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KONG'S TOOTH
By
Fernando Jorge Soto Roland *
INTRODUCTION **
Let's agree on something: there are human beings who are capable of buying
anything; even those that will not yield, in principle, any economic benefit.
It is enough for an object to have a certain sentimental value to become an
“ object of desire ; Almost always dragging a story that makes
it special and thus justifying the expense incurred.
It is that, beyond their aesthetic characteristics or the material with which
they have been made, there are things that we long for because of the "
curriculum vitae " that precedes them or the relationships they
have with situations of our personal past. We are, therefore, in the realm of
the purest subjectivity. What for us has a value that is difficult to fix in
pesos, for others it completely lacks it. Not giving a single penny for
them.
How many times, in a " Flea Market ", have we paid a price
(exorbitant for others) for something that takes us back to childhood, reminds
us of a loved one from the past or immerses us in shapes and designs that we
thought had been forgotten for a long time? decades? If I look at the shelves
of my library, I would say, in my case, more than a dozen times.
And there they are. Saving dust. Skipped most of the time. Avoided by the sight
of seeing them so much, but always relevant when we summon them in a talk.
Like useless treasures of extremely personal anachronistic loot, our beloved
“ junk ” accompanies us in silence, knowing that they will
be worth much more once they are lost again. Because, ultimately, that will be
(in the short or long) his next and inevitable destination.
Everything is doomed to be lost and forgotten. To be, for strange reasons,
crouched in corners that we will never review again. And there they will slowly
rot. They will dematerialize without our knowing how; or they will be passed on
to the next generation without it being given the importance or value that we
attribute to them.
Where did those many toys from our childhood go?
It's what I sometimes wonder when I remember any of them. I don't have any
left. The movers and younger siblings have been their cruel and merciless
victimizers. Where are they? What has become of them? Have they completely
disappeared? Have they degraded to the point of merging with the Earth, losing
their colors, shapes, and consistency? Is there anything left of their
identities or, like the bones of a dead person, is it already impossible to
detect them with the naked eye?
We may never have the answer. We are not optimistic about it. Most likely,
things from the past only last, idealized, in our malleable memory.
Unless, for some fortuitous reason, they reappear as unexpectedly as they had
disappeared.
This is what this article is about. Of loved objects, of memories, of places
that are difficult to identify, of bad memory, of forgetfulness and the
fantasies that it promotes.
We return, then, to the story of one of the greatest lost dolls ever
built for a film in the 1970s: King Kong , the
King of Skull Island, the Eighth Wonder of the World . [1]
I never imagined that I would have such a good time investigating King Kong's
passage through Argentina, much less end up unraveling a rumor that had been
circulating in books, web pages and specialized articles on film history for at
least thirty years.
It was just a matter of doubting and investigating a little. Get into the dusty
newspapers of the time, preserved in the National Library, and order certain
events chronologically; at the same time that the names and surnames of former
protagonists were dusted off. Only then, crossing data, comparing sayings,
carefully observing old photographs, contrasting dates and places, was it
possible for me to put together a very interesting puzzle. Social networks and
the Internet greatly accelerated the process. They connected me with people
who, at another time, would have been almost impossible to locate. And so, with
a little patience and time, surfing the Web having previously obtained certain
relevant data, it was possible to discard installed ideas (in which I myself
came to believe) and that, in the end, ended up being false.
The strength of the rumor was evident. The concrete facts knocked down the
prejudices that we dragged and clarified, little by little, what we believed
was true or more feasible.
King Kong did not die in Argentina.
It took two long years to reach this conclusion.
I was wrong.
Previous ideas accumulated over decades and the romantic desire to see an icon
of the 20th century rot in a South American wasteland, inclined me to hold
conclusions that I no longer defend today.
Logic ended up prevailing and the reality built from the papers was defeated.
But for all this to happen, it was necessary to pay attention to a simple piece
of news that came to unravel a story that had accumulated strength and
followers since mid-1979. In this specific case, everything restarted with a
tooth.
Kong's Tooth .
BUENOS AIRES, MAY 2015
PART 1
“I build a form of universe: I believe in it,
and it is the universe; which collapses however low
the assault of another certainty or another doubt”.
E.M. Cioran
Breviary of Rot
Goodbye to Philosophy , Page 140
"History is nothing but
a perpetual crisis,
a bankruptcy of naivety”.
E.M. Cioran
Breviary of Rot
Goodbye to Philosophy , Page 139
STORIES
When the giant animatronic King Kong doll, designed and built by Carlo
Rambaldi, finally “ disappeared ” in the winter of 1979 in
Mar del Plata, no one wondered what had happened to it for a long time.
