Monday, December 27, 2010

The KING KONG Of Movie Flubs


No movie flub can quite compare to the KING KONG of all movie flubs. The 1933 version of KING KONG contains perhaps the most laughable classic movie flub of all time. During the scene where King Kong crashes through the gates of Skull Island , the most absurd comedy drama takes place on the corner of the screen if you look carefully and zoom in with your DVD player.


Unfortunately, in the 1933 film, the natives of Skull Island were mostly played by white male actors in blackface. This seemed to be a sad state of race relations in those days. But, the film was intended to be a pleasant diversion from the woes of The Great Depression. However, the film provided one of the most unintentionally funny scenes ever during the dramatic scene of Kong tearing open the gates of Skull Island with his raw brute strength.


As King Kong tears through these huge gates on the island where he's worshiped as a God by the natives, they run fleeing him in terror. In the right hand corner at the bottom of the screen, one of the extras playing a native turns out to be a white actor in blackface who falls off the edge of the set, getting his wig caught in some chicken-wire set material. You see this guy missing his wig with white skin and blond hair clearly visible above his dark native blackface makeup frantically jumping up and down attempting with no luck to grab his wig back. It's probably the most ridiculous scene ever included in a movie that wasn't edited out and left on the cutting room floor.


For 1933, KING KONG, was a great depression era achievement. It was amazing that a film this good was made in the days when money was so tight. However, this sloppy editing work along with the 1930's era of poor race relations cast some new light on this classic film. Next time you watch this classic film on DVD, spend some time examining this absurd movie flub.