Carl Denham (Universal)
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
“
|
Just as you go down for the third and final time, as your head disappears beneath the waves and your lungs fill with water. Do you know what happens in those last precious seconds before you drown? Your whole life passes before your eyes, and if you've lived as a true American, you get to watch it all in color.
|
„
|
— Carl Denham after his rescue by Bruce Baxter in King Kong (2005) |
Carl Denham is a fictional film director, renowned for his expensive on-location pictures, who debuted in the 2005 film King Kong, produced by Universal Pictures, and directed by Peter Jackson. After coming across a map to a lost island, Denham began making preparations to go there and film his latest picture, no matter the cost.
Personality
Aspects of Carl Denham were inspired by real-life filmmaker Orson Welles.[1] His theft of his film reels from his studio was inspired by a similar stunt performed by Welles, who made The Chimes of Midnight with funding secured for a different project. Furthermore, Writer Philippa Boyens attributes them both as being "someone who wasted a lot of his talent, and was reckless with other people's lives," and further characterized Denham as "a lovable, charming rogue who dupes his best friend... He's a force of nature. A little whirlwind who sucks people into his orbit through sheer force of personality. "We want you to love him right up to the moment that you don't love him anymore because what he's doing is actually destructive."[1]
Denham first met Jack Driscoll when he was preparing to embark to Africa as a filmmaker's assistant. They were later reintroduced through their mutual friend George S. Kaufman, met again while abroad in Germany, before returning to New York and remaining close friends.[2] Despite this, Driscoll's opinion of his friend soured over their time on Skull Island, where Denham displayed a penchant for manipulation and more care for his film and camera than any of the people on the expedition with him. Despite this, and the perception shared by them all of him being beneath contempt, the death of his cameraman Herb Preston took a great toll on Carl.
History
- King Kong (2005)
King Kong (2005)
While appealing to his producers to get more money to fund an expedition to film on an uncharted island, the board votes to scrap his picture for stock footage, forcing Denham to grab his assistant Preston and begin making preparations to leave that night. However, Preston informed him that Maureen McKenzie, their lead actress, had pulled out from the project and Denham leaves the taxi to find a new one. He checked a burlesque theater, where in a reflection on the glass door he saw Ann Darrow turn around and walk off. Carl then found her being held by a shopkeeper for trying to steal an apple. Denham pays her way out of the situation before taking her to dinner to try to entice her into joining the project. Ann soon agreed, but when they arrived at the Venture, Preston informed him that the police were on their way. Offering Captain Englehorn another thousand dollars to cast off immediately, Denham went on board to see Jack Driscoll, who had only written 15 pages of the screenplay. Carl then stalled him long enough for the ship to cast off, ensuring that he would have time to finish the story. In the morning, Carl introduced Ann to the film crew, but she mistook Mike the recordist for Driscoll. While shopping the story with the real Driscoll, Denham revealed the true location of the film shoot, but was overheard by the sailor Jimmy. While filming on deck, he saw Jimmy telling Hayes, and cut the shot short. He kept filming Ann by herself, and that night he convinced Englehorn to sail out of the shipping lanes toward Skull Island. Jimmy, Lumpy, and Ben Hayes then confronted him in the galley, where they warned of a crazed castaway they had picked up with a dire warning of the horrors of the island. Denham was unfazed. However, when the ship began to turn around, Denham pleaded with Englehorn to stay the course and not turn him in, but the captain refused. Ruined, Carl went to contemplate his situation at the ship's railing, where he and Jack examined a mysterious marking on the map before it was blown out of Carl's hands and into the sea. The ship then began to enter a dense fog and was scuttled on a gigantic carving before Denham looked out and saw