The Ninth Wonder of the World
An Overdue Review of Marco Polo's New Rerecording of King Kong
by Jeff Bond
King Kong
MAX STEINER
Marco Polo 8.223763. 22 tracks - 72:17
KING KONG is a movie whose importance and influence is perhaps difficult
to understand today, in an era when we can watch technically flawless special
effects footage of dinosaurs any time we want to by popping our used copy
of JURASSIC PARK into the VCR. KONG didn't feature any great performances,
its storyline might seem naive and silly to modern audiences, and its special
effects at first blush look like rejected outtakes from a Will Vinton Claymation
special. But the movie's themes have been ingrained into American (and
indeed, world) culture for more than sixty years, and despite more than
half a century's advances in special effects, no technician has ever been
able to surpass the dignity, savagery, and pathos that Willis O'Brien instilled
in an eighteen inch foam rubber and cotton gorilla. Part of KONG's magic
grew out of the very limitations of special effects at the time: it was
impossible in 1933 to seamlessly insert an artificial creature into a real
environment (as THE LOST WORLD's T-Rex was inserted into San Diego), so
KONG's makers had to create a wholly artificial environment for its dream
animals to cavort in, an environment of misty, atmospheric glass paintings
and miniatures that was more real, more unforgettable than any location
footage ever could be. KING KONGwas like a series of brilliant children's
book illustrations brought to life, and it is perhaps best appreciated
when introduced into the mind of the viewer at an early age.
No small part of the power of KING KONG lies in Max Steiner's seminal
film score, a brilliant effort that has finally been reproduced in its
entirety on this magnificent CD from Marco Polo. The score has only been
available as excerpts (and in a rerecording done by composer Fred Steiner
for Label X) until now, but conductor William Stromberg and orchestrator
John Morgan have recaptured the glory of this frenetic and often spellbinding
work with a fidelity that should bring new appreciation to what still stands
as the first epic movie score.
Simply recreating the sound of the original score with real clarity
and modern recording techniques would have been reward enough for fans
of Steiner's KONG, but Stromberg and Morgan have really gone beyond the
call of duty, bringing tremendous authenticity of performance from the
Moscow Symphony Orchestra, and revealing a previously unimagined depth
of menace and power to this score. Listeners familiar with John Williams's
THE LOST WORLD will find the inspiration for Williams's jungle-drumming
island music in "A Boat in the Fog" as Steiner builds anticipation
during a tramp steamer's approach to the distant Skull Island. One of the
most amazing moments of the rerecording occurs early in "Entrance
of Kong" as a low tread of brass (all that can be heard in the original
movie recording) gives way to some spine-tingling rumblings of woodwinds
and double-bass that herald the arrival of the giant ape as he bursts through
the forest to reach for Ann Darrow on the sacrificial pyre (an effect Williams
also appropriated to precede the appearance of the T-Rex in JURASSIC PARK).
The rerecording reveals an element of genuine terror produced by Steiner's
music that has heretofore probably only been experienced by audience members
during the movie's original screenings.
There's a lot of mickey-mousing in KING KONG, and the score overall
has a frenetic, helter-skelter quality that may date it too much for those
used to the congruent, smooth sound of a lot of more recent scoring. But
the film itself is almost an archetypal, three-dimensional cartoon, and
Steiner's score buzzes and dances in perfect time to the gyrations of Willis
O'Brien's peripatetic prehistoric animals. Steiner employed a variety of
leitmotifs as was his habit, and his portentous, descending motif for Kong
was particularly versatile, implying both the beast's primitive menace
and foreshadowing his tragic doom at the hands of his human love, Ann Darrow.
The terrible sadness that this motif inspires as Kong succumbs to the final
volley of bullets from the attacking biplanes is one of the movie's most
lingering images, both visual and aural. Steiner was probably the first
film composer to employ the primitivistic, pulsating sounds of Stravinsky
to characterize a dangerous jungle (particularly in the "Stegosaurus"
cue), and he made great use of ascending scales to hype suspense in the
film's spectacular action sequences, climaxing in his bravado scoring of
Kong's climb to the summit of the Empire State Building. Everything is
here, from the dervish-like, Dionysian opening and sacrificial jungle dances
to the charming period march and fanfares that greet Kong's debut in New
York. Since KING KONG was so heavily scored (more than 70 minutes of music
for its relatively brief 103-minute running time) and Steiner's music is
so closely-timed to the action, the Marco Polo album is unusually evocative
in recreating the experience of the film. Mssrs. Stromberg and Morgan,
already responsible for some of the finest film music rerecordings around,
have here created a truly historic document that should finally bring Steiner's
classic score the wide-ranging and contemporary appeal it has always deserved.
If Kong himself was the Eighth Wonder of the World, this recording is surely
the Ninth.
Send ape-like grunts to:
jbond@filmscoremonthly.com
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