Ollie’s Odyssey by William Joyce

Many artists reach a plateau and stay there, revisiting the same themes or visions, never expanding, never stretching, never evolving with their work.  And then there are those lucky few artists – which includes writers, graphic artists, musicians and performers – who continually grow, develop and stretch their capabilities.

Into that happy few we must count author, illustrator, animator William Joyce (born 1957).  After creating some of the most beautiful picture books of the 1990s, Joyce then branched off into his other love, filmmaking, and helped design a number of memorable films (including Toy Story), before branching out into production himself.  He also started the company Moonbot to make apps, games, animated shorts – anything, in fact, to which he could harness his storytelling genius.  Located in Louisiana, Moonbot is a human-scale Disney, where talented artists, writers and filmmakers create the next generation of children’s classics.

His first love, though, remains books.  He started a series of picture books and prose novels that detailed the origins of such childhood myths as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny called The Guardians of Childhood, and he has now served up a new original novel with illustrations, Ollie’s Odyssey.  It is his most daring and interesting prose novel to date, and a significant demonstration of his ever-increasing capabilities.

Ollie’s Odyssey is all about a kid named Billy and his special relationship with his toy, a ragdoll his mother made named Ollie.  During a wedding party, Ollie is kidnapped by the minions of an evil toy, the demented clown Zozo.  Billy must sneak out of his home at night and trace his lost friend, a journey that leads him to a deserted underground carnival, to a confrontation with a horde of menacing reconfigured toys, and to a final battle royale led by Ollie and some odds and ends who form a junk army.

In outline, it would seem as if Ollie’s Odyssey would be just another kid’s adventure story.  But Joyce uses this framework to write a deeply moving tale about growing up, the inevitability of change, loss and, perhaps most important, the power of memory.  Rather than a stock villain, Zozo has become twisted through the loss of his beloved ballet dancer-doll.  He is a tragic-villain, fully formed and compelling enough for the most adult fiction.  Similarly, Billy and Ollie fear changes to their friendship as Billy ages, and Ollie wonders what becomes of toys that are no longer loved.  The coming end for their partnership does not mitigate in any way the love they have for one another, but it does add a tragic dimension unusual for kiddie fare.  Joyce also talks about resurrection and rebirth during the junkyard sequence, where now useless bric-a-brac takes on new life and new identity to help Ollie and save Billy.  It is a stunning juggling act: Joyce has written a profoundly moving and emotionally resonant novel in the guise of a children’s book.

Just as Joyce has previously illustrated his picture books with dazzling watercolor work, and then branched out into both line drawings and computer illustration, Ollie’s Odyssey tests his versatility with a series of charcoal drawings – a medium he has not used in his published work before.  The illustrations of Ollie’s Odyssey are unlike those of any of Joyce’s previous work, and fit the overall emotional tenor of the story beautifully.  Charcoal brings a gritty, tactile sense to this tale of fuzzy friends and frayed castoffs that would be missing from glossier modes of illustration.  He also used the paper upon which he drew to great effect, allowing what would normally be the white ‘tooth’ of the paper to soak up computer-added color.  The book is also beautifully designed by Joyce with chapter heads in bold red crayon, and different colored papers representative of different characters and scenes. 

As with much of Joyce’s oeuvre, his latest book can be savored by adults as well as children. A man who loves popular art immoderately (and wears that love on his sleeve), Joyce peppers Ollie’s Odyssey with echoes of titans and works that come before.   Attuned readers will catch bits of filmmakers Todd Browning and Lon Chaney, hints of the classic Universal Monsters with a touch of The Island of Lost Souls, a healthy smattering of Ray Bradbury, and shout-outs to everything from the original King Kong to Batman Returns to The Magnificent Seven.  Indeed, the final image of the book is a direct rift on John Ford’s mighty ending for The Searchers … and one wonders if Joyce is writing for adults who have kept their inner child alive and well, or if he writes for children who will one day make more adult connections.

Ollie’s Odyssey is a bigger, grander, more ambitious book than anything that Joyce has attempted before, and he rises to the occasion splendidly.  It is certainly the finest of his prose novels, and one cannot but wonder what this protean talent has in store for us in future years.

