Carl Denham and the Movie of Mystery

Has anyone ever figured out just exactly what movie Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) was planning on making in the original, and awesomely great, King Kong (1933)? I love the movie and, honestly, a part of its appeal is trying to decipher from the available evidence just what kind of movie Denham planned on making anyway.

Let's see, first we've got his reputation. It most definitely precedes him as an adventurous filmmaker who films dangerous animals, and dangerous situations, in the wild. Kong was made in 1933 and Trader Horn was still pretty fresh out of the hit factory from 1931 so I'm thinking he does movies like that. Also, as far as his reputation goes, he wastes little time discussing anything that doesn't concern how absolutely fucking awesome, courageous and big-cocked he is. Yeah, he's pretty high on himself.

Second, he just has to have an actress. This seems very important to him. When the actress he has backs out (or so he says), he goes to skid row to exploit - I mean - find a young woman, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) to fill the role.

Third, we've got the island. He knows about it and Kong and judging from the gas bombs he brought he knows about how big Kong is, too.

So, he makes adventures and his alleged movie involves a female character and Kong. Now, we know how these elements come together in the movie we're watching, but Carl is utterly taken by surprise by this outcome (in which Ann is ritualistically offered up to Kong who takes her to be his own). He didn't see that coming at all so clearly that wasn't his plan for the movie. Which leaves us with the footage he shoots of Ann on the ship pretending to see something horrifying and screaming and the footage he gets of the Kong Wedding Rites before he and his ship mates are discovered.

To make matters worse, once he captures Kong he stops filming altogether. Rather than shoot a movie he simply puts Kong on some kind of Vaudeville/Hollywood Revue Mash-Up Tour. That, as we all know, ends in what can only be described as both a categorically and definitionally epic fail. When your revue ends up causing city-wide panic and the destruction of entire sections of subway line, brother, you done fucked up bad.

And all of this, surely, cost a fortune. So, what can we conclude? Well, I'll be honest: I think Carl Denham is a total fraud, a pipe dreamer of the pipe dreamers, a director who sells you a river and delivers a wet rag. See, I think that footage he shot was the movie. I think that's all he had. Seriously. You know that whole rigmarole he gives Ann on the ship about how he had to fire his last cameraman because he was afraid of a charging rhino? That's pretty convenient, isn't it? Sure, that's why he has no cameraman. He had to fire him because he was a coward. I mean, he's this great filmmaker but he's got no crew. None! No actors, no cameraman, no nobody. He's by himself.

"Oh well, the boom operator was lily-livered and the sound man, uh, he was, uh, really stupid. Yeah, he was stupid! So I fired him, too. And the actors, um, well, uh, they all quit on me..." And so on. Carl keeps inventing reasons why no one is working with him, and they're all, coincidentally, centered around the fact that nobody is as bloody goddamned awesome as he!

Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, the financier he conned into backing the whole damn thing is learning a lesson both valuable and heartbreakingly difficult. I imagine the conversation with his lackey going something like this:

Lackey: "Sir, the Denham movie's finished. He sent us the completed reel."

Financier: "You mean, reels, plural."

Lackey: "No sir, reel. It's four minutes long."

Financier: [stares dumbfounded, struggles for words] "Wh... what is it?"

Lackey: "It appears to be two or so minutes of an unidentified woman screaming on a ship and a lot of people in tribal garb dancing around a woman on a platform."

Financier: [blinks, stares into space momentarily before speaking again] "So... we've still got a lot of money left over then, right?"

Lackey: "No sir. He went 580 percent over-budget."

Financier: "..."

Lackey: "Sir?"

Financier: [stares blankly out window and slowly, almost imperceptibly, utters...] "fuuuuuuuuuck."

Lesson learned, the hard way. When Carl Denham shows up at your door and says he has a plan, run. He may promise you riches, fame and glory but all you'll end up with is a destroyed city, a tarnished reputation and stock footage even Ed Wood couldn't use. When your dreams lay shattered on the floor, and Denham was involved, you can be sure of one thing: It was bullshit killed the beast.

"Perhaps, one day, we will be friends..."

"Someone remind me why we made this door so big."

Since King Kong's release in 1933, viewers have asked, sometimes mockingly, "If you built a massive wall to keep Kong out, why, in God's name, did you make a door big enough for him to get in?!" It's a logical question. After all, if any one of the villagers needs to get outside to take a stroll or have a picnic it's a simple matter of installing a 7 foot door, or doors, along the wall. Building a conveniently sized 40 foot door seems to defeat the purpose of the wall. But maybe not.

I believe the villagers are extending a welcome to Kong, albeit a guarded one. They are saying, "Now, right now, we are enemies. You are big and powerful and can eat us. Or step on us. Or even throw us around. But one day, far off in the future, perhaps, we will be friends. We will invite you to dinner and for you to accept and actually attend, you'll need to get through the wall. No problem. We already have a door big enough for you to do just that. It's locked right now but one day, we hope, it will be open."

