''The Son of Kong'' (also known and publicized simply as ''Son of Kong'') is a 1933 American

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

monster film A monster movie, monster film, creature feature or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally large ones. The film may also fall und ...

produced by

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...

. Directed by

Ernest Schoedsack Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack (June 8, 1893 – December 23, 1979) was an American motion picture cinematographer, producer, and director. Schoedsack worked as a cameraman in World War I, where he served in the Signal Corps. At the conclusion o ...

and featuring special effects by

Willis O'Brien Willis Harold O'Brien (March 2, 1886 – November 8, 1962) was an American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, who according to ASIFA-Hollywood "was responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history," ...

and Buzz Gibson, the film stars Robert Armstrong,

Helen Mack Helen Mack (born Helen McDougall; November 13, 1913 – August 13, 1986) was an American actress. She started her career as a child actress in silent films, moving to Broadway plays and touring one of the vaudeville circuits. Her greater succ ...

and

Frank Reicher Frank Reicher (born Franz Reicher; December 2, 1875 – January 19, 1965) was a German-born American actor, director and producer. He is best known for playing Captain Englehorn in the 1933 film ''King Kong''. Early life Reicher was born in Mu ...

. The film is the sequel to ''

King Kong King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...

'', being released just nine months after and is the second entry of the King Kong franchise.

Plot

A month after the destruction in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

by Kong, filmmaker

Carl Denham Carl Denham is a fictional character in the films ''King Kong'' and ''The Son of Kong'' (both released in 1933), as well as in the 2005 remake of ''King Kong'', and a 2004 illustrated novel titled ''Kong: King of Skull Island''. The role was p ...

has been implicated in so many lawsuits that he is almost bankrupt. Denham leaves the city aboard the Venture with Captain Englehorn, who knows he too will be similarly prosecuted if he stays, but their efforts to make money shipping cargo around Asia are not very successful. After arriving in the Dutch port of Dakang, Denham and Englehorn attend a show of performing monkeys, which ends with a song ("Runaway Blues"), sung by a young woman, Hilda Petersen, whom Denham is immediately attracted to. That night, Mr. Petersen, Hilda's father, who runs the monkey show, stays up drinking with a Norwegian skipper, Nils Helstrom, who had lost his ship under questionable circumstances. The two men argue and then fight, but during the struggle, Petersen is killed, and his tent burns down. Distraught, Hilda releases all the monkeys from their cages. Soon after, Denham and Englehorn meet Helstrom, who was the man who had sold to Denham the map to Kong's Island, and Helstrom convinces them that there is a treasure on the island. So Denham and Englehorn agree to go back to the island to find the treasure. Later, Denham meets Hilda while she is trying to recapture her monkeys and tries to cheer her up. Despite her pleas for her safety, Denham refuses to take her with him when he leaves Dakang. However, shortly after the ship leaves out to sea, Hilda is found having stowed away on board. Helstrom talks Hilda into silence, then incites a mutiny on board the ''Venture'', but the sailors want no more captains and force him along with Denham, Englehorn, Hilda, and Charlie the cook away in a lifeboat. The group soon land on Skull Island and discover that the natives now blame Denham for Kong's destruction in their village, forcing them to retreat and into the interior of the island, where they split up into two groups. Denham and Hilda soon encounter a giant

albino Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albino. Varied use and interpretation of the term ...

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...

, smaller than Kong, but still over twice the height of a man. The giant ape is stuck in quicksand, so Denham helps him out of it and bandages the ape's injured finger, establishing trust with the ape. Denham tells Hilda that he believes the

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

is Kong's son, and names him "

Little Kong Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Little (album), ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt *Little (film), ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's nov ...

". Later, Englehorn, Charlie, and Helstrom are attacked by a ''

Styracosaurus ''Styracosaurus'' ( ; meaning "spiked lizard" from the Ancient Greek / "spike at the butt-end of a spear-shaft" and / "lizard") is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period (Campanian stage), about 75.5 to 74.5&nbs ...