While we are delighted that Joyce has spread his abilities into so many different areas, it is perhaps in books that devotees get the fullest distillation of his talents.  His written and illustrated works are the least collaborative of his output, and capture his philosophy best.  That view of life has been changing and evolving over time – that William Joyce names his protagonist Billy is surely no accident – and if the man himself can emerge from the crucible of experience with his sense of wonder intact, what is he not capable of?  And what, he asks, are any of us not capable of?  It’s that sense of possibility, that childlike sense of limitless adventure, that the world is filled with things to delight each and every one of us, that is the essence of Bill Joyce.

Ollie’s Odyssey is highly recommended to kids, old people, and everyone in between.

Billy’s Booger, A Memoir (Sorta), by William Joyce

This week, we look at some books that make for perfect summer reading, and we start with something special.  Any new book by author, illustrator, filmmaker and poster boy for high-spirited shenanigans William Joyce (born 1957) is a cause for celebration.  But his new book – Billy’s Booger, A Memoir (Sorta) – is sufficient for bursting out into song, headstands while doing a Tarzan yell, and unrestrained fits of the hokey-pokey.

Not that Billy’s Booger is your ordinary, wonderful book.  It’s snot.  It is something quite unique – an illustrated memoir by a master of the form.  In it, he chronicles his participation in a school-book competition, and includes his first opus, Billy’s Booger – The Memoir of a Little Green Nose Buddy.  In short, this is the portrait of the artist as a (very) young man, and provides an insight into the formative components that make up Joyce’s protean imagination.

The story does snot have many fairy tale elements, despite its very traditional beginning of Once upon a time.  Or, as Joyce starts his narrative, Once upon a time, when TV was in black and white, and there were only three channels, and when kids didn’t have playdates -- they just roamed free in the “out of doors” there lived a kid named Billy.

And we’re off for an in-depth look into the Joycean imagination.  Most books in Joyce’s oeuvre exist largely as showcases for his stunning depictions of glowing, nostalgic Americana.  Billy’s Booger, however, is different – it has the full complement of stunning illustrations (some, the finest of his career), but is more of a masterpiece of design than anything else.

Consider – Joyce includes his initial foray into book creation as a special insert into the book itself, published on different weight green construction paper (and printed in what appears to be white chalk).  In addition to that, Joyce reproduces the illustrative style of 1950s-60s hygiene texts, along with loose-leaf paper doodles, and also includes several loving homages to classic newspaper comic strips.  Nor does he miss an opportunity to display his obsessive creativity and imagination: the endpapers include schoolboy doodles of the most mischievous sort, including my favorite: Replace Hallway Floors with TRAMPOLINES – why has this not happened? 

Joyce fills the book with quotations of his many obsessions, as well as many of his early books.  In what may be my favorite illustration in the book, Joyce’s depicts his younger self creating his first magnum opus.  In the background, just perceptible, is the poster from the 1933 King Kong, one of Joyce’s seminal influences.  Nearby is a model spaceship in the mode of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (Joyce’s sense of science fiction, like that of your correspondent, is locked in 1930s art deco futurism).  On his desk is a brontosaur that may well serve as the model for his later creation, Dinosaur Bob, and doodles on his desk bring to mind his most recent book, The Mischievians.

In other parts of the book, you will see references to his earlier works, including George Shrinks, Roli Poli Oli, and perhaps even a nod to his sometimes collaborator, Michael Chabon.  There is even a little doodle that will become the logo for his animation and imagination company, Moonbot.

And Joyce simply never lets up.  In those pages where he recreates classic comic strips, I was able to spot homages to Peanuts, L’il Abner, a gorgeous Little Nemo page, Flash Gordon (of course) and Dick Tracy.  It is in his affections and deeply-rooted loves that Joyce reminds me most, perhaps, of the late Ray Bradbury (1920-2012).  Like Bradbury, one of the great writers of the last century, Joyce wears his heart and his loves on his sleeve – which is perhaps where they belong.  It is not a fashionable way of looking at the world; and certainly the last thing anyone could ever accuse Joyce of was being “ironic.”  But it is honest, and sweet and boyish and … peppy.  I can’t read Joyce (or Bradbury, for that matter) and not feel young again, or at least young at heart.  If for no other reason, Joyce deserves a medal, perhaps with an oak leaf cluster, if they have one lying around somewhere.

