1 hr. 16 mins.)           
     King Kong Theme! (1933)            
     King Kong Full LP Album (Max Steiner Score) (1933) (47:39)    

Documentary & Scenes ~               
     History of Kong Censored Scenes Documentary (25:53)     
     The Bride of Kong Scene        
     Kong vs. T-Rex Scene       
     Kong Undresses Ann & Unensored Scenes          
     Something in the Water Scene           
     Jack Rescues Ann Scene       
     Rampage Ravine Scene       
     The Lost Spider Pit Sequence        
     Kong Escapes Scene      
     Climbing the Empire State Building Scene        
     Beauty Killed the Beast Scene    
         

       
         
"It was Beauty killed the Beast!"
                    ~ Carl Denham
        
         
         
        
Styrous® ~ Tuesday, September 15, 2020       
       























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