Curiously, that enormous structure of stainless steel, rubber, horsehair and
plastic, with its imposing 17 meters in height and weighing 6.5 tons, seemed to
vanish without apparently leaving any trace.
The black night of the military dictatorship had engulfed the largest and most
famous gorilla in the history of cinema and, from that very moment, conjectures
began to circulate that sought to explain the final destination of the
Hollywood beast .
As we have already said in a previous work, the last reliable references we
have to King Kong, who starred in the 1976 film, are located on the Atlantic
coast. [2] Dozens of witnesses (among whom
I include myself) remember having seen it dumped on the grounds of the former
Bristol stadium on Avenida Luro at 3400 (between Jujuy and Spain),
deteriorating in the open, in that harsh autumn at the end of the '70s.
But one fine day he stopped being there. Traces of her were lost and, as
usually happens every time ignorance generates dark spaces, stories of all
kinds took over the scene, fueling rumors that last until today. Many of them,
plainly delusional. Like the one that tells us that Kong had been bought by a
pharmacist who had him sitting at the door of his business, near Asilo Unzué,
promoting the pharmacy. [3]
Other stories placed it in the now defunct Ciudad Deportiva de la Boca
, or that it was acquired by a seedy circus and went on tour around the
interior of the country. It was also said that Kong had deteriorated in the
Ciudad de los Ninos , near La Plata or that he had lain, inert and
unarmed in a warehouse in the Villa Devoto neighborhood, in the Federal
Capital.
But of all these stories, of which until recently there was no certain evidence
to certify them, there was one that ended up becoming the " official
narrative ", perhaps because it was the least irrational and most
convincing. It is the one that tells that the huge doll in the film ended up
being eaten by rats and scrapped by the inhabitants of a village near the
prison in the town of Batán, a few kilometers from Mar del Plata, after having
been discarded in that place.
These stories circulated and grew over the years, inflating the legend that
referred to the tragic final fate of the iconic monster.
Kong thus acquired the status of a victim . It was as if his karma in
the film was replicated in real life. There was no way things would end well.
Happy endings were foreign to this hulking monarch. Beauty , who in
the film defeated the Beast , was supplanted by laziness, economic
convenience and business disinterest. The great ape had disappeared and no one
knew for sure where he had gone.
For my part, I was inclined to believe in the hypothesis that Diego Curubeto
gave in his wonderful book Cine Bizarro [4] and that Uriel Barros developed
in more detail in an excellent article published on the Internet, King Kong
died in Argentina . [5] In this way,
influenced by the texts mentioned (which were even taken up by works written in
France) [6] , I published King Kong in
Mar del Plata in 2013 . A short article in which I tried to summarize the
different versions that existed about the fate of the gorilla, while relating
it to the ideological political context of those days. But a fortuitous event
came to question that apparent initial certainty.
Shortly after my article was published on the Internet, I received an email
from Montevideo, Uruguay, in which someone claimed to have seen the robotic
Kong doll on a beach in the Devoto neighborhood. And not only that. He also
claimed to have concrete material evidence of it: a tooth (later a molar would
be added) of the gorilla himself.
In this way, the anodyne hypothesis that Kong had ended his days in that
neighborhood of the Capital of the Republic (to which, I confess, I did not pay
much attention at first), gained unexpected strength. So much so that, at
times, I thought I heard the fearsome roar of the beast as I walked Devoto
following his evanescent tracks.
INFLUENCES
King Kong was a typical product of his time. The result of a sum of historical
events that, since the end of the 1920s, influenced the creative process of two
documentary film producers (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Shoedsack) and that
allow explaining, at the same time, the tremendous success that the
disproportionate gorilla had in the imagination of the time.
Kong was born into a capitalism in crisis that welcomed him with open arms and
ended up making him the “ King ” of all Hollywood
monsters. One of the most enduring, along with Dracula, Frankenstein's
creature, the Werewolf and the Mummy. All classic characters from Universal
Studios , who came into the world in the midst of an economic depression.
In an America sinking into despair, unemployment and hunger. Kong emerged in a
context in which "unemployment" and joblessness reached 25% and thousands of
people queued endlessly for a plate of hot food in the heart of Manhattan.
Uncontrolled free market capitalism and the resulting speculation brought it to
life. And just as the other named monsters found their niches to prosper in the
midst of the drama, Kong, since 1933, did the same, contributing to the
necessary escape from a collapsing society. [7]
But there were other ingredients that strengthened it and prepared the success
of this iconic jumpsuit of the 20th century.
