King Kong (1933) Stop-Motion Armature

A 50-foot ape, one frame at a time

King Kong was the idea of adventurer and documentary maker Merian C. Cooper. In 1931 he and his colleague and co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack worked out the story of a giant ape and persuaded studio executive David O. Selznick to approve what was a risky and expensive production for RKO. The budget came to $672,254.75.

The ape existed only in miniature. Stop-motion animation means filming a model one frame at a time and moving it a fraction between frames, so the models needed skeletons flexible enough to pose and rigid enough to hold a position for hours. Willis O'Brien designed metal armatures with interlocking ball-and-socket joints for exactly that.

Each armature was then built up into an animal: cotton and rubber formed the muscles, molded liquid latex the skin, and rabbit fur the coat. Marcel Delgado sculpted the models with O'Brien. For close-ups, the studio also built a full-size mechanical head and shoulders that took a team of operators to work.

Willis O'Brien

O'Brien was RKO's chief technician and one of the first great stop-motion animators. He is credited with the dinosaur effects of The Lost World and with the creatures of Son of Kong, Behemoth the Sea Monster and Mighty Joe Young, which won him an Academy Award. There was no Oscar category for special effects when King Kong was released.

His work on Kong set the pattern for decades of monster films and influenced the career of the visual-effects artist Ray Harryhausen.

Accounts of how many Kong armatures existed vary. The 2009 sale material said two 18-inch models were built mainly for the Skull Island scenes, at a scale of one inch to one foot, and that Cooper wanted more impact for the New York scenes, so a larger 22-inch armature was made, believed to be the only one of that size. Fan historians tell the story differently: they describe two main Kong models, a long-faced one used for the fights and the Empire State Building finale and a short-faced one that RKO records say was scrapped, and note that the long-faced model's armature, reused for Son of Kong, survives in the collection of film historian Bob Burns. The film's own reference sources give the models' height as about 14 to 18 inches.

Spring 1933

King Kong opened on March 2, 1933, at both Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy in New York, premiered in Hollywood at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on March 24 and went into general release on April 7. Fay Wray played Ann Darrow, with Robert Armstrong and Bruce Cabot, and Max Steiner wrote the score. Opening weekend brought about $90,000, and the first run earned a profit of $650,000.

Its timing was extraordinary. Two days after the premiere, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated and told the country that the only thing it had to fear was fear itself; the next day he closed every bank in the United States. A film about a captured giant toppling from the tallest building in New York reached audiences in the depths of the Depression.

The Library of Congress added King Kong to the National Film Registry in 1991.

From a condemned workshop to London

This armature survived because of one enthusiast. Eugene Hilchey first saw and photographed several King Kong miniatures in RKO's miniature department in 1949. He became chairman of a committee collecting film artifacts for a planned Hollywood museum, and in 1967, when the miniature department was closed for demolition, he received custody of the 22-inch armature.

The museum never happened. Hilchey kept the armature, along with an archive of photographs, and eventually entrusted it to a Hollywood film archive, which brought it to London with research documentation. 'My desire now is to be able to make it available for people everywhere to see King Kong's secret, his armature,' he said.

It was offered on November 24, 2009, as the highlight of a sale of film and entertainment memorabilia in London, with an estimate of GBP 100,000 to 150,000. It sold for GBP 121,250, reported at the time as $218,000. The buyer was not named. Other reports at the time rounded the result to about GBP 121,000, or about $200,000.

Reading a skeleton

Without its covering the armature looks like a machine: a 22-inch frame of hinges, screws and ball-and-socket joints, with an aluminum skull cast from a wooden carving. The cotton, rubber, latex and rabbit fur that once made it an ape have long since rotted away.

What makes it valuable is the claim attached to it: that it is the larger Kong built for the New York finale, the figure seen climbing the Empire State Building with Fay Wray's character, played in miniature by a puppet, in tow. That claim rests on Hilchey's custody from RKO's own miniature department and on the documentation sent with it to auction. Given the conflicting accounts of how many Kong armatures existed and which models were used where, that provenance is the heart of the object.

The numbers

Premiere

March 2, 1933, Radio City Music Hall and RKO Roxy, New York

Budget

$672,254.75

First-run profit

$650,000

Armature height

22 inches

Skull Island models (per sale material)

Two 18-inch models at one inch to one foot

National Film Registry

1991

Timeline

1. 1931

   Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack refine the King Kong story and win approval from David O. Selznick.

2. Mar 2, 1933

   King Kong opens at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy in New York.

3. Mar 24, 1933

   Hollywood premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

4. Apr 7, 1933

   General U.S. release.

5. 1949

   Eugene Hilchey first sees and photographs Kong miniatures in RKO's miniature department.

6. 1967

   Hilchey receives custody of the 22-inch armature as the miniature department is closed for demolition.

7. 1991

   King Kong is added to the National Film Registry.

8. Sep 7, 2009

   The armature is announced for sale in London with a GBP 100,000-150,000 estimate.

9. Nov 24, 2009

   The armature sells at auction in London for GBP 121,250.

The world in 1933

• Jan 5, 1933

  Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins.

• Feb 15, 1933

  Giuseppe Zangara fires at President-elect Roosevelt in Miami, fatally wounding Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.

• Mar 4, 1933

  Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'

• Mar 5, 1933

  Roosevelt declares a national bank holiday.

• Mar 10, 1933

  The Long Beach earthquake kills about 115 to 120 people.

• May 27, 1933

  The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago.

• Jul 6, 1933

  The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played in Chicago.

• Dec 5, 1933

  The Twenty-first Amendment is ratified, ending Prohibition.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, King Kong (1933) Stop-Motion Armature is number 98 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (103 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Kong's fur was rabbit fur, laid over latex skin and cotton-and-rubber muscles.
• The armature's skull is aluminum, cast from a wooden carving.
• It was rescued in 1967 when RKO's miniature department was about to be demolished.
• King Kong opened two days before Roosevelt's 'nothing to fear but fear itself' inauguration.
• There was no Academy Award for special effects in 1933; Willis O'Brien later won one for Mighty Joe Young.
• Another Kong armature, reused for Son of Kong, survives in the collection of film historian Bob Burns.