{"id":1866,"date":"2019-12-18T23:46:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T04:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2020-12-06T21:19:55","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T02:19:55","slug":"update-on-king-of-the-kongo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=1866","title":{"rendered":"Update on King of the Kongo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Boris Karloff shows up in Chapter 9. This is only slightly restored; we’re in the middle of this process.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m posting this in various groups that are asking me about this.  If you follow me on the Dr. Film page<\/a>, you may have heard some of this, but it\u2019s worth reading because there\u2019s new information in here too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE PROJECT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King of the Kongo <\/em>is the first sound serial, made in 1929.  Although it\u2019s been on video for years, the prints available are really bad, and they were all made from the sound version without the sound discs, so not only does it look bad, but doesn\u2019t make sense without the sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a great film, but it\u2019s fun.  I think it was partly the inspiration for Son of Kong<\/em>, which also takes place in a wrecked temple, has a gorilla, jewels, and some dinosaurs in it.  Other than that, they\u2019re different!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also the first time Boris Karloff has dialogue in a sound film.  It\u2019s his second sound film, the first being Behind that Curtain<\/em>, which came out about a month earlier, although he has no real dialogue in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been working on this since 2011, and I bought a print of the film in 1989!  I have collected as many sound discs as survive on this one.  The entire picture survives, but only some of the sound.  Keep reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE HISTORY:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King of the Kongo <\/em>was released in late summer 1929 to a lot of ballyhoo.  It was released as a sound-on-disc only and it was called a \u201cwild animal serial.\u201d  True to their word, there are lions, cheetahs, \u201cgorillas,\u201d \u201cdinosaurs,\u201d and elephants in the film.  There was a silent version offered, but I have found no record that it actually played anywhere in the silent version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s, two collectors found a beaten up nitrate print with no sound discs and made a run of 16mm prints.  I spoke to one of the collectors who made these prints.  There are a few of these in private hands.  I think there were only 5-6 made.  I bought one of these prints.  The lab work is, shall we say, questionable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several video companies released various copies of the film mastered from various prints in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, I discovered that the print I had bought in 1989 was actually the sound version.  I had only dimly considered it for a restoration project, but the curiosity got me to contact Ron Hutchinson, who sent me copies of several sound discs he had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a Kickstarter to restore Chapter 5, and subsequently restored Chapter 6 and 10 with National Film Preservation Foundation grants.  Each chapter is two reels (each reel lasting about 10 min), and there\u2019s a talking sequence (about 2-3 min) in each reel.  The rest of each reel is silent with a music and effects track.  So far, the sound survives for about half the serial: Chapter 4 (one reel), Chapter 5 (both reels), Chapter 6 (both reels), Chapter 7 (one reel) Chapter 8 (one reel), Chapter 9 (one reel) and Chapter 10 (both reels).  The script for the entire film survives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I was finishing up the work on the last of the NFPF grant work, word came to me that there was a stock film library that had the entire film in 35mm.  Given that what I had was from beaten up 16mm prints made in the 1950s, the idea that there was nitrate was of some surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE CURRENT PROJECT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been negotiating with the owner of the stock film library and the Library of Congress (where the stock film library is now held) since 2015.  The length of time this has taken has led many to believe that I\u2019m an evil hoarder who will never release this material.  I just felt there wasn\u2019t really cause to release what I had if there was a chance of getting better material, really four generations better than what I\u2019d restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, I got all the details worked out, and we went through the whole film.  In one state or another most of it survives in 35mm.  We still have only 10 of the 21 reels of sound, but that\u2019s not changed in several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LoC currently has 47 reels of material on the film, and, amazingly, much of this is original camera negative!  Given that this was a Mascot serial, later a part of Republic, the master negatives should have burned with the bulk of the Republic and Mascot material in the great Fox nitrate fire of 1937.  