HERE COMES KING KONG

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Last week Producer Dino de Laurentiis offered this sample of his Christmas-trade epic to the National Association of Theater Owners Convention in Los Angeles and drew a rave response. Already he has recouped his entire cost in the form of advances from these shrewd and, currently, very gloomy entrepreneurs. The theater owners devoted the rest of the week mainly to alternating spasms of anger and depression. Hollywood, they say, is not giving them anywhere near the number of films they would like to have; most of those that do come down the pipes continue straight on down the tubes shortly after opening.

Ever willing to clutch at straws, movie people have been more than anxious to clutch at the hairy hide of the wonderfully exploitable gorilla who is not only house-high but has a soul as well. Ever since production was announced, King Kong had the potential to be what the industry annually requires, a "big bopper." as they say in the trade. A genuine big bopper is something on the order of The Godfather, The Exorcist, The Sting or, to name the film most like Kong, Jaws. It should generate domestic grosses of $50 million to $100 million and, almost as important, a public excitement that spreads from the particular film to movies in general.

Such a sequence reassures film people that the huge risks inherent in their game need not be in vain and that they are not presiding over the final agony of an industry that has been in decline for over a quarter of a century.

Thus, whether there is a full moon out that night or not, the wedding of "the creature who touches heaven" with an audience that is bound to touch the tens of millions is a devoutly wished-for consummation. It begins Dec. 17 with Kong's simultaneous release in an unprecedented 1,200 U.S. theaters and is something movie folk anticipate with tremulous excitement. It can only grow more giddy as the $15 million promotion and advertising campaign mounts in fury during the coming weeks.

All of this is swell for the producer; for Paramount, which put up $6 million in return for the U.S. distribution rights; and for the rest of the backers, mostly European bankers. But the really good news — assuming the last half of the picture is as exciting as the first — is that the movie lives up to its potential. King Kong looks to be a dream of a bopper.

Looking back now, with principal photography long since completed and Director John Guillermin supervising the finishing touches on the 2-hr. 15-min. final cut, it is difficult to see how anyone could have doubted the outcome. Yet Kong has been fraught with perils—mostly having to do with the technical problems of bringing it off—that have bent minds and budgets ever since it went into production last January.