Kong '76 coming from Scream Factory - Review Up

[AndyDursin]

Grodin is also 85 -- I don't know what shape he's in but I haven't seen him in a long time. Eric's right, Lange would never talk about the film, period. I'm not sure of how much interest it is for Bridges.

Being that they cannot go and physically interview anyone, they are limited in who they can talk to and who's willing to jump on a computer and talk. The reality is -- like EVENT HORIZON -- these are all going to be short, hard-to-watch Zoom interviews conducted online more than likely, so they'll probably be limited in terms of scope and questions.

Still I definitely salute Shout for the effort here. The HD transfer of the TV version is a real nice inclusion. The commentary hopefully will be of interest, they got someone who's into KING KONG and not just a babbling "historian" like the usual group of bloggers who spend an entire commentary reading credits off IMDB.

It's more than any other label has given for this movie. Even the Studio Canal releases overseas, they interviewed a bunch of historians and that was it.

Shout is back to servicing media outlets again so hopefully I'll have the disc a few weeks ahead of time and can provide a good comparison -- but unless they muck up the compression (which they haven't done recently), it won't take much to improve on the international releases which are all problematic in one way or another.

[AndyDursin]

Copy's in the house. Guess I will have to reedit next week's column now!

[Monterey Jack]

My copy also shipped and should arrive by Monday. News to beat one's chest over...!

[AndyDursin]

Shame these commentaries and interviews were all conducted over Zoom, and some of them quite poor in their audio fidelity. The commentary by the Kong historian sounds especially garbled and he has such a light speaking voice it's difficult to listen to, his voice trails off at the end of sentences often. Like listening to a heavily compressed MP3

The transfer is fine, it is an older scan but it's not bad. Seems a little "fuzzy" just like the other master. I'd have to go back to the Studio Canal release and see how it matches up. My first impression is it's basically the same but framing and color may be slightly different.

The TV version really was taken right off a broadcast master which was assembled in widescreen then cropped for TV. There are blackouts for commercial breaks and it stops for Part 1 and reuses the credits for Part 2, just as it did on NBC.

There is a disclaimer they reused footage (as we know) and these recycled shots and scenes were completely cropped to 1.33 when they ran (I guess, their disclaimer is weirdly worded). For this they kept the cropping so it stays 2.35 but it apparently has 1.33 content inside it, when those recycled shots run...so I think what they are trying to say is when you see the 2.35 frame in those recycled scenes, you aren't seeing the full 2.35 content you'd ordinarily see but rather 1.33 cropping inside the wide frame, because that's how it is in the TV master. I dunno, maybe someone can figure out what it means lol.

Either way they maintain they did no editorial work for it, and presented it as it is on the master at Paramount. So another good find just like the TV cut of Superman.

[Monterey Jack]

Shame these commentaries and interviews were all conducted over Zoom, and some of them quite poor in their audio fidelity. The commentary by the Kong historian sounds especially garbled and he has such a light speaking voice it's difficult to listen to, his voice trails off at the end of sentences often. Like listening to a heavily compressed MP3

God, I can't wait for this fake pandemic to be over so we can get some proper in-person interviews again.

[AndyDursin]

They're really bad here

I recognize so many of these supplements had to be done remote but aren't these commentaries usually always done that way? Someone should've been able to do a quality home recording and then upload it...that shouldn't be something impacted by the pandemic.

This historian sounds like they had a bad Zoom connection and just recorded the audio of him reading his essay. Its really garbled and unfortunate because he has some good information buried under terrible sound quality.

[AndyDursin]

Added my full review in this week's column on the front page:

https://andyfilm.com/2021/05/05/5-11-21 ... -restored/

[Eric Paddon]

My copy came yesterday. My one complaint is something that I also noticed on Shout's release of the Omen films and that's the fact that for some reason it is almost impossible to easily navigate the menu screen when trying to access the extras. You press over to "Extras" but then it just automatically comes up with the first one and you can't control the navigation of them easily.

That aside, I'm impressed with everything else. I never expected to see the TV cut widescreen, but I guess we now know that back in the day if an expanded movie for TV wasn't adding specifically shot for TV material like the Universal film, the original master would be widescreen as we've seen now with Kong and Superman. You can see again how a lot of the footage was padded and repetitious to justify the running time to give NBC two nights (Part 2 went up against the debut of "Battlestar Galactica" on ABC). Music cues were added/recycled in spots as well and listening carefully I think there may well be an alternate cue or two that isn't on the FSM CD. Of course the TV cut also has all the "edited for television" features in terms of the language (I laugh at how Jeff Bridges shouting "Assxxxes!" at the end is overdubbed with his earlier cheering "Yeah!" from when Kong threw the fuel tank at the flamethrowers. It makes it sound like he's cheering the chopper pilots!) and of course they made sure to cut away to a close-up of Kong for the moment when he ripped off Dwan's top.

