This was the image that filled a page in TV Guide and in Newsday, the local newspaper on Long Island. One of the most memorable images of my childhood. Every Thanksgiving my brothers and I would watch KING KONG on WOR channel 9 beginning, as I recall, in the late 1960s. The cousins would arrive soon after it started. They would watch the film with us while the grown-ups talked in the kitchen. But the grown-ups would always come out to watch the really exciting parts, because they were as knocked out by the film as the kids were.
King Kong and New York City.
New York City and King Kong.
The two images were one, inseparable, each adding to the excitement of the other.
And then there was the beauty clutched in the hairy paw that every pre-adolescent boy lusted after. Fay Wray in jeopardy, rescued by good brave men like Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll.
That's what movies were all about.
That was a long time ago, but I'm reviving the tradition this afternoon.
The Village Voice Thu., Nov. 26 2009
by James H. Burns
This week marks the anniversary of when many New Yorkers were first introduced to King Kong, and the picture's heady blend of romance, adventure, and a giant gorilla.
For over ten years, beginning in the early 1970s, King Kong was shown by Channel 9 (the former WOR-TV), on Thanksgiving -- making the movie one of the Tri-State area's more unusual holiday traditions.
Of course, Kong had been a smash from its very beginning, opening exclusively in Manhattan on March 2, 1933, at Radio City Music Hall, and two blocks south at its smaller twin, the RKO New Roxy (combining for a per-screening capacity of almost ten thousand seats).
King Kong had been successfully rereleased to theatres, several times before debuting on television in 1956.
WOR bought King Kong for its afternoon film program, The Million Dollar Movie, which would air the same film every day for a week, sometimes more than once a day. (There were children, and adults, who would watch The Million Dollar Movie every day.)
For youngsters, there was a bonus. Kong had become a window to a second wonderland, a Manhattan now nearly as mythical as anything found on Kong's Skull Island; a New York known to many only from family memories, if that.
The fascination with Kong was something many parents shared with their children in front of the once-upon-a-time glow of a black-and-white TV. It was not uncommon for three generations of Kong fans to huddle on or in front of the couch and watch the movie together.
WOR's Thanksgivings soon included the sequel Son of Kong (shot and released later in the same year as its predecessor), and 1949's Mighty Joe Young, another picture about a mighty, stop-motion-animation ape by Kong's creators. (Channel 9 also threw Godzilla into the mix, and in 1977 added a post-Thanksgiving Friday marathon of Japanese monster flicks.)
Kong was still the big draw, though. Perhaps its weird, handmade special effects, with the intimacy of television adding to the alchemy, registered particularly in the subconscious.
Although the King Kong festivals ended in 1985, the movie's subsequent TV ratings and video sales remained strong. Though made six years after the advent of "talkies," Kong kept exhilarating to viewers even into the age of the CGI blockbuster.
For many of us raised in or near New York City, the scent of a simmering holiday dinner will instantly, and forever, conjure images of another enchanted isle.
According to DVD Drive-In, WOR started showing KING KONG in 1976, which is inaccurate. By 1976 I had moved on to other things. In 1977 I married and moved to California, so I didn't see those giant-monster movie marathons.
WOR started showing KING KONG more than a decade earlier, in the 1960s. If DVD-Drive-In checks back issues of TV Guide as far back as the early 1960s they will find admats for KING KONG therein.
Likewise, if they search for Creature Features and Chiller Theater in back issues of TV Guide and Newsday's weekly TV section they will find both programs airing as early as 1963.
Yes, WOR did show KING KONG before 1976, though I don't know if they were showing it on Thanksgiving before '76. I lived on Long Island when I was a kid back in the sixties (I moved to upstate New York in mid-1970), but I can remember week-long afternoon marathons of certain movies on WOR, KONG being about the only one I paid attention to.
One of the major reasons I'm the movie fan I am is because of how great the New York City television market was back in the sixties for showing old movies. Three network channels, PBS and three independent stations. That's only seven channels but back then, that was a lot -- and they all ran movies every day. And did I hate black and white? We only had B&W TVs, so everything was B&W.
King Kong was sold to television along with 741 other RKO features in 1955. The first airings would take place in March of 1956. WOR in New York had a sensation that month when they played King Kong for five straight days. Kids were watching every broadcast. This has been the biggest thing since Davy Crockett, said one station executive.