Just how this survived is a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we\u2019re trying to restore the entire film with the best surviving material from each chapter, the best surviving sound material from each chapter, and using actors to recreate the missing sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHERE WE ARE ON IT: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am restoring the whole film at 4K right now.  The Library of Congress is still in the process of scanning materials.  I\u2019ve only seen about 1\/3 of the material so far.  I have a grant that covers most of the cost of the actors and the blu-ray mastering, but the whole process at 4K is REALLY SLOW, and there\u2019s a lot of damage in the film (keep reading).  I\u2019m hoping to have a release of this on Blu-ray in 2020.  The grant I have is barely going to cover expenses, which means I\u2019m going to have to do a lot of the work myself instead of farming it out while I do only the most critical work.  This just means it takes longer, but it\u2019s happening.  FINALLY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, I\u2019ve rendered preliminary passes of Chapter 7, 9 and 10.  I\u2019ve discovered that there\u2019s a section of Chapter 9 that\u2019s rotted out and will have to be replaced from 16mm.  Also, the surviving 35mm of Chapter 10 is missing the cliffhanger resolution and will have to be restored from 16mm. Even though we\u2019re working from stunningly sharp negative on most of this, the negative is deteriorating.  There are glue splices that are starting to rot and there\u2019s flickery decomposition throughout most reels.  I\u2019m working with animation historian Steve Stanchfield to remove most of this, one more pass through restoration programs I wasn’t expecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This film really has some beautiful photography in it.  This aspect of the film has been missing in the horrible dupes that have been available for many years.  You can tell that some of it was shot on location and in a hurry in those scenes, so the lighting there is kinda hit or miss, but the interior scenes are very well done with some atmospheric lighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the scenes in Chapter 6 were originally tinted!  Pretty amazing.  The negative has tinting instructions in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The temple scenes, credited with being shot at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, were inserted from camera negative shot in 1922 and 1927.  These shots, by and large, are responsible for a lot of the deterioration.  Apparently, producer Nat Levine just bought this negative and then had costumes made to \u201cmatch cut\u201d in with the footage of his actors shot in California.  The closer temple shots in California are shot in some deteriorating building, and I think it\u2019s a Spanish mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHAT I AM HOPING TO DO:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll have a restoration commentary on this (that seemed to work well on Little Orphant Annie<\/a><\/em>), and I\u2019d like to have some guest commentators on this so I\u2019m not shouldering a three-hour yawn fest of me telling you that this is from print one or print six.  I\u2019ve contacted a whole swath of people and I\u2019m hoping to have a number of them provide some good insights here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is another entity trying to release King of the Kongo <\/em>on DVD\/Blu-ray.  They have been spreading bad will in social media and the collector network.  If you have heard that I am hoarding material or if I am out after a cash grab on this for my own glory, this is not true.  The actual answer is that I\u2019m bordering on psycho for working on this as much as I have!  I\u2019ll be lucky to break even!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t go for trashing other people in public forums, so I wish these guys well, and I hope they continue their work in restoring other serials.  I have no idea why they are so upset with me, but it\u2019s been pretty nasty in some circles.  If they release King of the Kongo <\/em>in their group, you have my blessing to buy it.  Maybe they\u2019ll have some cool stuff I missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, I will not be working with them.  Sorry, life is too short.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Karloff threatened by a gorilla in this, um, well, you’ve gotta love it.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Close-up from Chapter 9. This is from original camera negative<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Larry Steers discovers jewels in European settings while searching through a Spanish Mission doubling for a Cambodian Temple, all of which is supposed to be taking place in Africa. OK, it’s not too accurate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m posting this in various groups that are asking me about this.  If you follow me on the Dr. Film page, you may have heard some of this, but it\u2019s worth reading because there\u2019s new information in here too. THE PROJECT: King of the Kongo is the first sound serial, made in 1929.  Although it\u2019s … Continue reading “Update on King of the Kongo”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,207],"tags":[35,34,36,38],"class_list":["post-1866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background-on-the-blog","category-film","tag-boris-karloff","tag-king-of-the-kongo","tag-restoration","tag-serial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1872,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions\/1872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}