More literal minded readers will wonder how much of Billy’s Booger is “true.”  Well what does it mean when one promises the truth in a memoir?  Is this the actual book Joyce created in his boyhood, reproduced here without editorializing?  Did he, in fact, have such a happy relationship with his principal?  (If so, Joyce was doubly, if not triply blessed.)  And … are these pages lit by the glow of personal nostalgia?

Well … what does it matter?  Billy’s Booger is thickly crusted with enough biographical data to have more than a kernel of truth, and this is the artist’s biography as he remembers it.  Perhaps, one day, there will be a full-fledged autobiography or third-person biography to enjoy in addition to the Booger.

In a culture that values its heroes and children’s entertainment when it’s “dark,” the wonderful world of William Joyce provides a much-needed corrective.  His world is a place of sun-kissed landscapes, mid-century American optimism, and unfettered fun.  His books are for very young children, very old people, and everyone and anyone in between.

For those reasons, and many others, the book Billy’s Booger is our pick of the week.

The Consolations of Junk Art, Part III: Phantom Lagoon, a Doc Savage Adventure

All right, we have already written about Doc Savage in these pages.  Dr. Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr., the Man of Bronze, made his debut in pulp magazines in March, 1933 (around the same time that King Kong made his first appearance).  Doc Savage Magazine was published by Street & Smith, and Doc was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic, but most of the 181 novels were written by wordsmith Lester Dent (1904-1959).

Doc Savage was a surgeon, explorer, scientist, researcher, criminologist and all-around physical marvel.  He did two hours of intense exercise every day, giving him a fabulous physique.  His body had been tanned a deep bronze during his world travels, and newspapers have dubbed him The Man of Bronze.  His adventures spanned the globe: often starting in his laboratory offices on the 86^th floor of the Empire State Building, and usually ending up anywhere from the Gobi Desert to the Sargasso Sea.  He was accompanied by five fellow-adventurers, the Fabulous Five – the finest minds ever assembled in one group.  Sometimes, his beautiful cousin Pat Savage would tag along, creating no-end of problems for Doc.

The end of the pulp magazine industry might have meant the end of Doc (his magazine stopped in 1949), but the Nostalgia Boom of the 1960s saw his adventures reprinted in paperback editions, and he found a whole new legion of fans.  The entire Doc corpus was reprinted, reawakening interest and bringing the character to comic books and a series of new novels, written by novelist Will Murray. 

I recently picked up one of Murray’s new Doc Savage adventures, Phantom Lagoon, and it’s a pip.  Set in 1939, and based on notes by Dent himself, Phantom Lagoon concerns Hornetta Hale, aviatrix and world explorer who comes to Doc’s 86^th floor HQ looking to hire him, or at least rent his submarine.  Doc and two of his aides, Monk and Ham, send her away as a glory-hound.

Next thing you know, Doc’s HQ is demolished, his hidden hanger of aircraft, boats and submersibles is burned to the ground, and Doc and the boys are on another harrowing adventure – this time, concerning a possible race of underwater men, a sword-cane carrying Nazi, FDR and a volcanic crater.  If you can resist a mix like that, you’re a better man than I, Gunga-Din.

It was actually Phantom Lagoon that started me thinking on the consolations of junk art, and the columns for this week.  Initially, I was going to quote passages from the book here, but, honestly, there is no prose anywhere in the novel worth quoting.  Yes – it’s filled with snappy banter and delicious period phrases, but seekers of beautiful prose must go elsewhere.

Nor did I learn anything about Doc (or Monk or Ham), New York in the 1930s, the then-state of world exploration, or even the Nazi menace while reading Phantom Lagoon.  And, odds are, in just a few scant weeks, the vast majority of the novel will have been sponged from the wet-and-wooly lump of gray matter I call my brain.

But why, then, is Phantom Lagoon art, even if art of a low type?  Because … reading the book rejuvenated my sense of fun and playfulness at a moment that I needed that boost.  Spending a couple of hours with Doc gave me the feeling that the world was still a wide, rich and romantic place, and that there were adventures to be had by the adventurous.  That life, if played correctly, is still a game and that it is possible to be young at heart forever.