'' which chases them into a cave. Denham and Hilda are attacked by a giant

cave bear The cave bear (''Ursus spelaeus'') is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Both the word "cave" and the scientific name ' ...

, but "

" fights it and forces it away. Helstrom had actually made up his treasure-story to get a free ride away from Dakang, but with the ape's help, Denham and Hilda find a real treasure- a huge jewel on the head of a seemingly abandoned giant stone idol, which he takes for safe-keeping. "Little Kong", Denham, and Hilda are attacked by a ''

Nothosaurus ''Nothosaurus'' ("false lizard", from the Ancient Greek (), "illegitimate", and (), "lizard") is an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile from the Triassic period, approximately 240–210 million years ago, with fossils being distributed from ...

'', but "

" fights and kills it. A storm ensues and Helstrom tries to escape in the lifeboat, but is killed by an

Elasmosaurus ''Elasmosaurus'' (;) is a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 80.5million years ago. The first specimen was discovered in 1867 near Fort Wallace, Kansas, US, and was se ...

. Englehorn, Hilda and Charlie quickly retrieve and board the lifeboat, but a violent earthquake and hurricane strikes the island, and it begins to sink into the ocean. The water soon surrounds Denham and "Little Kong" atop a tall mound, and as the ape's foot gets stuck in the cracking mound, he sacrifices himself to save Denham by holding him above the water. The group in the boat reach Denham just in time, as the ape's hand, with Denham's bandage still on his finger, sinks below. On the deck of a rescue ship, Denham and Hilda contemplate the tragic fate of Kong's son, and of their future together, but Denham shows Hilda the jewel he salvaged, assuring her that it will provide financial security for all of them. It was Denham's intention to split the fortune four ways (Denham, Hilda, Englehorn and Charlie), but Hilda convinces him that three ways is just fine, indicating that she is throwing her fortunes in with Denham for the long haul.

Cast

Production

The film was produced and released in 1933, immediately following the success of ''

'' (1933), and was a modest success. Script writer

Ruth Rose Ruth Rose (January 16, 1896 – June 8, 1978) was a writer who worked on several films in the 1930s and the 1940s, most famously the original 1933 classic ''King Kong''. Early life Rose was born on January 16, 1896 to a playwright, Edwa ...

intentionally made no attempt to make a serious film on the logic that it could not surpass the first. It has a long draggy exposition before finally hitting some action on the return to Skull Island. She stated, "If you can't make it bigger, make it funnier." For his part, Denham's actor, Robert Armstrong, preferred the second film, saying that the sequel offered more character development for Carl Denham. In other words, his character Denham gets the young girl at the end. The script/screenplay featured scenes of tribal warfare and a climactic

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

stampede during the massive cyclone/earthquake that sinks Skull Island at the film's end. The stampede was going to utilize the models that had been built for ''

Creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

'' (1931) (most being used in the earlier ''King Kong''). However, these sequences were never filmed due to the film's tight budget and shooting schedule. Helen Mack's character is never referred to as "Hilda" in the film. The name "Hilda" is used in the credits and her father refers to her as "La Belle Helene" during the show. Denham just calls her "kid". Little Kong was referred to as "Kiko" during production, but this name is never used in the film or in publicity materials. Some of the stop-motion models used for ''King Kong'' were also used for ''The Son of Kong''. The non animated "long face" Kong armature, from the log bridge and ''

Tyrannosaurus ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropoda, theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosa ...

'' fight sequences, was also used for "Little Kong". Of the two known existing model-armatures of Kong, one is currently owned by

film historian The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. However, the commercial, public scr ...

and collector Bob Burns, and the other is owned by director

Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known as the director, writer and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy ( ...

, who remade ''King Kong'' in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

. Also, the same ''

Brontosaurus ''Brontosaurus'' (; meaning "thunder lizard" from Greek , "thunder" and , "lizard") is a genus of gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs. Although the type species, ''B. excelsus'', had long been considered a species of the closely related ' ...