the legendary wall of Skull Island. In the morning Denham took the film crew ashore, where they discovered a village, and Carl tried and failed to give a native child some chocolate. The natives then killed Mike, a sailor, and nearly killed Carl before Englehorn arrived to rescue them. Back on board Denham began drinking and proclaimed that they would finish the film in Mike's memory. When it became apparent that Ann had been kidnapped, Carl had Herb sneak the cameras aboard the whalers to take ashore as part of her rescue. On arriving in the village, Carl ran to the gate after hearing her scream behind the wall where he saw the immense form of Kong disappear into the jungle with Ann in hand. A short way into the jungle, the group was attacked by a Ferrucutus, and Carl narrowly avoided being trampled. After Hayes killed the creature, Carl made sure to film the corpse's twitching tail. Eventually the crew took a five minute break in a narrow valley, and Carl went to film a wide shot before discovering a herd of Brontosaurus. He has Bruce Baxter film with them for a moment before they begin to stampede, and the actor runs away. Carl stumbled and despite Jack's please, was unwilling to give up the camera. While he managed to survive the stampede, Herb the cameraman was killed by Venatosaurus as he tried to help him up a steep ledge, leading him to proclaim to Preston that they would finish the film for Herb. However as they rafted across a swamp, they were attacked by sea creatures. Denham eventually began to shoot at the Piranhadon, causing the raft to collapse. Denham made it to shore, where he collected the camera from Preston and began to crank it to see if it still worked, which it did, and he inadvertently filmed a sailor being killed by the Piranhadon. The crew continued to a log bridging a deep chasm, where Kong emerged and killed Hayes. Denham filmed the attack until the beast shook the log and made Denham drop the camera and it fell into a clump of roots on the side of the log. He asked Lumpy to save the camera, but the sailor kicked it off in spite. Denham and the rest of the sailors fell into the pit below, and he eventually began to stir before discovering that his camera had been destroyed in the fall, and all the film ruined by exposure to the light of Jack's flare. He stood up and watched the Weta-rex attack Jack as the Carnictis consumed Lumpy. Carl finally snapped and began to strike savagely at the various creatures attacking him until Englehorn arrived with the rest of the sailors to save them. This final brush with death filled Carl with a desire to capture Kong alive. Englehorn was bitter at Denham's survival, but was quickly propositioned into Carl's scheme. Carl kept the drawbridge up and refused to lower it even when Jack and Ann screamed from the other side to do so. Preston then lowered it without Carl's approval, and they came over just before Kong smashed through the gate and the operation began. Kong quickly broke free and Englehorn called it off, but Carl was not as willing to abandon his prize, and was the last to the whalers waiting for them on the shore. When Kong caught up, Denham found another chloroform bottle in a boat and prepared to throw it shortly before being tossed from the whaler when Kong struck it. Englehorn then harpooned the beast in the leg and Carl bade him not to shoot again as he climbed up a rock and smashed the bottle on Kong's face, finally bringing the beast down. He then proclaimed the crew millionaires, and vowed to put Kong on Broadway as 'The Eighth Wonder of the World".
On opening night at the Alhambra theater, Carl welcomed the mayor and all of his former producers with enthusiasm before seeing Preston looking on him disapprovingly from a balcony and returning to his party. Onstage Denham proudly introduced Kong to the world and played up his harmlessness before starting the show, starring Bruce Baxter as the hero who saved Ann. With photographers crowding the wings, Denham allowed them to continue shooting as Kong roared in frustration at the flashbulbs for the sake of getting a better picture. Denham then watched as Kong broke free and began to destroy the theater. After Kong was killed by biplanes and fell from the Empire State Building, Denham pushed through the crowd surrounding Kong's lifeless body and proclaimed that it was "beauty killed the beast" before disappearing within the crowd.