It is a book told with zest and esprit, a sense of fun and light-heartedness.  For a few hours, at least, I was on a volcanic Caribbean isle with Doc, fighting Nazis and plunging the mystery of undersea men.  I was, in short … happy.

Look – there is nothing of high mark in this at all.  The characterization is flat or by rote, the writing merely serviceable, the adventure predictable.  But it did the job – and more so.  And that is my point, entirely.  At a moment when I was a little tired and perhaps a little blue, Doc (once again!) came to the rescue. 

It may not be art, but it may just be a benediction.

The World Loses Ray Harryhausen, Part II

Behold the Ymir!

We continue looking at the work of the late Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013), the man who put the “special” in “special effects.”  Harryhausen used the technique called Stop Motion Animation, where he would articulate a puppet (usually about 12 to 18 inches tall) against a miniature backdrop, and move them incrementally while photographing them … one frame at a time.  It was an exacting, exhausting, isolating craft, but one that he mastered in the course of a distinguished career. 

I was lucky enough to be acquainted with Harryhausen, and had met him or wrote to him on-and-off for the last 25 years or so.  My fondest memory of him was when we were invited to join he and his wife, Diana, for a private tour of the Smithsonian’s dinosaur collection provided by paleontologist Michael Brett-Surman, an avowed Harryhausen fan.  Harryhausen was delighted to be accorded such an honor, and the thing I most remember is that he was as excited as a young boy about it all, though he was then a man in his 70s.  (When done, we all went out for hamburgers, which, after dinosaurs, monsters and his wife Diana, seemed to be the great love of his life.)

I think it was this sense of wonder that is the signature note of Harryhausen’s work.  Unlike most grim and gritty fantasy fare today, Harryhausen showed audiences the fantastic, and made it fun.  He was also keenly aware that stop motion animation did not have the “realism” of later techniques, such as Computer Generated Images (CGI) used today.  But Harryhausen always maintained that special effects were a tool, and not an end to themselves.

He also thought that special effects had no obligation to look “real.”  Movies – particularly movies about dinosaurs and aliens, Moon people and mythical gods – are fantasies.  And if a special effect seems in some way other worldly, then all the better.  He was creating visions and illusions, not recreating life.  In that, Harryhausen worked with an artist’s touch, pursuing a personal vision until he realized it fully.  One has the sense that Harryhausen would’ve made films in his basement if he had not achieved success in Hollywood.

A genial, even-tempered and sweet man, Harryhuasen was also something of a loner.  Though he sometimes used assistants, he most frequently worked alone.  He was just so deeply involved in his vision that I think he had difficultly articulating what he wanted, and how he wanted it done, to fellow stop motion animation artists.  He was also very protective of America’s cinematic history, and had little taste for ironists or revisionists.  I well recall someone calling the original King Kong “campy,” and Harryhausen explaining with strained patience that acting, screenwriting and special effects techniques do change, but that in no way negates the quality of the work.  (I often have the feeling that, to many people, anything made without irony is “camp” – a particularly virulent intellectual conceit that diminishes what’s left of our critical faculty.)

Harryhausen was no mean draughtsman, and drew the storyboards for all of his films, as well as making various drawings of fantastic and science fiction images for his own amusement.

Harryhausen Concept Art

For those who wish to sample the best of Harryhausen, below are your correspondent’s five favorite Harryhausen films, along with one bonus picture.  All of them are available on DVD, at your local library, or on Netflix.  See one or all of them – you will not be disappointed.

Mighty Joe Young (1949) was made in collaboration with Harryhausen’s mentor, the great stop motion animator Willis O’Brien (1886-1962), the brilliant special effects pioneer who created King Kong.  Mighty Joe Young was produced by the same team that had created Kong 16 years earlier, and there is a similar vibe to the film, though Mighty Joe Young is a much gentler story with a happy ending.  In short, a producer (played by King Kong alum Robert Armstrong) comes to Africa looking for attractions, only to find an enormous ape that has been raised by a young girl (Terry Moore).  He takes girl and ape back to New York, where poor Joe performs in various seedy nightclubs.  Of course, Joe goes on a rampage, and, after the city issues an order of extermination, the producer, girl, and their cowboy friend (Ben Johnson in his first film role -- I kid you not), plot to get him back to Africa.  The dazzling finale has Joe rescuing children from a burning orphanage.  I know how this all sounds, but … trust me.  It is a spectacular and remarkable moving movie. 

