The Scenes.

The chosen scenes.

Most famous of the lost scenes is the spider sequence, the scene involving the rescue party encountering Kong as they cross a log at which point the enraged Kong tips the log, tossing them into the chasm, in the original only two characters survive, the remainder die from the fall, however originally they were to fall into a pool of soft mud, at which point they would be attacked by all manner of terrifying creatures, such as a giant lizard, giant spider, giant crab and an unknown octopoid. The look of horror on Jack’s face as he looks into the ravine was originally due to a large insect eating one of his crew mates, although this was reworked so it appeared he was horrified by the sight of his friends hitting the rocks in the fall. Original concept art remains, as well as some stills, but the original footage is ultimately lost. Merian C Cooper decided to cut this scene as it slowed the pacing, and people found it too disturbing, and it was considered one of the most memorable yet controversial by test audiences, not the desired outcome for the director. It also diverted the audience from the threat of Kong.

A scene where right after the raft scene with the Apatosaurus attack, a trio of triceratops charge the sailors of the Venture. Kong stumbles upon the confrontation and an epic battle ensues. He throws a giant boulder at one of the dinosaurs, which severs one of its horns. At which point the fight ceases and then one of the dinosaurs chases the sailors further into the jungle and impales one of them to death with its horn. This sequence was scripted but never filmed. Cooper believed from the start that a scene such as this would take too long and the production would be too great. As well as slow down the pacing of the film. The Triceratops chasing the sailor was filmed though (minus the impalement).

Actually it was originally a test shot from the canceled film CREATION (1932) that O'Brien was working on before KING KONG. He shot prototype footage of a Triceratops chasing a sailor and goring him with it's horn after the sailor had shot and killed its baby. The sequence of the Triceratops chasing the sailor was to be incorporated to KONG to save time. This explains why the men are still running long after the Apatosaurus had stopped chasing them, because a Triceratops had sprung from the Jungle and chased after them, eventually trapping them on the log. It also partially explains why the sailors didn't run back across the log away from Kong.The sequence was never used because it didn't match up well the King Kong footage and time taken to fix continuity would have been too time consuming and thus it was left out of the finished picture.

Fan made reconstruction

Another scene cut from the New York sequence had Kong peering into a window and breaking up a poker game. This sequence was cut because a similar scene had appeared in Harry Hoyt’s adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s THE LOST WORLD (1925).

The Lost Scenes Of Kong

The Lost Scenes Of Kong.

The original release of Kong in 1933 stated its length at over 125 minutes, 25 minutes of footage was cut for various reasons. It is this footage that I shall be exploring, I intend to re imagine these mystical scenes in a series of detailed drawings, that will then be expanded upon using the solar plate etching technique. These images I plan to number at around eight.

I also intend to make a scale model of the most infamous of these scenes, “the lost spider pit scene”, cut in post production, then lost, with only stills, concept art and mention in the screenplay remaining. I then intend to draw from this small environment, and use it as a primary resource. The screenplay itself will be my direct form of referencing, and I shall follow in faithfully to capture the atmosphere of the scenes. This will prove most helpful when laying out the composition of the scenes, as a lot of the screenplay states clearly the position of certain characters within an environment.

The spider pit. (Still from 1933 film)

At a later stage I also intend to work with the images in a page spread format, with accompanying text regarding the scene, with quotations from the script also. There are roughly six deleted scenes to choose from, each being very descriptive and expansive in the screenplay. I also plan to revisit the model at a later stage and take some really atmospheric shots, with scale people included.