King Kong Spider Pit Sequence - the lost models

[442hoeky]

Great job spotting all these props! Tell me you wouldn't love to get your hands on them!

[GrantTarredus]

Thanks very much for the work you put into this. Spotting props from vintage fantasy / horror & sf films in other films is always great fun for me. And you've got sharp eyes!

[19nisey69]

Interesting, it mentions the bear and triceratops, but if you look on the top shelf on the opposite side, you can see the stegosaurus too.

[boinx1234]

@19nisey69

I labeled it, along with Son of Kong, at 2:30.

[quicksketch90]

does anyone have a link to the recreated scene?

[hammerogod]

Cooper was responsible for a lot of footage being cut from the film.

Much of what could be found was replaced in the 70's.

Some was used as stock footage for The Black Scorpion and not added back into K.K.

Cooper felt that the footage made the movie lag...so sad.

And I think the Censors wanted parts removed.

While some of the footage did get back in the movie a lot of it is lost forever.

[Onceyoudie]

@hammerogod What a pity, huh? I’ll never understand how people can do this. I think it is very barbaric. All the work, all the time spent while making the film, everything this can be just burnt or destroyed. And, what is even worse, the people will never get to know about the talent. I’m a big King Kong fan, so this information made me really sad.

[Onceyoudie]

@hammerogod And, as you said, it is lost forever.

[jonasulrich]

thanks for this, man!

[chriscross584]

lucky peter jackson i heard he has a bunch of stop motion puppets from harry hausen but he is just mad because he cannot get his hands on willis obriens lost puppets from king kong and stuff ... i bet he play's with them secretly at home thumbs up if you think so too!

[Tareltonlives]

@chriscross584 Wouldn't you?

[DevilFish69]

You forgot a movie. In 1966 the large spider model (the one on the wall in "You'll Find Out'') appeared in a movie called "Women of the Prehistoric Planet". The film even used some of the miniature sets that were still available from "King Kong" as well. Its beleived that David Allen came into the possession of that spider model and used some of the armature parts to build some of the creatures for "Jack the Giant Killer". Most notably the tentacled sea serpant in that film.

[kstrat]

@DevilFish69: David Allen didn't work on "Jack The Giant Killer" . Jim Danforth did. I know in a old Starlog article Jim mentioned something about Howard A. Anderson the company hired to do the effects (who in turn subcontracted the animation to Project Unlimited) had lots of suplus parts etc from Kong that were used (much to his disappointment) in the construction of some the models for JTGK. I'm not sure if that included cannibalizing any surviving models for parts

[jasongsux]

Finding and compiling all these gems... Sir, your work is amazing. I salute you.

[coopercastille]

there 1 thing i do know about lost films,

if there's photos......they'll be found....

but if it's just a poster(no photos), then we're pretty much fucked.....

[bobszvetics1]

does peter jackson own a comb

[Tareltonlives]

I feel like e-mailing this to Jackson and WETA. This is AWESOME!

[boinx1234]

@Tareltonlives

.

Do it! And then post their response here.

[Tareltonlives]

@boinx1234 Thing is, I don't know how.

[Kingkongkessler]

it was never filmed!

[pylgrym]

Thanks a BILLION!! This is WAYyyy Kewwl!! Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi in the same scene! Geniuses at work, inDEED! Lorre and Lugosi in the same move? Richard Denning in his OWN spider pit? more revelations! SO great to know the magnificent KONG works of Crabbe, Delgado, et al didn't forever 'retire' - and it looks like many of these originals are in the right hands now, to be preserved for all time!

[sanfranman123]

Great work!

[DinoDude16]

wait so there were 2 spider models?

[wahoo76]

This was fascinating. Along the same lines, there's a Lucy special circa 1960 that has Desi touring the old RKO prop house. He shows a "Kong" model, but it's really Mighty Joe Young. The scene can be found about halfway thru this clip:

IaFjqPTAilI (paste in search box) or search for Desilu Tour, part 3. You can get it on the Lucy Really Lost Episodes DVD.

[navystrengh]

Being a king kong fan i was surprized to find a long lost sequence of the spider pit had been cut. I have done research to see if there was any suriving footage tradegically there is not. I also learned that sequece was never finished due to time restrants.

[boinx1234]

@navystrengh

It wasn't due to time constraints, it was a decision on the part of Merian C. Cooper, the film's producer, who felt it slowed the film's pace. It's debated whether it was filmed or not. Read Filmfax magazine for all the details.