'' model used for the raft scene in ''King Kong'' can be glimpsed in the sea as the island is sinking. The

stop motion animation Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

in the film (done by

who also did the effects in ''King Kong'') is not as extensive as in the original, but included is a sequence where a ''

'' chases the explorers through the jungle. Today, the original ''Styracosaurus'' model, along with other original 1933 "Kong" dinosaurs, is also now owned by director

. An interesting giant bear is added to the creatures “Little Kong” challenges.

Creatures

* "Little Kong": Kong's albino son, who is much smaller and friendlier. At the end, he drowns during the storm and flood destruction whilst sacrificing himself to save Denham. * ''

Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...

'': a prehistoric bird seen flying around the island, likely survived the island's sinking by flying to safety. * ''

Rhamphorhynchus ''Rhamphorhynchus'' (, from Ancient Greek ''rhamphos'' meaning "beak" and ''rhynchus'' meaning "snout") is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs in the Jurassic period. Less specialized than contemporary, short-tailed pterodactyloid pterosaurs such ...

'': a prehistoric flying reptile seen flying around the island, likely survived island's sinking by flying to safety. * ''

'': a gigantic dinosaur that chases Charlie, Englehorn, and Helstrom into a cave, and later drowned when the island sank. The stop-motion model was originally used in test-filming for, but not included in, "King Kong". * ''

Triceratops ''Triceratops'' ( ; ) is a genus of herbivore, herbivorous Chasmosaurinae, chasmosaurine Ceratopsidae, ceratopsid dinosaur that first appeared during the late Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous Period (geology), period, about 68 m ...

'': a gigantic dinosaur in a deleted scene, which later drowned when the island sank. This was another stop-motion model that was originally used in test-filming for, but not included in, "King Kong". *

Cave bear The cave bear (''Ursus spelaeus'') is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Both the word "cave" and the scientific name ' ...

: a gigantic prehistoric mammal that chases Denham and Hilda, which is fought and forced away by "Little Kong", and which later drowned when the island sank. * ''

'': a prehistoric reptile that attacks Denham, Hilda and "Little Kong" after they uncover the treasure, and which is killed by "Little Kong". * ''

'': a gigantic prehistoric aquatic reptile that attacks and kills Helstrom when he attempts to escape in the lifeboat, likely survived when the island sank by being a marine creature. The scene of the Elasmosaurus snapping its jaws is similar to the ''Brontosaurus'' snapping-jaws scene in "King Kong". * ''

'': a gigantic dinosaur that appears roaring during the earthquake and storm, before drowning when the island sank. The stop-motion model was also originally used in "King Kong".

Release

Home media

''The Son of Kong'' was released on VHS by Nostalgia Merchant in the 1980s and again in 1991 by

Turner Home Entertainment Turner Entertainment Company is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner in 1986. Purchased by Time Warner in 1996 as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was largely responsible for overseeing th ...

. In 2005 it received a DVD release and was available both by itself and as part of a collector's set alongside ''King Kong'' (1933) and '' Mighty Joe Young'' (1949), with commentary by

Ray Harryhausen Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American-British animator and special effects creator who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation". His works include the animation for '' Might ...

. In the UK and in Italy it was released on DVD in 2010. In 2014 it was featured on Warner Archive Instant, a streaming service dedicated to the classic films and animation properties owned by Time Warner, Inc.

Warner Bros Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...

released a Blu-ray version on October 27, 2015.

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews. In the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' review of the film, they described it as a "low melodrama with a number of laughs" that were deemed to be satisfying, though they added that the vision of comedy by the producers would be open to discussion. ''Variety'' described it as "fair entertainment". Among modern critics, review aggregation site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported that 42% have given the film a positive review based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 4.90 out of 10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100 based on 6 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". It made a profit of $133,000.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Son Of Kong 1933 films 1933 horror films 1933 comedy films 1930s fantasy adventure films 1930s English-language films 1930s monster movies American films with live action and animation American fantasy adventure films American black-and-white films American sequel films Films about dinosaurs Films scored by Max Steiner Films directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack Films set in the Indian Ocean Films set in New York City Films set on fictional islands Films using stop-motion animation King Kong (franchise) films Lost world films RKO Pictures films 1930s American films