Video games
- Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005) - Nintendo GameCube and DS, PC, Sony PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, Microsoft Xbox and Xbox 360
- Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World (2005) - Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Books
- King Kong: The Island of the Skull (2005)
- King Kong (2005) - Shueisha novelization
- King Kong (2005) - Pocket Star novelization
- King Kong: Escape from Skull Island (2005)
- King Kong: The Junior Novel (2005)
- The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island (2005)
- Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World (2007)
King Kong: The Island of the Skull
In the continuity of the 2005 film, Carl dreamed of adventure from a young age. When living in his middle-American home he often worried that by the time he got into the professional world there would be nothing left to discover. In order to document these amazing discoveries, Carl became a film producer. In 1932, one year before his trip to Skull Island, Denham booked the S.S. Venture to the Bafin Islands in pursuit of a mythical giant Orca named "killer". In the icy seas, Denham decided again and again that he would settle for less and less than "killer", even deciding to shift his focus to regular orcas before the vessel's Captain turned the boat back to New York. Along the way, they lay anchor in a rocky outcropping near what they assumed to be an Inuit village, which Denham took his crew to film. However, in between them and the Inuit was a herd of Leopard Seas. Wanting footage of the seals, Denham sent his cameraman across the herd, but as he took the shot, the seals went into attack position, and left him badly wounded. They were able to get him to a hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but his leg had to be amputated. Carl was deeply affected by the close encounter, and made sure that his friend would be well cared for. The damage caused to his friend made Carl seek to get him back to New York by changing the film to reflect locations on the journey there. After arriving in New York, Denham arranged to meet with his friend Jack Driscoll. When they met, Carl revealed to him that his backers were pushing for a rewrite of his film so that it was set in the jungle, and asked the writer to provide a script for his film because he had footage, but no story. Driscoll agreed to write, despite not having much time to do so. He was quickly summoned by his financial backers, who insisted that he start filming on a set, rather than on location. Carl demanded a 15% increase in funds to procure animals for the set, but settled for 10, which he planned to use to pay Captain Englehorn for another voyage to shoot on location.
King Kong (Pocket Star)
While showing the investors his footage, Carl was appalled by their lack of vision, or appreciation for his art. Indignant at his being forced to film on backlots and sound stages when he loved genuine adventures in his adventure films, he informed them he was leaving to shoot in Skull Island, and learned by listening through the door at their conversation that they planned to scrap his work for stock footage. Before they could call him back in, Denham and his assistant Preston packed their film cans and prepared to leave aboard the Venture to finish his film. However, Preston informed him that Maureen McKenzie, their lead actress had pulled out, forcing Denham to search for a new star. No casting agency he contacted could provide any actress willing to leave with so little information on such short notice, and so he began to search for pretty faces at burlesque houses when he saw Ann Darrow storming away from a theater and was captivated. He followed her briefly, and paid for an apple she stole before buying her dinner and desperately trying to get her onto the project. She eventually agreed, and he got her to the ship when Preston rushed forth to inform him that police were coming to arrest them. Carl hastily paid Captain Englehorn, and went to meet his writer Jack Driscoll. Carl and Jack had been introduced and reintroduced multiple times since their college years, during which Denham acted as a personal assistant to a film director in Africa, and had become close friends. While the ship cast off, Carl ran a bottle of scotch to Darrow, and inadvertently informed her that Driscoll was aboard, and claimed that he had his heart set on going, and that he couldn't find it in himself to say no. From there forth, filming began, and he revealed to Jack that they were travelling to Skull Island, an undiscovered island to which he had the only map. When word of this spread, the crew tried to dissuade him from going with tales of the dangers awaiting on Skull Island, but Carl paid them no mind, swearing that any "Kong" there was was simply a man-eating animal. However as he sat after a heated argument over the trip with Preston, he claimed that when the expedition was over he would make up for his mistreatment of him.