[BobaFettRules321]

you say you're a king kong fan? well maybe you can help me out. I probably have every spider-pit scene photo there is expect for one, Peter Jackson shows it in the re-creation video at 7:57. Does anybody know where I can find that photo?

[JoeyDeBird]

that spider used in "black scorpion" actually looked pretty creepy.

[skeletonpete]

Thanks so much for taking the time to pull all these glimpses together. I was recently blown away by the clarity on the DVD print of "You'll Find Out" and the opportunity to view the spider, spider-crab models along with the two legged lizard, but did not catch the styracosaurus on the upper shelf.

[kuhnigget]

Fascinating stuff, boinx!

As much as Mr. Jackson admires King Kong, what he completely doesn't understand is WHY it was removed. There is not one frame of the original picture that doesn't move the story forward in some way. The spider sequence would have stopped the film cold...just as it did in Jackson's bloated remake. Even his recreation of the original sequence went on and on and on...

As remarkable a technical filmmaker as he is, he really needs a refresher on the basics of pacing.

[boinx1234]

@GTDuck If you're talking about the censored scenes, in 1969, a print was found in Philadelphia, restored to the film, and re-released to art houses by Janus Films in 1971. In the 1980s, a much better print was found in England and all the scenes are on the new DVD.

The Spider Pit sequence has never been found.

[GTDuck]

I have seen the original Obie footage at the bottom of the pit. It was fantastic! Plus, I've seen the original uncut sequence where Kong undresses Fay Ray. So at one point it was 'found' and at that time there was talk of doing a special edition and putting the footage back. The only reason the pit sequence didn't make it into the final cut was because it was considered a 'show stopper' and just too violent for the 1930's.

[quintincollins]

Interesting article on this topic in a recent Film Fax magazine.

[gvehar]

Vanoc, I wrote an article about the scene for FILMFAX magazine, everything that's known about the scene. There's no evidence the footage was burned. A letter from Cooper (the director) to a fan in the 60s indicates he left the footage at the studio when he departed, and he thinks the footage burned in a studio fire in the 50s. If a copy of the original cut of the movie exists in some vault somewhere, it could be found, but it's unlikely. It definitely won't turn up in Asia or in some bootleg.

[neowarrior1]

just out of curiosity has anyone tried to find the lost models on websites by any chance?

[Vanoc93]

Is there ANY small chance that the film COULD be still out there? I have this DVD also, and it ALSO said that although the director was know to burn films he hated, someone said that it could have been shipped somewhere. Any opinions?

[BobaFettRules321]

maybe its in the philipines (sorry for my spelling) like Famous Monsters of Filmland said.

[boinx1234]

Funny how lost films always seem to end up in the Philippines (A Star Is Born, for example). It's highly unlikely that the footage still exists - many think the sequence was never even filmed!

BTW, only the first few seconds of this are on the Kong DVD - I edited everything else myself.

[DrArchivist]

@Vanoc93

It's highly unlikely that it still exists, but not impossible. Recently there was abit of a stir when an old print of King Kong was found in the walls of an old London cinema, but it was discovered that the print was not as old as originally thought and it didn't contain the scene.

According to legend, the scene was cut right after the movie's first premiere. So it's not very likely that very many prints containing the scene were ever created and distributed.

[DrArchivist]

@DrArchivist

The odds that one of the original prints still survives to this day are very small. But here's to hoping that I'm wrong.

I actually like the scene better without the spiders in it. But I would love to see what it originally looked like.

[Onceyoudie]

@Vanoc93 Of course there is some chance that this film still exists but very, very small. It is already seventy eight years ago this movie was filmed. So, I think, if there is the copy of this film, where is it? Why it wasn’t released yet? I mean, there’s always some chance but in this case it is very unnoticeable.

[GODZILLAANDSOUNDWAVE]

I thank you so much for this video. I have been looking for footage from all of these rumors I heard and you gave me alot of answers. I have been obssesed with the missing sequence since I was about 6 and I still am overly obsessed with it.

[boinx1234]

Movie06

1:53 Damn, you have a good eye.

monkeyboynutz (2 months ago) Show Hide

The bigger of the two spiders is pretty large for a stop motion model. It must have been planned for close up details. the one I'd like to see is the "Octopus insect", which I believe was planned to be augumented with real snakes, constrictors from South America.

[boinx1234]

derangedband

this really intrests me. ive been looking at the armatures of king kong and the spider and all that. i was particually impressed watching the original and how peters film recreated so many of the scenes! i imagine in the far future some one will attempt remaking lord of the rings! haha