Documentary filmmaker Merian C. Cooper got the idea for King Kong while shooting location footage in Africa for his first fiction film, The Four Feathers (1929). He became fascinated with gorillas. Later he was equally fascinated by the Komodo dragons a friend of his had brought back to the Bronx Zoo from the Dutch East Indies. Eventually the two fascinations merged in the idea for a film about a giant ape living on an island inhabited by prehistoric monsters.

Initially, he thought King Kong could be made with real apes enlarged through trick photography but nobody at Paramount Pictures, for whom he was making The Four Feathers, was interested.

After time off from filmmaking, Cooper accepted an offer from his friend David O. Selznick to come to work at RKO Pictures. Cooper had actually gotten Selznick the job running RKO, using his influence with David Sarnoff, general manager for RKO's parent company, RCA.

One of Cooper's first assignments at RKO was to evaluate Creation (1931), a project of special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien, whose specialty was animating models to create the illusion of life. O'Brien's biggest hit at that point had been the silent version of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1925), in which scientists discover dinosaurs living on a remote plateau in South America. Creation had a similar plot, but RKO executives had abandoned the project, deeming it too expensive.

When he viewed O'Brien's test footage and models, Cooper saw a way to bring his giant gorilla idea to life. He pitched the project to Selznick, who shared his enthusiasm.

At the time, the studio had a $200,000 limit on productions, but Cooper projected that his new film would cost twice that. Selznick siphoned money from other productions to make up the overage.

One factor encouraging RKO to green-light King Kong may have been the success of the low-budget pseudo-documentary Ingagi (1931), which made over $4 million in small exploitation theaters with its tale of native women sacrificed to an ape god.

To structure the story, Selznick assigned famed thriller writer Edgar Wallace. Wallace turned in a draft that put Cooper's ideas on paper, but he also inserted a subplot of his own about escaped convicts. Within weeks of arriving in Hollywood, however, he died of pneumonia. Cooper kept his name on the film.

Selznick then assigned Ruth Rose -- the wife of Cooper's partner, Ernest B. Schoedsack -- and James Creelman to write the film. They modeled the character of Carl Denham, the impresario who brings the giant ape to New York, on Cooper and Schoedsack.

The film went on the books as RKO Production 601, then was titled The Beast and The Eighth Wonder before becoming simply King Kong. In the film, the giant ape was only called "Kong." The "King" part was an addition by RKO publicity.

Even before the script was written, Cooper knew that he wanted a blonde to contrast with Kong. He even considered Jean Harlow.

Fay Wray had already starred in The Four Feathers and was currently filming Cooper's first RKO film, The Most Dangerous Game (1932), when he offered her "the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood." She thought she was going to be working with Cary Grant until he showed her the preliminary production designs.

Other actors chosen from the cast of The Most Dangerous Game to star in King Kong were Robert Armstrong, who would play Denham, and Noble Johnson, who played the native chief.

Originally, Cooper wanted to cast Wray's other co-star from The Most Dangerous Game, Joel McCrea, as Jack Driscoll, but his agent asked for too much money.

Bruce Cabot, who played the romantic lead, had only done a few bits when movie star Dolores Del Rio spotted him working as a manager at the Embassy Roof Club and recommended that Selznick sign him at RKO. King Kong was his first assignment there, but with the time needed to perfect the special effects, it would be his fourth RKO film released.

O'Brien finished work on Kong's fight with the tyrannosaurus rex before principal photography started. To get RKO's executives to put more money into the film, Cooper shot a test reel with Wray. She spent 22 hours in a dead tree as the special-effects footage played on a screen behind her. Even though all she could see were blurs, she had to react as though witnessing the battle while Cooper, off-camera, shouted, "Scream! Scream for your life, Fay." The executives were so impressed, they eventually let Cooper go $300,000 over budget.

by Frank Miller