The history of this film is fascinating, not the least of which is that it was at least the third time King Kong had appeared in a Japanese film (though the first two films from the 1930’s are now considered lost.)
I want to focus on one particular aspect of its history though:
The film actually originated from none other than Willis O’Brien, whose pioneering stop-motion animation would essentially create the monster/dinosaur film genre in films like 1918’s The Ghost of Slumber Mountain and 1925’s The Lost World. More importantly, he would be the man to bring King Kong to life, doing the iconic stop motion animation for both the big ape and his dinosaur friends in the 1933 film. His contributions to the film can not be understated as many of its iconic moments were animated by him and his crew and he helped in finding how to put those shots alongside the live-action actors.
Sometime in the late 50’s and early 60’s, while trying to develop dinosaur projects like Gwangi , about a group of cowboys encountering dinosaurs in the old west (which, after O’Brien’s death in 1962, his protege Ray Harryhausen would complete in 1969), he conceived of an idea tentatively called King Kong vs. Frankenstein. You can probably figure out the plot just from the title, but the “Frankenstein” is actually a creation of a descendant of…