KING KONG premiered March 5, 1956, on WOR-TV. It aired sixteen times over the following week on MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE.
Wow! it was already a local tradition by the time I came along! I knew KING KONG had been a phenomenon on television, but not that long ago! Thanks, Ray and Rory, for the links and the clippings.
We watched the blu-ray last night and the film looks better than ever. KING KONG may be old and dated, but it still has the power to entertain. It still surpasses the remakes and the sequels and the tie-ins. So far as I'm concerned KING KONG is what cinema is all about.
I'm surprised more FSM-er's didn't see it on WOR, but I guess there's a younger demographic here.
Everyone has seen the 1938 theatrical reissue trailer for KONG. But here are the very rare 1956 reissue TV spots. I transferred these from my 16mm prints:
That was cool. I've never seen that before. Seems kind of cheap at first, then I noticed all the audio was a remix of stuff not from the movie at all. That took some craft.
I do this every year! My late father and I used to watch it in the 80's on WOR and as a way of sharing the day with him, I pop in the DVD. But, I've made alterations...
I found many of the commercials and bumpers from the 1981 Holiday Movie Special on YouTube and edited them into the print. I also "crapped up" the image using Nero, to simulate the cruddy prints from yesteryear. I'm sure it's not accurate, but it's good enough for me to travel back in time, sit in the den with my dad and wait for dinner to be served.
I'm glad to know other like minded folks were watching Kong at around the same time.
Richard-W, thanks for the thread. As a NYC baby boomer this was also a favorite childhood tradition during the 60's
Other than radio and a record player the TV was the MAIN entertainment event even though black & white with more than occasional viewing difficulties due to the era's technology. I remember watching WOR channel 9's Million Dollar Movie Kong Festivals and NOT being bothered by numerous advertisement disruptions. Being enthralled I guess back then the ads were subliminally part of the rhythm of the TV experience.
Anyway, RoryR, Ray Faiola, Scott M (Oldsmith) - thank you all for your flashback memories, articles, and videos. With Christmas coming this is heart-warming nostalgia.
aside from parents creating a viewing tradition, I wonder if kids (since the 1980s) these days have any sense of how even re-run showings of movies on TV could be "an event" to many people. I suspect that feeling is totally lost today.
I can remember when King Kong was the big film on Christmas night on ITV (UK), probably in 1960/61. My mother tells me I sat & watched it wide-eyed (I'd read all about it in Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine). TV companies don't really know what to do these days, we all own these movies now. The idea of the "big" film on these holidays is out of date, shame, as the whole family used to watch it together.
I too have fond pre-video/pre-DVD memories of watching the seemingly-rare (at least to me) television broadcasts of "Kong" when I was lucky enough to catch them in my youth. However, I live on the West Coast, so I never got to see any WOR broadcasts. Either way, what a great film. I was always sad when I missed it....
This is what the opening of Million Dollar Movie looked like in the early 60's. The clapper board rose up out of the horizon. The theme was "Tara" even back then.
So that's how it looked in color. Kind of bright and cheery looking. I only saw it in black and white. There was a neighbor down the street who had a color set. It startled me the first time I saw it. I saw some of The Mod Squad, Land of the Giants, The Monkees and Dark Shadows in color. It had a green bias, the color TV. Of course, it in less than fifteen years I would be working in television and taking color monitors for granted.
aside from parents creating a viewing tradition, I wonder if kids (since the 1980s) these days have any sense of how even re-run showings of movies on TV could be "an event" to many people. I suspect that feeling is totally lost today.
Exactly. Movies were not as accessible then as they are now. An old film that you liked might come around once every three or four years on TV, but many films would never be broadcast. So watching a film on TV was an event. KING KONG was unusual in that it became a yearly tradition -- as did the Fleischer brothers' cartoon GULLIVER'S TRAVELS (1939) and MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (1934, aka Babes In Toyland). I'm sure it was different on the west coast, but the Million Dollar Movie on WOR channel 9 and the Afternoon Movie on WNEW channel 5 disseminated film culture in the New York - New Jersey - Connecticut area from the mid-1950s until the dawn of VHS in 1979-80.
