Creation

This 8.5 minute extract of a movie was available in the Super 8mm film format and then of course DVD. According to the books, A Pictorial History of Horror Movies(1973); and Movie Magic(1974), a date of 1929 would be more accurate then the speculated 1931 date for the creation of Creation. This film also would have made obvious to the makers of King Kong that more live action animals is not a good thing! The birds however fit in so well that they were kept. The print viewed had only fair picture quality and at the height of 8mm film collecting was not a title easily acquired.

An adult triceratops and two younger, smaller triceratops enjoy themselves in the jungle. Then a man appears. He is armed with a rifle. He shoots and kills one of the smaller dinosaurs; it is larger than he. Then he has to flee and the larger triceratops gives chase.

What is this six-minute short? Depending on the source you consult, it may be part of a longer movie that was abandoned, or a test that satisfied the powers at RKO that O'Brien was up to animating the ape in King Kong. It looks like some of his work from THE LOST WORLD, but a bit more polished.

Whatever it actually is, it's entertaining on its own.

This is a 1931 dinosuar movie that takes place in an island off South America. The special effects for this film were done by Willis O'Brien, who had already done the special effects for "The Lost World" and would also do them a few years later for "King Kong". His work in "Creation" is probably his best animation prior to "King Kong". The humans and dinosaurs seem to interact in a more vivid and personal way than they do in "The Lost World". O'Brien's stop motion animation in general was without a doubt the greatest of his time and can still be impressive even today. The best part is the scene where a triceratops chases a man, with the action viewed from on top of the dinosaur's back, a neat effect. This film was hampered by Depression area budget troubles and I don't believe it was ever fully released.

Creation, one of many of Obies' incomplete projects. Only a few minutes of footage remain, and on the King Kong DVD, on disc 2, a dramatization of Creation is done to give you a feel of how it was meant to be filmed. It has an interesting story, average dinosaur story, but interesting. This one had some drama as well. The film was scrapped because $500,000 dollars were already spent on the movie for a few minutes of footage. If the project was completed, it would have brought it to a staggering $1,000,000. They would have never been able to sold enough tickets to see it. Although it was scrapped, it was the main basis for Kong. Some of the scenes in Kong were actually from Creation. All of the dinosaurs are from Creation. Creation helped King Kong go down as one of the best movies of all time.

There are a number of films in Hollywood history that went into preproduction, even actually shot test footage for a presentation reel, only to be shelved by the studio for various reasons. Usually such ventures are forgotten to all but a few film fans & scholars, let alone actually listed on the Internet Movie Database. So it was very surprising (but a pleasant surprise!) to find Willis O'Brien's CREATION actually given a full listing here, especially since less than a full reel of film still survives. When JURASSIC PARK came out, there were dozens of bargain bin tapes on dinosaur movies that popped up to cash in on the interest in dino-films of the past, many of which included the CREATION footage in their collection of clips. Perhaps, when the DVD of the original KING KONG finally gets its years-overdue release, the CREATION footage will be restored and included among the extras.