I didn't have much trouble listening to the Morton commentary on the theatrical cut. I've owned his book on the Kong films for years and he had written the definitive production telling of Kong '76 in that one, so I was overall impressed with what he had to offer here. I think the best point he makes is how Lange was told to basically affect a Monroe like performance and the critics totally missed the point thinking she was a total dumb blonde when she was already showing what great acting chops she had. It's unfortunate I think that Lange hasn't made peace with the film to finally acknowledge at least what a good job she did and that like it or not, her career as an actress never would have began if it hadn't been for Kong, even if it was a rough beginning at first for her.

Seeing the film on Blu-Ray at last also highlights how much it totally blows away Jackson.

[AndyDursin]

I never expected to see the TV cut widescreen, but I guess we now know that back in the day if an expanded movie for TV wasn't adding specifically shot for TV material like the Universal film, the original master would be widescreen as we've seen now with Kong and Superman.

It sounds like this had to be "reconstructed" though, the not-entirely-clear disclaimer that runs before the movie said this version "matches the tape master identically" so in this case, it doesn't sound as if the TV version existed on film. I don't know where they pulled the outtakes from because they are in widescreen. Sounds like they cobbled this together using the TV version's soundtrack (so we have all the alternate cues) with the deleted scenes inserted into what's otherwise the same HD master as the movie itself.

I'll have to check it out more, but I think Superman's TV cut existing in widescreen as it did is probably an anomaly as far as these things go.

Seeing the film on Blu-Ray at last also highlights how much it totally blows away Jackson.

As I wrote in my review, it's funny this version being rooted in the '70s is much more contemporary in tone and performance than Jackson's film. I find it much more entertaining on balance.

[Eric Paddon]

No, I don't think this was a "reconstruction" of the TV cut, I think it was the original master prepared for TV given the inclusion of the commercial fade-outs and the Part 2 opening credits and recap. I think what the explanation meant was that when the editors were assembling what footage to use originally for the expanded broadcast that involved recycling scenes, they made those decisions based on how the scenes would look in a 1:33 TV ratio and gave no thought to the fact that when you see the whole recycled scene in its original 2:35 ratio you might see something that shouldn't have been there. I think Shout's explanation was needlessly confusing when all they needed to say was this was the original Paramount approved TV broadcast master from the original 1978 two-part showing (the subsequent NBC airings weren't as long as they were on a single night in a three hour slot).

[AndyDursin]

Whatever the case may be, someone needs to get into the Sony vaults for THE DEEP!

[Eric Paddon]

Agreed! And in the future I hope we might get the TV cuts of "Airport '77" and "Midway" on new Blu-Rays even though both might require utilizing good off-air recordings like they had to with "Two Minute Warning" thanks to the Universal fire.

Supposedly the TV cut of "Island Of Dr. Moreau" restored the originally intended downer ending of Barbara Carrera transforming (the Marvel Comics adaptation shows it) but this has never been confirmed and if it did show it, it hasn't been seen since it aired. Also, the TV cut of "Damnation Alley" had some additional scenes including one of Murray Hamilton who has no dialogue in the theatrical cut.

[AndyDursin]

Just to add, the TV cut's added scenes were taken from what Shout says was a "new 2K scan of the additional T.V. footage from the internegative." That doesn't pertain to the rest of the transfer, which looks to me like the same older HD master the movie on Disc 1 has. So I do think it is technically a reconstruction using the older Paramount HD master for the non TV exclusive scenes and a new 2k scan for the TV scenes. But maybe the whole thing does exist in widescreen too, and they just opted to source the rest from the current Paramount HD master because the elements were in better shape.

So maybe we're both right!

[Eric Paddon]

It does make it sound even more complex! Whatever the case, I'm glad we got it this way. While the TV edit takes out Rene Auberjonois's great line, "You'll get better mileage filling your Cadillac with mulepiss!" I like the restored scenes that make it clear that Dwan and Jack have no future together.

[Monterey Jack]

Watched the extended TV cut today, and while I appreciate the extra mile Scream went to restoring it to HD and the proper widescreen aspect ratio, I doubt I'll sit through it again in full. The extra bits are enjoyable for what they are. and it's wonderful to finally have them in watchable quality, but the theatrical cut flows better, isn't censored (I too missed the "mule piss" line, not to mention Jessica Lange's top getting pushed down by a lecherous Kong ), and is overall the superior experience. I'm glad both versions now exist for fans, but I'll stick with the theatrical cut from now on, and only skip around the TV version for the added bits.

Nice transfer all around, and while the audiovisual quality of the new interviews is sometimes garbage, they're nice to have. Have only watched part of the 2016 retrospective, but it's nice they got DP Richard H. Kline in there. as he passed away not long after that. All in all a terrific package, and I'm happy to now have all three versions of Kong nestled next to each other in my "Original & Remake" section (and the nifty Hugh Fleming poster framed and mounted on my wall).