Though the great Carlo Rambaldi, who would go on to create creature effects for Alien and E.T., is credited as the designer, Baker does a great deal to bring Kong to life.
One other key player is Kong himself and the man behind him- Rick Baker. There are a lot of things that can be said against this movie, but its cast is not one of them.
Other cast notables are René Auberjonois as a geologist and cohort of Wilson, John Randolph as the ship’s captain, Julius Harris as Boan, Jack O’Halloran as Joe, and Ed Lauter as Carnahan. He may be something of a caricature, but it’s exactly what audiences wanted to see in an oil baron in the mid-’70s. Wilson, Charles Grodin leans into his villain role with gusto, falling just short of actually twirling his moustache. Bridges is something of an odd choice for a leading man in a film like this, but the energy and craft he brings to every performance is here along with a touch of what would eventually become the Dude.
The rest of the cast is fully aware of the movie they are in and having a great time doing it. She frankly has the most difficult role in the film and pulls it off beautifully, striking the fine balance between fear of Kong and the forming of an emotional bond. For the most part, she is being held in a giant mechanical hand and acting against a blue screen in these sequences, but completely sells the illusion. Lange is particularly good in the scenes between just herself and Kong. The issues stem from problems with the character itself, but we’ll talk about that a bit later. She returned to great acclaim in 1982 for her role in Tootsie, but there is really nothing wrong with her performance in King Kong. Of these three, Jessica Lange faced quite a bit of backlash for her performance at the time, so much so that she left the industry for a few years to take acting lessons. The most obvious strength of this version of King Kong is its stellar cast lead by Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, and Charles Grodin. However, I still think it has a lot going for it. Seeing this iteration of Kong again after many, many years, I am much more open to seeing its shortcomings. Since then, Kong has always held a special place in my heart. Certain parts of the movie scared me, but I also remember being remarkably sad when Kong lay dead in the street at the foot of the World Trade Center. I tried multiple times to recreate that image on the drawing pads that I was constantly hunched over as a child. I very clearly remember being mesmerized by the poster, created by artist John Berkey, of a roaring Kong straddling the space between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a woman in one hand, a smashed aeroplane in the other. I don’t even know for sure how I saw it the first time, but I imagine it must have been on network television sometime in the early ’80s. It is one of my earliest movie memories and certainly my first encounter with the great ape. I can’t claim that my enjoyment of the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis produced version of King Kong is objective. This edition will focus on the much-maligned King Kong 1976. The Final Verdict is a column that’s all about discovering the truth and having the final say on the matter. Some movies that get panned by critics really aren’t bad.