Loosely (very loosely!) adapted from a short story by Harryhausen’s friend, Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) was the  first live-action film to feature a giant monster awakened or brought about by an atomic bomb detonation to attack a major city.  The Beast was a tremendous commercial success, spawning an entire genre of giant monster films, including Gorgo (1961), Godzilla (1954), and Them! (1954). In brief: atomic testing awakens a long-dormant prehistoric beast frozen in the Artic Circle.  The monster makes its way to New York, and is finally killed within the framework of the rollercoaster at Coney Island.  For this film, Harryhausen created his own dinosaur, the Rhedosaurus, and it is an incredible conception.  At one moment, the beast knocks down a Manhattan building and the dust rises around him.  It’s a throw-away moment, but it’s a moment filled with magic.

With 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), Harryhausen once again creates his own creature, the Ymir, a denizen of Venus.  When a US spaceship on a secret mission from Venus crash lands off the coast of Italy, an egg with an embryonic alien washes ashore.  Growing at an alarming rate, the Ymir escapes and wreaks havoc amongst the ruins of Rome.  Tremendous visuals and great fun.

Many consider Jason and the Argonauts (1963), where Harryhausen was associate producer as well as the master of visual effects, to be his masterpiece.  Retelling the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Harryhausen pulls out all of the stops, animating giant statues, many-headed snakes and his great achievement, a sword fight among Jason and his comrades with an army of skeletons.  I was fortunate enough to see this in the ruins of the great picture palace, Loew’s Jersey City, with Harryhausen in attendance.  The film is a great crowd-pleaser, and I strongly recommend you watch it with a young person to appreciate the full effect.

Jason Concept Art

My personal favorite Harryhausen film is First Men in the Moon (1964), where he again served as associate producer and special effects artist.  This film is an adaptation of the 1901 novel by H. G. Wells, with a screenplay by science fiction veteran Nigel Kneale.  The film opens with a breath-taking conceit: contemporary (1960s) astronauts land on the moon, only to find evidence of a prior visitation … made during the Victorian era!  Representatives from NASA and the media descend upon an aging, frail rascal currently residing in a nursing home, who details in flashback how he got there first, more than 60 years earlier.  For this film, Harryhausen animated the insect like Moon men, giant caterpillar-like Moon calves, and the Great Luna – the controlling intelligence of the planet.  The film is whimsical, thrilling, spectacular and sweetly nostalgic.  It is, in short, a masterpiece.  If you only see one Harryhausen film, make it First Men in the Moon.

One to grow on – though not a “good” film in the traditional sense, I have a remarkable affection for The Valley of Gwangi (1969), another film he produced as well as led the special effects effort.  Gwangi was originally planned as a vehicle for his mentor, Willis O’Brien.  How to describe Gwangi?  Well … cowboys in the Old West find a lost valley, complete with the last surviving dinosaurs.  They capture an Allosaurus and bring it back to tour in a Wild West Show … in short, we have King Kong in the Old West.  I find the mix of cowboys, show business and dinosaurs to be too delicious to miss, and Gwangi ends up in my viewing queue every couple of years.  The film climaxes with a breath-taking tussle between Gwangi and a circus elephant – and includes some of Harryhausen’s finest work.

We are all diminished by the loss of Ray Harryhausen, but his works remains to lighten up the dark corners of our imagination.

The World Loses Ray Harryhausen, Part I

Harryhausen animating the skeleton in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad

It’s just about one month shy of the first anniversary of the passing of Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) one of the Great Men of American Letters.  Sadly, we now mourn the loss of one of the great visionaries of American Cinema, Bradbury’s friend Ray Harryhausen.

In an age when the cinema is glutted with fantasy and science fiction films bloated by special effects, it’s perhaps difficult to remember that genre films were the exception to the rule, and that special effects were once, well …, special.

Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) was born and raised in California, where he became friends with young Ray Bradbury, a fellow science fiction fan.  Like many of an entire generation of science fiction and fantasy buffs, the release of the original King Kong in 1933 was a seminal event in his life.  The mighty Kong fell not only from the Empire State Building, but he fell on Harryhausen as well, metaphorically smothering the boy and making him and a fan of stop motion animation.

The young Harryhausen went Kong-Krazy, and did all he could to learn how the effects of Kong were achieved.  It was then that he learned of Stop Motion Animation, a process by which models were filmed – literally one frame at a time – with slight alterations in posing.  When played sequentially, the animation effect simulated life – making steel-skeleton puppets covered with rubber, fur and miniature costumes come alive.  Harryhausen started building models and making amateur films while in his teens.  Footage of these early films still exists, including one where the young animator has envisioned the world of Venus.  A story that has passed into Harryhausen lore is that he appropriated his mother’s fur coat to create the model of a mastodon….

Harryhausen, in many ways, resembled the great studio painters of yore in that after showing early aptitude, he got to apprentice with an established master.  A friend arranged for Harryhausen to meet Willis O’Brien (1886-1962), the brilliant special effects pioneer who created King Kong.  O’Brien was impressed by Harryhausen’s experimental films, and urged him to take drawing and sculpture courses to hone his craft. 

Harryhausen started his professional career animating short films for science fiction auteur George Pal (1908-1980); the series was called Puppetoons, and specialized mostly in fairy tales.  He also worked with Frank Capra during World War II, mostly as a camera assistant.

After the war, Harryhausen went to work with his mentor, O’Brien, and together they made one of the most impressive fantasy films of the 1940s, Mighty Joe Young (1949).  The film won O’Brien his long over-due Academy Award, which is ironic in that Harryhausen did most of the actual animation while O’Brien focused on solving technical problems.

After that, there was no stopping Harryhausen, and he went on to create the special effects for some of the most celebrated and best-loved fantasy and science fiction films of the 1950s and 1960s: It Came from Beneath the Sea, 20 Million Miles to Earth, and Mysterious Island. He also produced many of his own films (such as Jason and the Argonauts and the original Clash of the Titans), and was always the guiding vision behind each and every film on which he worked.  This led to a unified body of work, similar in tone, outlook and depth of feeling.  No ironist and blessed with a sense of adventure and optimism, Harryhausen opened a world of the imagination to generations of movie goers and future film-makers.  When Harryhausen was honored with a special Academy Award, actor Tom Hanks told the audience, "Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane...I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made!"

Like painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), there is little “color” or drama to Harryhausen’s life.  If Sargent’s epitaph was “he painted,” then Harryhausen’s could well be, “he created.”  He married late in life (in 1963), to Diana Livingston Bruce, and lived quietly in London and Spain, tirelessly breathing life into his magical puppets, and consequently bringing a little magic into the lives of all of us.  Ray Harryhausen loved fantasy, science fiction, hamburgers, his fans, and Diana.  His passing is a great loss to anyone who loves the world of the imagination.

Tomorrow: The Essential Ray Harryhausen Film List

Ray Animated an Elephant and Dinosaur for the Climax of

The Valley of Gwangi

The King of Skull Island

The famed explorer and filmmaker stood before a theater of First Nighters and New York sophisticates and said, Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here tonight to tell you a very strange story — a story so strange that no one will believe it — but, ladies and gentlemen, seeing is believing. And we — my partners and I — have brought back the living proof of our adventure, an adventure in which twelve of our party met horrible death. And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive — a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.

March marks the 80^th Anniversary of one of the greatest American films ever made, King Kong.  Though that comment might drive more elitist cineastes up the wall (where they belong), it is an incontrovertible fact.  Indeed, Kong is not only a great American film, but perhaps one of the most iconic, with a closing sequence that has entered into myth and has become part of our folklore.

