Creation

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.

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 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.

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.

I heard about it. I read about it. The only thing that ever came out was the clip of the Triceratops family, the man hunting the baby triceratops leading him to be chased by the angry mother where he gets gored. You can find the footage exclusively at the second disc of the original KING KONG Two-Disc Special Edition. But, there was more to it than just test footage. I saw storyboards and photographs of the puppets (such as the prehistoric mammal Arsinoitherium). The story of the film can be seen on the second disc of the original KING KONG Two-Disc Special Edition. It features storyboards, and narration from the film's outline. It played out like a READING RAINBOW episode. It is fun to watch. In a nutshell, the plot is like SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON meets THE LOST WORLD. This was Harry O'Hoyt's idea and Willis O'Brien would do the animation effects along with the talents of Marcel Delgado and Mario Larrinaga. However, the plug was pulled when Merriam C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedstack saw the test footage and had O'Brien and his team do the special effects for KING KONG. The dinosaur puppets, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Triceratops, Styracosaurus Pterodactyl and Tyrannosaurus Rex, all ended up in KING KONG. In that production, new models were made such as the serpentine Elasmosaurus and the Spider Pit inhabitants. Harry O Hoyt changed the film to THE LOST ATLANTIS in 1937 and had Fred Jackman, who did the special effects for THE LOST WORLD be in charge of it and have the stop-motion animation be done by Edward Nassour (who later do 1956's THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN) and Walter Lantz (of Woody Woodpecker infamy). The puppets were made. He pitched it for Colombia Pictures in 1937 and again in 1940. If CREATION did get made, it would end up being a monster movie memory on the late-night show in the 1950's, 60's and 70's and would end up playing on cable in the 80's and 90's on channels like AMC and TNT, plus it would end up sitting on Turner Classic Movies. Then there would be no KING KONG and it would disturb the chain of events. If THE LOST ATLANTIS did get made, it would give Walter Lantz a change of heart and he would become the next Ray Harryhausen. Or when he realized that his Woody cartoons are getting bad, he would stop and go back to his stop-motion roots. If only. Not rated, but the kids and adults wouldn't mind that extra on the KING KONG DVD, especially when they grew on READING RAINBOW. Give it a watch, but you don't have to take my word for it. I'll see you next time.