Welcome back to Hail to the King (Kong), a series of posts that’ll pop up here and there that focus on merchandise and other things that relate to the giant gorilla who’s captured the hearts of monster-movie fans since his debut in 1933. It’s part of our promotion for the latest addition to our Illustrated Classics library: the e-book-exclusive edition of the 1932 novelization of King Kong, which is on sale right now.
Written by Delos W. Lovelace, based on the story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper and the screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose, it features scenes that didn’t appear in the final cut of the film—including the notorious “spider pit” sequence in which Kong’s human pursuers are attacked by horrific arachnids and insects. What makes our version special is that it contains six exclusive, original black-and-white illustrations by comics artist Paul Tuma, whose pulp-influenced style has appeared in the pages of The Twilight Avenger, The Green Hornet, and Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective.
Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article on a King Kong musical that’s headed to Broadway in the fall of 2018 (which happens to be the 85th anniversary year of Kong’s 1933 cinematic debut). A retooled version of a musical that ran in Australia in 2013, its centerpiece is a twenty-foot-tall puppet-robot of Kong; from what I’ve seen of it in YouTube videos, he’s one impressive-looking monkey! And even better, at least from our point of view, is that the musical is based on the Lovelace novelization—you know, the very same novelization that’s available from the SWC webstore!
Now, technically this will be Kong’s third appearance on the Great White Way—the first two being, of course, his use as a prop in Carl Denham’s beauty-and-the-beast-themed show, as depicted in the original film and its 2005 remake. In both instances Kong proved that he’s just not a theater guy; true, he literally brought the house down, but not in a good way. Hopefully, the producers of the new Kong will treat their star a lot better than Denham did—I hear he’s pretty temperamental…
King Kong (the SWC edition) is available right now for download, so visit its product page for ordering information.