For readers who have never had the privilege of seeing Kong, the story is simply this: world explorer and filmmaker Carl Denham sails to an uncharted island in the Dutch East Indies to make a film about whatever he finds there. With him are Ann Darrow, a down-on-her-luck actress, and Jack Driscoll, the tough first mate of Capt. Englehorn.  What they find is a primitive tribe, separated from the rest of the island by a gigantic wall.  The natives kidnap Ann to sacrifice her to their god – Kong, a 50 foot ape.  Denham, Driscoll and others breach the wall to rescue her, finding a lost world of dinosaurs.  Capturing Kong, they bring him back to New York, where he escapes.  Recapturing Ann once again, the great ape climbs the newly finished Empire State Building, where it fights for life against a squadron of biplanes.  Once the great Kong lies dead in a Manhattan street, Denham stands over the body and says, “Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty that killed the beast!”

Though set in a then-contemporary 1933, Kong is a portal into a lost world in more ways than one.  Much of it takes place in a now vanished Manhattan peopled by wisecracking operators who speak in a particularly 30s American patios.  The dialog, by James Ashmore Creelman (1894-1941), who would commit suicide by jumping from a building, and Ruth Rose (1891-1978), crackled with an electrical energy often found in Depression-era films.  Its signature note is a combination of sentiment and cynicism and is a delight to hear.

The middle third of the film takes place on the remote Skull Island, home of the last of the dinosaurs.  The world of 1933 was a much larger place than it is today; there were many uncharted islands, and great portions of many continents were still unknown (or largely unknown) by the western world.  The notion in 1933 that one could head out into a wide-world full of the unknown and adventure was not beyond the realm of possibility.  (By the end of World War II, most of the world would not only be successfully mapped, but also closed off for various political reasons.)

To create King Kong, the filmmakers turned to Willis O’Brien (1886-1952), who created Kong and the dinosaurs through a process called stop motion animation.  Kong was, in reality, a puppet about 18 inches tall.  It was a metal, articulated skeleton that could be posed in different positions, covered in rubber, and the rubber covered in rabbit fur.  O’Brien would then position Kong, shoot one frame, re-position him, shoot one frame, and on and on and on.  The final result is that Kong would move with a lifelike grace.  The special effects for Kong are very special indeed, and 80 years later they have not lost their ability to enchant.  (In fact, I much prefer stop motion to the current CGI type of effect; stop motion always seemed to have a touch of the fantastic, and what would Kong be without that?)

For me, one of the most fascinating things about King Kong is how much of it is based on the experiences of the two men who co-directed the film: Merian C. Cooper (1893-1973) and Ernest B. Schoedsack (1893–1979).  Both were globetrotting adventurers with enough exotic experiences to put Indiana Jones to shame, tramping through Siam, Persia, Abyssinia, and the Malaysian Archipelago.  The film’s two protagonists – filmmaker Carl Denham and sailor Jack Driscoll – are actually stand-ins for the real-life filmmakers; Robert Armstrong (1890-1973), who played Denham, looked remarkably like Cooper, and Bruce Cabot (1904-1972), who played Driscoll, resembled Schoedsack.  Cooper stayed active in aviation (and was one of the founders of Pan Am) and motion pictures, working to develop the process known as Cinerama.  Sadly, he spent his declining years a rabid McCarthyite, looking for Reds in every corner of American life.  Oddly, Cooper and Armstrong would die within 16 hours of each other.  Schoedsack continued to direct, but recurring vision problems curtailed his career.  (Screenwriter Ruth Rose was also Mrs. Schoedsack.)

The genius of Kong is not just in its conception, but in its execution.  The first line in the film sets the action and starts racing to its conclusion.  It is exciting and spectacular without ever being flabby or self-indulgent; it is mythic and larger than life without ever losing the sentiment at its core.  In addition to Armstrong and Cabot, the film is wonderfully embellished by a touching and vulnerable performance by Fay Wray as Ann Darrow (1907-2004); when she died at age 96, the Empire State Building dimmed its lights for 15 minutes.

Kong would be remade twice: once disastrously in 1976 and again, with mixed results, in 2005 by director Peter Jackson.  Neither is a patch on the original.  (It had long been my dream that animator William Joyce would remake the film; perhaps some day...)

King Kong is everything to which today’s blockbusters aspire, but seldom achieve.  It’s spectacular, filled with stunning special effects, great performances, smart, funny, mythic, exciting and heartbreaking.  It is, in short, everything a movie should be.