Continuity mistake: During King Kong's rampage on the island, he fights some of the natives on a scaffold platform. He picks up one of them and puts him in his mouth. In the wide shot, the native's feet are on the left side of Kong's mouth and his head is on the right. The close-up shows that his head is on the left while his feet are on the right.
Revealing mistake: In the last third of the film just after the announcement that Kong is coming, a native jumps out of his hut, loses his balance and falls by a chicken coop. His wig comes off and gets caught on the fence.
Audio problem: In the early stages of Kong's fight with the Tyrannosaur, Kong throws two (nonconsecutive) standing punches that don't hit but make noise anyway.
Revealing mistake: As the men walk past the downed stegosaurus, the camera moves faster than they do (judging from the background) but they stay at the center of the screen. Obviously the camera on the model of the stegosaurus moved faster than the camera on the men.
Continuity mistake: When Driscoll is hiding in the cliff cave with Kong above him, he moves from the front of the cave to the back two or three times without ever moving from the back of the cave to the front.
Factual error: There are just a couple of things wrong about the gas grenades used in the movie: gas grenades do not explode, they spray their contents; and second: if the gas really is that powerful, it should be used with more caution; a simple sudden downwind breeze into an uncontrollable gas cloud, and the users would become their own victims.
Revealing mistake: As one plane swoops at King Kong on the Empire State Building, another flies behind his head that is much larger than it should be relative to him.
Revealing mistake: The figures dropping from Kong's cliff into the river are obviously limp dummies.
Continuity mistake: Just before Kong is gassed and captured, he picks up someone and bites his head. In a close up, he has them by the legs, then in the long shot he is biting their head. (01:14:30)
Revealing mistake: When Kong breaks through the giant doors towards the islanders, part of the doors become transparent and you can see Kong's leg. This is a result of the matting special effects used.
Revealing mistake: When Kong crushes the scaffolding in the island village, it collapses not into a heap of splinters but in a neat panel of solidly bound wood.
Factual error: A creature of Kong's size would not be taken out that easily with the gas grenade as in the movie, for: 1) it explodes far too low for the gas to affect him; 2) even if the gas had reached his breathing organs, it would have taken more and prolonged exposure to knock him out.
Revealing mistake: When the sea creature appears and the raft overturns, the people falling are very obvious stiff dummies. One even falls downwards and its two feet stick up from the water.
Continuity mistake: When Denham shows a second map to the captain, one can see it has a big map on the center part. In the close-up, it swaps to being a small drawing on a side.
Revealing mistake: In New York, when Kong abducts and kills a woman, and later abducts Ann, there's a shot of the street below. It is repeated all the time, sometimes flipped, with varying light intensities.
Continuity mistake: When Kong is climbing the Empire State and peeps into the rooms, the window rail disappears in the outside shots and the close-ups.
Continuity mistake: When Kong is about to be captured and people jump on the boat, their positions differ between the front angles and the ones shot from behind.
Continuity mistake: When Kong fights against the dinosaur, Ann's tree starts to fall, and she cries while waving her right arm and holds onto it with her left. The shot changes, and now it's the opposite way: she is holding onto it with her right arm and waving her left hand.
Continuity mistake: After Kong kills the dinosaur, when he pounds his chest, watch a branch on the left. It's sometimes up or suddenly down. Most surely due to the animators moving it inadvertently while operating the models.
Revealing mistake: When Kong strips Ann, it is a composite of two images: footage of a huge mechanical arm holding her and a puppet Kong in a miniature set. The arm footage is noticeable because the background wobbles, and the pasted area stands out from the miniature set behind.
Answer: It's never shown or explained, and the film uses a broad "suspension of disbelief" premise. The audience just accepts the characters were able to somehow transport a huge ape to New York City.
raywest ★