> The part of "Ann Darrow" required a blonde actress. Producer Cooper considered Dorothy Jordan, Jean Harlow, and Ginger Rogers, but ultimately cast Fay Wray, a well-know brunette. Wray wore a blonde wig for the role, and was forever after known for her screaming in the film. Amazingly, all of the screams were recorded in post-production in a single afternoon. Fay Wray was so closely identified with the film that the lights of the Empire State Building were dimmed in her honor when she passed away.

> Special effects master Willis O'Brien had been a cowboy, a cartoonist, and a boxer before he entered the film industry. He began experimenting with stop-motion animation (moving models and exposing frames one-at-a-time to create movement) in 1914, when very few were even aware of the process. He made his early reputation making short comedies with stop-motion models, often dinosaurs and cave men. The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918) featured his first serious treatment of dinosaurs, and The Lost World (1925) was a big budget showcase for his talents and laid the groundwork for King Kong. O'Brien and his sculptor Marcel Delgado created Kong as an 18-inch tall model made of a jointed, movable aluminum armature covered by foam rubber, latex, and rabbit fur. Three models were built for animation, including a larger 24-inch tall one for the New York scenes. Other artists created a large life-size bust of Kong's head for close-ups.

> There were several scenes shot for King Kong which were edited from the film for various reasons. The most famous is the "Spider Pit" sequence. When the ship's crewmen are crossing a log across a deep crevasse on Skull Island, they are shaken off by Kong. Originally, they fell into soft mud and then were attacked and eaten by several large creatures, including a giant spider. Producer Cooper felt this scene interrupted the pace of the movie and cut it before release. Later, for the 1938 reissue, several scenes were cut or shortened, including shots of Kong chewing on people, crushing them underfoot, or dropping them from a tall building. These scenes were restored to the film in the 1970s.