At that point, Carl felt the ship turning around, and went to confront the Captain. There he was informed that his check would not be honored by the bank. With everything riding on the completion of the journey, Denham tried to bargain his way out, but Englehorn stood firm. However, the ship's instruments began to go awry just before the lookout Jimmy spotted a wall. In the chaos, Denham summoned Preston to get shots of the island. In the morning, Denham hired sailors to take him and his crew to the coast, where he began filming. Once again Baxter began improvising, which made Jack angry and lead to Baxter complaining about his shrinking part. Fed up with this Denham tried to silence them before turning back to film Ann and asking her to scream before something over the wall in the jungle screamed back. Denham then discovered a tunnel to take the crew upland. They made their way up to a shantytown among catacombs, where Denham tried to make peace with a native girl by giving her his chocolate bar, but this simply prompts an attack from the natives, killing Mike and a sailor in the process. Englehorn and Hayes arrived to save them, and ordered all ballast to be thrown overboard to get them off the island. However, Choy scooped up his camera. He barely saved it when the Captain came and ordered him to throw it over. He tried to grab it from him, but Denham punched him in the stomach as the ship floated off the rocks. Jack then came up to inform them that Ann had been kidnapped, and Denham was on the first boat to go to rescue her. Denham approached the gate and saw the gigantic gorilla taking her away. Excited by the possibility of filming it, Carl began to gather his film equipment, despite Englehorn's disdain. As they went through the jungle, getting short shots along the way, they were attacked by a 30 foot dinosaur, which he tried to film before the ranks moved on to a clearing where Carl discovered a path of wreckage where Kong had been. Carl soon convinced himself of a scientific duty to film Skull Island, and when the group came upon a narrow valley, he got his chance to film dinosaurs. A herd of Brontosaurus were there grazing. Before they began to stampede, Carl informed Preston that Darrow was no longer the focus of the film, and instead, center stage belonged to the island. However, some Hunter-lizards made the Brontosaurs stampede, and Carl protected the camera with his life but only narrowly avoided getting eaten by a dinosaur when Hayes shot it. The crew scrambled up a small cliff, but Denham was unable to save Herb, whose artificial leg caused him to lose his footing. After that, much of the crew was ready to quit, and Denham was haunted by the loss of his friend, until Preston looked to him for guidance, and he became determined to finish the film in Herb's name. The crew built rafts to float across the swamp on, but halfway across they were attacked by a Piranhadon. After the first raft went down, Carl urged Preston to keep the camera safe, as he and Jack tried to paddle a log to safety. As the monster came back around, Carl shot at it, which drew its attention to him and the others. As it swam under the raft, Carl shot through the timbers, sending them all into the water. When the remaining sailors got to shore, Carl immediately wound up the camera to see if it still worked, and accidentally filmed a sailor being eaten by the Piranhadon before it fled, much to his horror. They continued across a log bridging a deep crevice, but the giant ape Kong attacked, and shook the camera from Denham's hands. He begged Lumpy to save it, but the cook kicked it into the pit just before Kong threw the whole log after it. Dazed at the bottom, Denham examined the film spilling out of the broken camera before being attacked by giant bugs. Denham grew manic and smashed them to bits with a short stick before Baxter and Englehorn arrived to save them. He gave Jack an inspiring word before going to propose to Englehorn that they capture Kong alive. When he heard Jack and Ann approaching with Kong on their tail, he refused to lower the gate until the right moment, but Preston refused to endanger them, and did so anyway. Carl oversaw the operation to capture Kong, and even after the beast escaped he was sure he would capture it, and finally broke the bottle of chloroform gas that knocked the beast out, knowing he would be a millionaire.
On opening night, Denham celebrated with his former producers before taking the stage with photographers and Bruce Baxter, whom Denham was promoting as the great hero of their adventure. Ann refused to participate. Denham stood with the captive Kong for photos, and even laid his hand on the beast to prove his superiority, but flinched away when Kong twitched. The show continued as planned until they offered Kong another woman playing as Ann. Kong then became enraged and broke out of his bonds as Carl watched in distant awe. Later, Kong was killed, and Carl pushed through crowds to see his body as the onlookers discussed how the planes had killed Kong. Carl however, knew that beauty had killed the beast.