Kong relieves himself outside the wall. Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

I imagine every time Kong came to get a fresh bride he looked at that door and thought, "I've got to get past my anger for these people. They want me to know I'm welcome but for now, at least, I cannot be, for I hate them."

Kong does eventually come through that door and gets gassed for his troubles.

What might have been.

"Up yours, jerkwads!" Kong gives everyone the finger upon his triumphant entry.

Unseen Images: Doctor X

Michael Curtiz directed Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, Charge of the Light Brigade, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Sea Wolf, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce and of course Casablanca. His style was suited to a more modern sensibility incorporating quick cuts, fluid non-static cameras and amazing interplay with light and shadow, often letting silhouettes (the most famous as Rick goes to his safe in Casablanca) tell the story. And yet for reasons that elude me he is not revered by cinephiles or auteurists and is barely known (if at all) to the mainstream moviegoer. One of the guidelines laid down for the auteurists by Andrew Sarris in his famous essay Notes on the Autuer Theory was in fact that it was preferable for the director to be working within the studio system. Since he was given whatever assignments came his way his style would be more easily discernible as he "rebelled" against his material. Curtiz worked with the studios. And he had style. Friends and family can attest to several occasions where a Curtiz movie unknown to me would be on Turner Classic Movies and yet it would seem instantly familiar. The first was The Kennel Murder Case, a Philo Vance mystery with William Powell made in 1933. As we came in half-way through and watched I was impressed by the quick cuts and rapid pacing. I remarked how modern it felt and how it seemed like the kind of touch Michael Curtiz brought to his movies. Sure enough, once it ended Robert Osborne came on and started talking about Curtiz. I wasn't surprised. Now I'd have to say if you can watch a movie unknown to you and guess the director within minutes that director is an auteur. But try getting a table at 21 using his name. Good luck.

Another example was the first time I saw Doctor X. I came into it late and, again, had no idea it was a Curtiz film but kept remarking how amazing the pacing was for a 1932 film. That combined with the fact that it is in color led me to state that it could run well even today. Again, when it ended I discovered it was a Curtiz production. His style was noted even back in the early forties by such critical luminaries as James Agee who was not enthralled by it. Agee felt the camera movement and fast pacing was too distracting to the story. As he said in his review of Casablanca, "Mr. Curtiz still has the twenties director's correct feeling that everything, including the camera, should move, but the camera should move for purposes other than those of a nautch-dancer." (What would Agee have thought of The Bourne Ultimatum?) He finally came around to Casablanca, but begrudgingly, stating, "It is obviously an improvement on one of the world's worst plays, but not such an improvement that that is obvious." And so it seems to me we have the case of a director using a style distinctly out of touch with the times surrounding him and thus, the disapproval. Today Curtiz' films do not seem too quickly paced to be distracting with too much camera movement reminding one of a nautch-dancer, and I'm not sure why Agee considered that a put down in the first place. Today his films are perfectly paced to hold the attention of the modern viewer while providing enough story and character study to satisfy the demands of the classic movie connoisseur.

For this Unseen Images I'm focusing on Doctor X because 1) It's October and 2) It's not a Curtiz film many people know about.

The plot involves a series of murders involving cannibalism and the investigation into them by Dr. Xavier (Lionel Atwill) of the title, who may be the killer himself. All the murders take place when it is a full moon so there is also much discussion of the effects of lunar rays. Investigating as well is a reporter, Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) who takes to Xavier's daughter Joan, well-played by Fay Wray.

The plot is twisted and contorted at times and doesn't have the simplicity or straightforwardness of story to make it a classic along with Frankenstein, Dracula or the later Wolfman which may account for it's obscurity today. But it has a fantastic climax, with the Moonlight Killer, covered in synthetic skin looking as creepy today as it must have then (make-up done by Max Factor), ready to experiment on Fay Wray with the three scientists who could help chained to chairs, forced to watch. It's ridiculous of course to the end but one does not seek out a film like Doctor X in the hopes of finding Ibsen in the details. One seeks it out for a thrill, and a thrill is what it delivers.

At a time when most films had static cameras and moved at a lethargic pace due to the still present learning curve with sound, Doctor X is a snappy, energetic film with enough camera movement and quick cuts to satisfy even the most jaded modern viewers. The scenes are filled with a menacing atmosphere, all the more impressive because it was not done in black and white, where atmosphere for a horror film's a lot easier to produce. And it is yet another tribute to the greatness of Michael Curtiz, who continues to languish in the realms of neglected directors along with other notable neglectees as William Wellman and Allan Dwan. Much of it probably has to do with Casablanca. Sometimes when you do a movie that big it takes over everything else in your career. It's as if someone said to Curtiz, "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is you've been assigned to direct Casablanca, which will become one of the most beloved films of all time. The bad news is you've been assigned to direct Casablanca, which will become one of the most beloved films of all time. Sorry Mike."