King Kong (1983 novelization)
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King Kong is a young readers' novel by Judith Conway which adapts Delos W. Lovelace's 1932 novelization of the 1933 King Kong film. Random House first published it in 1983 as the seventh entry in its "Step-Up Adventures" line of chapter books, with illustrations by Michael Berenstain. It was republished in 1988 as part of the "Step-Up Classic Chillers" line with a new cover illustration by Glenn Dean and internal illustrations by Paul Van Munching replacing Berenstain's. The novel was created with authorization from the estate of Merian C. Cooper.
Description
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He's huge. He's hairy. He's horrifying. He holds a beautiful woman captive in his hand. He's none other than KING KONG!
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Plot
On a snowy evening in New York City, Carl Denham, the "craziest movie man in Hollywood" searches frantically for a leading actress for his latest and most ambitious picture before the insurance company arrives at the docks to ask him about the large supply of munitions and gas bombs aboard. However Denham is determined to find the perfect face for his picture, which is taking quite a long time. At a food counter, he spies Ann Darrow almost stealing an apple when she is caught by the shopkeeper. Denham pays the man off, and looks at her face for the first time. She is perfect for his movie. They discuss her poverty and brief acting experience before he formally introduces himself, and proclaims that they need to get her new clothes.
Ann awakes aboard the Wanderer in disbelief at her change of fortune, and goes to the main deck where she meets an old sailor called Lumpy and his monkey Ignatz. She then sees the handsome First Mate Jack Driscoll, who gestures behind him in an attempt to show a sailor where to take a rope, and accidentally strikes Darrow. He apologizes and tries to make amends, but Ann insists she is unharmed. The two share an immediate attraction to one another. Over the following days they grow closer, even with Ann spending hours each day doing screen tests with Denham, and endearing herself to the entire crew, even its Captain Englehorn. His growing affections for Ann makes Driscoll all the more concerned about Denham's unwillingness to share with them the ship's destination.
Back aboard the ship, Ann speaks to Lumpy about her experience, and questions the nature of Kong. Lumpy puts no stock in the legends, and assures her that Kong is nothing but a superstition. Ann then accidentally steps on Ignatz's tail, and Lumpy goes after the monkey. At this time, Ann feels one pair of hands cover her mouth, and another pulling her over the side. Lumpy returns to discover Ann missing, and an islander's feather bracelet on the deck. He rallies the crew, and they quickly mount a rescue. Ann is tied to an altar on the other side of the island's wall, where a mighty gorilla as tall as 20 men picks her up. He is curious about his new prize, and tucks her away before heading back into the jungle. Jack had fired at the beast, but was too late to save Ann. He turned around and gathered a party of twelve men to go after her. Through the night they climb cliffs to follow a stream, and the gigantic footprints beside it. In the morning they come to a clearing and spot a gigantic prehistoric dinosaur coming toward them. Denham has the men get down as he throws a gas bomb at it, and it quickly falls dead. Seeing the body of the giant animal they realize that this island could be teeming with other monsters, but they steel their resolve for Ann's sake. Soon the stream leads them to a lake in a foggy valley, and they are able to hear Kong swimming across on the other side. They quickly make a raft from logs and vines to keep their munitions dry, but midway across the lake their rickety vessel is destroyed by an aquatic dinosaur with a snake-like neck. The men swim desperately for shore, and when Driscoll looks back, he sees the beast still pursuing them. Most of the crew makes it to the top of the hill on the other side, but one man, the last in the line, is crushed to death in the monster's fearsome jaws.
They look to the trail ahead of them, and find it is a wide asphalt flat which they have no hope of crossing on foot. All the worse, Kong is heading toward them with Ann still in his arm. Behind Kong the men see three "Triceratopses," Kong rests Ann in a tall tree, and turns to face the ugly horned beasts. Kong quickly bests them with huge hardened chunks of asphalt, but the third one begins retreating right toward the men. They flee in terror, and one man stumbles, resulting in the dinosaur's horn going straight through his chest. The survivors came to a deep ravine with things crawling in the darkness at the bottom. Jack leads the men across the log, with Denham at the rear. Just as the men are partway across, they see Kong on the other side. Jack manages to climb down a vine and into a small hollow in the wall of the ravine. The Triceratops ran away at Kong's roar, allowing Denham to jump off and hide just in time. Kong picks up the log and shakes it until all the rest of the sailors have fallen to their deaths. Kong spotted Jack and tries to grab him from the small cave, only to have his hand pricked by Jack's knife. Kong yowls in pain but hears Ann crying out for help in response. Kong sees her being menaced by a powerful dinosaur, and quickly tears its jaws apart to save her. During the battle she had fainted again, so he lays her on his shoulder and heads for home.
Now stuck on opposite sides of the ravine, Jack and Carl make a plan. Jack is to follow Kong and mark a trail for Carl to follow when he comes back with more men. It is night when Carl reaches the village again. The sailors are eager to help, but Captain Englehorn forbids them from going until morning. In the jungle, Jack tracks the beast for a long time all the way to Kong's lair in Skull Mountain. There, Kong stares into the pool that is the source of the stream everyone had used to follow him home, and a giant snake slithers out. Kong quickly bests it, and takes Ann to his cave to rest. However he hears the flapping wings of a prehistoric bird, which he gets up to take care of. He grabs it and kills it brutally. With Kong occupied, Jack makes his move to rescue Ann. The two of them dive into the cave pool and it sucks them into the stream flowing from it, all the way down the mountain. With Kong bound to the land, they have no fear they will escape in time. They soon reach the gate and have an emotional reunion with the crew. But soon the islanders begin drumming and chanting again, signaling Kong's approach. The sailors and villagers together try to close the gate in time, but Kong bursts through, furiously in search of Ann. He sees her out on the beach, but before he can get to her, Denham brings him down with four of his gas bombs.
Within weeks Kong was due to debut before the public in a New York City theater. With a $10,000 box office debut, Kong is caged and chained to the stage as Denham presents him and his story to the world. Ann and Driscoll are also there, but when Kong sees the flash of newspaper photographers he becomes enraged, breaks through the cage and tears off the chains. Driscoll takes Ann to his room in a nearby hotel, but Kong soon finds them and grabs her through the window before resting her on his shoulder and leaping over the rooftops toward the Empire State Building. Denham and Driscoll decide that airplanes might have a better shot at killing the beast without harming Ann, and soon they are flying towards the gorilla on the top of the building. Kong tears the first plane out of the sky, but the second, third, and fourth all manage direct hits. After one last sad glance back at Ann, Kong roars before falling to his demise. Denham realizes that Beauty, rather than airplanes, killed the Beast, but his poetry is lost on the policeman he spoke to.
Appearances
Monsters
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Weapons, vehicles, and races
Locations
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Gallery
Michael Berenstain art
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Berenstain's sketch of the cover -
The colored sketch -
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Denham and Darrow enjoying dinner -
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Kong and the giant snake -
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Trivia
- Michael Berenstain included King Kong in his 1982 book The Creature Catalogue, a children's book about movie monsters.
- This adaptation greatly expands on the backgrounds of Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll, giving Ann deceased parents and a conniving uncle who swindled her out of her inheritance, and giving Jack an academic background before he left and went to sea.
- Ann estimates Kong's height as being equivalent to 20 men. If the average height of a human male is 5'9", then the Kong portrayed in this adaptation is one of the largest, at 115 feet.
- Denham supposes that one of Kong's footprints is as wide as four men. If the average width of a human male measured shoulder to shoulder is 18 inches, Kong's feet would be 72 inches, or six feet wide.
References
This is a list of references for King Kong (1983 novelization). 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]
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