One year before the landmark film hit theaters in 1933, the novelization of KING KONG was released to whet the public’s appetite. Although a few details are different, Delos W. Lovelace’s novelization is a fairly strict adaptation of Merian C. Cooper’s “Giant Terror Gorilla” movie, to the point where the big climax is told in all of two pages which close the slim volume.
We all know the story of KONG, so I won’t bore you by rehashing it here. It is, however, worth pointing out that Lovelace does have one thing that the film did not: the legendary spider pit sequence. Unfortunately, his telling of it is so dry that it just furthers your frustration for not being able to see this lost scene. Dry is an apt term for the book’s whole, actually. Lovelace writes simplistically, with dialogue so forced it comes off as downright vaudevillian (“He’s a tough egg!,” “Hell’s bells!,” “Here, Socrates, take this dollar and forget it.”). Sorry, but this is hack work, even for 1932.
One wonders if The Modern Library – which just issued this new edition – agrees. For one thing, the preface by Mark Cotta Vaz – which reads like an 11-page condensed version of his current Cooper bio LIVING DANGEROUSLY – tells more about the timeless movie than the dated book. Same goes for the introduction by sci-fi writer Greg Bear. I can’t blame either of them.
Beauty killed the beast, all right, but ’twas hamminess that kills this one.
Related posts:
- How much KONG can you handle?
- Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong
- Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film
- The War of the Worlds
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