King Kong

King Kong (1976)

8 corrected entries

(3 votes)

Corrected entry: When Jack first arrived at the port in Surabaya, he took a taxi. The driver was sitting on the left, hence it was left-hand steering car. Indonesia drives on the left side of the road (right-hand steering) and has since the automobile was introduced there.

Correction: Perhaps a left hand drive vehicle has been imported. It's not uncommon.

Corrected entry: In the New York section of the film, with Kong rampaging through the streets, Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges try to escape using the elevated train, only for Kong to track them down and attack it. The scene alternates between shots inside the carriage (a studio set) and outside it (where it's obviously a guy in a monkey suit and a model train). In order to escape the carriage, Jeff smashes a window, however, the window he smashes (in the studio set) is nothing like the ones on the model train. One is square shaped and the other is circular.

Correction: The window that Jeff Bridges smashes on the train is on one of the end doors that permit moving from car to car. These windows are indeed round and are also correct on the model.

Corrected entry: A full sized, fully working Kong was made for the film but was considered so bad to look at they never even used it.

Correction: The huge mechanical King Kong, designed by Carlos Rambaldi, was used in the film, albeit for no more than a minute or so in the films final cut.

Mad Ade

Corrected entry: When Dwan is crying on the roof of the World Trade Center soon after Kong's fall, you can see a building behind her that is several stories taller than the one she's standing on. However, that shouldn't be the case since the Twin Towers were of equal height and the tallest buildings in the world at the time.

Correction: Dwan has at this point walked down from World Trade Center, and it is World Trade Center you see in the background.

Corrected entry: Natives on the island where King Kong lives have constructed a high barrier to protect them from the giant ape. But there is a door in the gigantic wall sufficiently large enough for King Kong to enter. Why?

David Ellsworth

Correction: This is explained in the novel (and in a correction to the 1933 film). The race of giant apes were once controlled by the islanders, who used them for manual labour. They erected the wall to keep out the dinosaurs and other dangerous animals, but the apes still needed to get in and out of the village.

Twotall

Corrected entry: In the scene where King Kong busts through the wall and falls in the pit containing the chloroform, he falls face first; but when he lifts his hand as he's passing out, it raises as if he's on his back.

Correction: After his initial plunge into the pit, Kong briefly rises up, turns slightly, and falls back down, onto his back. It's hard to see behind the cloud of smoke that has arisen by that point, but it's there. And it's after that, a few seconds later, that his hand emerges.

Corrected entry: Whatever else he is Kong is a gorilla, a large ape. Apes are instinctively terrified of water (Tim Burton got it spot on in Planet of the Apes) and have to be patiently taught to overcome their fear in order to swim or walk through water. There is no way in the world Kong would walk through the East River as they show here, regardless of his size.

Correction: We don't know all of Kong's experiences on Skull Island, and thus do not know if they may have conditioned him to NOT be afraid of water. Maybe he once had a choice between swimming or getting eaten by a T-Rex or something. We just don't know.

K.C. Sierra

Corrected entry: Gorillas are excellent climbers, and Kong demonstrates this by shinning up the World Trade Centre with little trouble. The "Kong-proof" wall on Skull Island is barely taller than he could easily climb over it. When Dwan escapes to the village he wouldn't waste time and energy and risk injury smashing down that huge, solid door - he'd climb over the fence. (This applies to the classic 1930s film as well as this one.)

Correction: Yes, but why should he? There would be no reason for the vegetarian gorilla (Kong) to attack the villagers if they let him in peace as well. In addition to this, as mentioned in another correction, the wall was not made to keep out the giant apes, but the dinosaurs, big snakes and other animals living on the island.

Twotall

There is a reason for Kong to climb over the wall - Dwan has escaped, and he is obsessed with getting her back. It makes no sense for him to smash down that huge door when he could simply climb over the wall.

Factual error: The fact that the respiration of a single animal - however large - could lead to an increase in the level of carbon dioxide in the local area is so absurd it is laughable. Carbon dioxide exhalation is part of a closed loop cycle and the CO2 exhaled by Kong would be matched by the CO2 taken in by the plants growing on the island. It cannot be otherwise. Elevated levels of carbon dioxide are incredibly dangerous and any animal living on the island - including Kong - would suffer if things got out of kilter.

More mistakes in King Kong

Dwan: You know I had my horoscope done before I flew out to Hong Kong. And it said that I was going to cross over water and meet the biggest person in my life.

More quotes from King Kong

Trivia: Fay Wray, who had played Ann Darrow in the 1933 version of King Kong, was offered a cameo in this movie. Wray refused, because she hated the script.

More trivia for King Kong

Question: When Long let Dwan fall into the water, we see that the water she plunged into is pretty deep. How deep was the waterfall when she fell in?

Answer: He probably knew it wasn't deep. It's his island; he knew every inch of it. Besides, it's a pool, not an ocean. It most likely had a small underground tunnel which spilled out somewhere on the island.

More questions & answers from King Kong

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.