In 2021, I published an article about a 1976 magazine. King Kong a remake, a movie that I deeply adore and think is possibly the best King Kong movie ever shown. I need you to forget about it. Erase this remark completely from your mind, because today we are here to discuss the film. Son of Kong, a movie that is only “the best” on a list of movies that made me scream bullshit at the wall until my neighbors called the police. i have no idea if Son of Kong even obscure enough to be written about as a new thing in 2021. I have no idea why I do this, except as a form of immersion therapy. The only thing I know for confidence it’s in anticipation godzilla vs kong I decided to look Son of Kong and this experience forever changed me as a person. Let’s discuss this one hour and nine minute 1933 film that introduced King Kong’s adorable son to the world and then promptly drowned him in the Pacific Ocean.

The first thing to know about Son of Kong this means that RKO Pictures has sped up the sequel King Kong would be an understatement; RKO Pictures rolled the sequel into a perfectly smooth ball and launched it from a Greek military catapult. Son of Kong hit theaters just nine months after its predecessor, RKO took over the role entirely King Kong audiences reacted when Kong was shot a thousand times and fell off the Empire State Building to his death. The studio rushed to release a sequel that trimmed the fat and jumped straight to the part where an above-average primate dies because a dumb human shows up.

In this case, the dumbass is still Carl DenhamRobert Armstrong), a disgraced director and kidnapper of Kong. One month after the events King Kong, Carl feels guilty for single-handedly causing the only military event in US history, when the Air Force had to shoot down a monstrous gorilla from a national landmark. “I wish I could leave him on his island. Ol’Kong, I’m sure I’ll pay for what I did to you,” he says.

I beg you to keep this in mind as we continue through the tangled jungle vines of this anthropoid nightmare.

Events of “Son of Kong”

Son of Kong
Image via HBO Max

Pursued by the press, Denham flees New York, heading first to the Dutch seaport of Dacang, where he meets Hilda Petersen.Helen Mac), whose subsequent death of his father in a tent fire did not actually Blame Denham, but you have to admit that this guy brings a deadly vibe everywhere he goes. Shortly thereafter, Denham is reunited with King KongSkull Island cartographer Nils Helstrom (John Marston), who, in the role of a talking velociraptor from a dream Jurassic Park 3, points Denham to a secluded dinosaur island he swore never to return to. “There is treasure on that island,” Helstrom says, “and Denham, who, I must repeat, is an angry asshole, cannot resist.

But Denham immediately finds not treasure, but an eight-foot albino gorilla, who he quickly deduces is Kong’s titular son. There is no discussion about Son Kong’s possible mother, but the logistics of conceiving him kept me awake for two weeks. Denham rescues Little Kong from quicksand by forming a foolish relationship with a creature whose father he brought to America in chains and set on stage for rich people to throw salad at him. By original design King Kong visual effects master Willis O’Brien, Little Kong is a slapstick comedy character. He makes beats and somersaults. He makes jokes. I can only assume that the montage of Little Kong trying on a lot of top hats was cut short due to time. In a word, he is damn cute; if Son of Kong which premiered in a different era of filmmaking, he would be the character we accuse of creating Disney just to sell toys.

And then disaster strikes…

Son of Kong
Image via RKO Radio Pictures

Unfortunately, Son of Kong was created at the end of the Great Depression, so what happens instead is that Denham and Hilda do find a treasure, a huge gem hidden in a cave, but a sudden storm hits Skull Island, causing a devastating dinosaur rout and mixing Denham out to sea. He is floundering amid the raging waves, death certain, until a mighty paw breaks to the surface, ferrying Denham to safety. It’s Little Kong! This adorable little ragamuffin does it, he saves Denham’s life, puts the man in the nearest lifeboat, and then…slowly sinks into the ocean’s depths. camera straight delayed on the heroically outstretched paw of Little Kong, somehow painfully, painstakingly slides into a salty grave of crushing darkness. He just dies. He just DIES. Six minutes after Little Kong and his pinched Little Face tumble across the screen like a street mime, glide under violent, unforgiving waves, dragged into the depths like a bronze anchor, swallowed up and swallowed up by the endless waters of the Dread Emperor himself. Forgotten for any man, for any time, forgotten for any god or devil, oh God, now I’m just quoting Willem Dafoe in Lighthouse. I’m sorry. Son of Kong ruined me. You just sort of sit and wait for the shot of Little Kong pulling himself up on a piece of driftwood, and like any form of cosmic justice for Carl Denham, that shot never happens.

Missed opportunity for sequels

Son of Kong ends with Denham and Hilda contemplating how disgustingly wealthy they will become thanks to the Skull Island Jewel. I just can’t stress enough how much this movie starts with Carl Denham remorseful that Kong was killed and ends with Carl Denham returning to Skull Island and killing Kong’s infinitely sweeter son. It would be an A if RKO turned it into a recurring series. There was supposed to be a second sequel, in which Denham accidentally pushes Kong’s wife under a steam locomotive. But no. The next King Kong movie came out 29 years later and didn’t feature Little Kong because Little Kong is a hill of bones next to the Titanic.

Movies were a little different in 1933, that’s a big takeaway here that’s really interesting in terms of movie history if you can get past the trauma of watching King Kong’s offspring descend into his tomb in Atlantis. The arcs weren’t always the way they are now. The studio machine was more ruthless in its way; sometimes blockbuster hits got 65-minute sequels too soon. And it also speaks to Kong’s stamina as a character. Big Hairy Brand Survived Son of Kongmodest success and continues for another nine decades, until godzilla vs kong, a movie that in no way features King Kong’s son because, as previously mentioned, King Kong’s son drowns while trying to save his father’s killer. I’m sorry.