The World of Kong
In 1935, after the events of the 2005 film, Denham was able to lead one of the only successful return expeditions to Skull Island where he discovered that Kong had been the last of his kind. Various scientific expeditions were then hosted to catalog the life on the island until a massive earthquake sank it in its entirety in 1948.
Comics
King Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World
While asking his studio executives for more money, Denham revealed to them that he had come into possession of a map to the mythic Skull Island, where he planned to shoot the film. The executives failed to see the value of this, and asked Carl to leave the room. He eavesdropped, and when he learned that they planned to scrap the film and sell it for stock footage, he turned and ran with his film cans. In the taxi, his assistant Preston informed him that their lead actress had left the project, forcing Denham to leave the cab in a fury to try to find a replacement in three hours before they had to set sail. While searching, he found Ann Darrow being shouted at by a fruit vendor for trying to steal an apple. Denham paid her way out of the situation and took her to dinner, where he enticed her to join his film. However, when he reached the Venture, the ship taking them to Skull Island, Preston informed him that the police were coming to arrest them. He quickly offered Captain Englehorn another thousand dollars to cast off immediately, and went to confront the writer, Jack Driscoll, who was waiting in his cabin. Denham discovered that Driscoll intended to leave him with only half a script and his notes, but to Carl's benefit, the ship had already set sail. During the voyage, Carl began filming, and at one point during the night, they arrived at Skull Island, narrowly avoiding the dangerous rocks. The following morning, Carl lead a rowboat to the shore to begin filming. After reaching a cliff overlooking a village surrounded by a gigantic wall, the party was attacked by natives. Carl managed to punch a native before Englehorn arrived to rescue them. That night, Driscoll informed everyone that Ann had been kidnapped. Armed with a shotgun, Carl then joined the rest of the sailors in an armed assault on the island in an attempt to rescue her, and as Carl approached the gate of the Wall, he saw a gigantic Ape. Ann had been taken into the jungle, and Carl readied his crew and film equipment for the voyage into the jungle. Later, while stopping to get footage of a valley, Preston suggested they conserve film for Ann's scenes, prompting Carl to reveal to him that it was no longer about her. While attempting to film a herd of Brontosaurus, Carl and his crew became caught in the middle of a stampede, brought on by hunting Venatosaurus. The film crew and the sailors did their best to run, and while trying to pull his cameraman to higher ground, Carl watched him be torn away from him by the carnivores. After fighting through the jungles, the crew arrived at a fallen tree bridging a deep chasm, however, as they began to cross, Kong, the ape, arrived and shook them off. During the turmoil the ship's cook Lumpy kicked Carl's camera into the ravine. When they hit the bottom, they were immediately attacked by the horrors below. Luckily, Englehorn and a few other sailors came to rescue them, and to pull them out of the chasm. Englehorn bitterly added that he wished Carl had died instead of the others that were lost on the voyage, and likened himself to an un-killable cockroach. Englehorn insisted that Ann was dead, but Jack continued into the jungle, and in private, Carl suggested to Englehorn, that when Jack and Ann came back, with Kong hot on their tail, that they capture the beast alive.
When this actually came to pass, early the next morning, Carl and the sailors were ready. Although Kong broke through their net, and was unfazed by their chloroform gas, and they fled for the ship. Carl, however, threw one last bottle, which was enough to sedate the weary beast. Back in New York, Denham put Kong up on Broadway, and had nearly cemented his fortune when, in the middle of his exhibition, Kong broke free. a]It was not until the monster had been shot to death by Navy airplanes and lay dead at the foot of the Empire State Building that Carl saw it again. His only sentiment to the crowd being that Beauty had killed the Beast.
Gallery
Movies
Denham in King Kong (2005)
Comics
References
This is a list of references for Carl Denham (Universal). These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
|
Comments
Showing 4 comments. When commenting, please remain respectful of other users, stay on topic, and avoid role-playing and excessive punctuation. Comments which violate these guidelines may be removed by administrators.
|
|
|
