King Kong
Movie Quote Quiz

Carl Denham: I'm someone you can trust, Ann. I'm a movie producer.

Carl Denham: It wasn't the planes...it was beauty killed the Beast.

Carl Denham: Bring the tripod and all of the film.
Herb: Want to switch to the six-inch lens?
Carl Denham: The wide-angle will be fine.

Bruce Baxter: I'm just an actor with a gun who's lost his motivation.

Carl Denham: There are thousands of actresses out of work in this city. Somewhere out there is a woman born to play this role... A woman who will journey into the heart of the unknown... Toward a fateful meeting that changes everything.

Jack Driscoll: Actors. They travel the world and all they see is a mirror.

Factual error: Denham is obviously shooting a sound film - he has a sound recordist with him along with the bulky and awkward recording equipment typical for the era, and they discuss the problems of recording dialogue on board. But not once do we see him filming with sound. We see the crew recording dialogue - synchronised sound, recorded on location, which is utterly impossible given the equipment they have and the circumstances under which the fim is being shot. We never see a microphone, a boom pole or a tape recorder. His camera isn't even 'blimped' - soundproofed - and it's handcranked, which makes a racket. They can't be planning on adding the sound later - why have the sound recordist and his bulky and heavy equipment there with them if they are? We see the crew recording dialogue - synchronised sound, recorded on location, which is utterly impossible given the equipment they have and the circumstances under which the fim is being shot. The whole point of post dubbing dialogue is that you don't need a sound recordist in the first place.

More mistakes in King Kong

Trivia: The 'natives' at Kong's feet, in the theater production scene, use the same costumes and the same music as the Skull Island natives in the 1933 original.

More trivia for King Kong

Question: Would it really be possible for an ape as large as Kong Kong to climb up the Empire State Building as shown in the movie?

Answer: I assume you mean, could the building take his weight, not whether an ape would really have the ability to climb a building (if that's what you mean, then it's definitely yes...apes are great climbers). Assuming Kong is proportionally as heavy as normal-sized gorillas, which tend to be in the area of 160kg (~350lbs), then he weighs over 80,000kg (89 tons, give or take). The average human weighs about 62kg, so that's about 1,300 humans, and the capacity of the ESB is over 13,000. So, assuming the building is mostly, or even half, empty while a giant gorilla scales it, the building could handle his weight.

Keep in mind, though, that the weight allowance for the building assumes people on the floors of the building, not climbing on the outside. The outer structure of a building isn't designed for massive creatures climbing on it. While the building as a whole would likely survive, there would be significant damage as Kong would be breaking windows and pulling stone off it as he made his way up.

More questions & answers from King Kong
More movie quotes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.