The film arose in a Darwinian, imperialist world, fueled by a fictional
literature in which the " Lost Worlds ", like the one created by
Arthur Conan Doyle, had been installed in the imaginary since 1912 (the year of
the first edition of the novel by English writer) and materialized in images
with the film The Lost World , released in 1925. [8]
The civilizing mission of the West, launched in the last quarter of the 19th
century, had gone deep and very few at that time criticized colonialist
practices, which put European culture above all others. It was thus that a
large army of intellectuals, writers, paleontologists, anthropologists,
biologists and historians launched themselves into the world discovering other
social and natural realities that, after being admired at first, ended up being
manipulated, distorted and destroyed by the Europeanist ego. [9]
The mass media, especially newspapers and magazines, fueled the exploratory
process and daily life was impacted by new discoveries that altered the reality
built up to then; and, at the same time, they blurred, in many cases, the
limits that existed between the possible and the impossible. [10]
Exoticism opened the doors of the imagination and fantasy was confused
with reality, enabling the certainty that monsters could indeed exist. Thus,
they jumped from the pages of fiction to the jungles, islands, mountains and
deserts that remained to be known and fought the image of a world that was
gradually becoming disenchanted. The desire to believe it unfinished prompted
the news about extraordinary beings from the past traveling through
little-traveled regions. It is no coincidence that the first references to the
Yeti , the Loch Ness monster , Bigfoot or our
southerner Nahuelito date back to that time . [eleven]All of them characters emerged from the dreamlike
universe of a new discipline (never made official by science) that began to be
called cryptozoology . [12]
The sum of the aforementioned processes are key to understanding the success of
King Kong and all his epigones, throughout the '40s, '50s and '60s.
But we had to wait for another crisis, this time energy and oil, for the
King of Skull Island to burst onto the big screen again, this time
supported by the incredible mechanical advances of the time.
In 1976, Italian-American producer Dino de Laurentis resurrected the beast. At
that time, Kong was no longer a 18-inch-tall, articulated figure covered in
rabbit fur. Fascinated by gigantism, another way of exhibiting
otherness [13] , de Laurentis invested
nearly three million dollars in building two enormous mechanical arms and an
animatronic doll (robot) 17 meters tall and weighing 6.5 tons.
The whole world was shocked.
Kong was back bigger than ever. Now it was possible to experience firsthand the
panic felt by the protagonist of the first film of '33 in the face of such a
monstrosity.
What no one imagined at the time was that, just three years after the premiere
of the film (1979), this technological wonder would end up touring
exotic corners of South America and, for a long time, "
disappearing " almost completely.
Paradoxically, the most exotic gorilla in Hollywood was believed to be engulfed
by a world that developed societies considered, and continue to consider (not
without a certain racism), exotic.
A NEW TESTAMENT
Daniel Venneri is Argentine. He is currently 48 years old. He is married with
children and has lived in Montevideo, Uruguay, for years. I communicated with
him, via the Internet, shortly after publishing my article, “ King
Kong in Mar del Plata ”. The reason was worth it: Venneri offered
for sale a tooth from the famous gorilla built by Dino de Laurentis in 1976.
At least that was what he was saying on a web movie forum. [14]
I admit that I became aware of this fact a day before finishing my writing.
Anyone who reads it will notice that the last footnote refers to Venneri's
sayings (without naming him). But I didn't pay too much attention to it. I left
the news on record and for a few months, personal problems and other concerns
took me off the subject for almost a year and a half. But the matter of the
tooth stuck like a thorn in my head. It piqued my curiosity. Something did not
finish closing me, especially since, in March 2013, Venneri sent me, by email,
a photo in which you could clearly see a huge incisor, apparently made of hard
plastic, worn and with a huge cavity that occupied almost all of its inner
face. But the most interesting thing was the story that he attached to the
photo. A story that was expanded, mail to mail, and in which numerous very
specific data ended up clearing my logical initial doubts. For the first time
in 36 years, a “fossil ” of King Kong appeared
out of nowhere and altered the board we had been building.
The hypothesis that it had ended up in a warehouse in the Devoto neighborhood
was beginning to take on an unusual form.
“The doll was stored in a trucking company. I don't remember if it
was on Habana and Campana streets or Pareja and Campana streets, in Villa
Devoto… I was only about 10 years old at that time. The only thing I
remember is that they had brought it from Mar del Plata and then they would
take it to Brazil.”
“I remember that with my friends we walked between the pipes of the
structure and thus we reached the head, where we found the teeth. At the time
we had several of them. In fact, I still have to search my house in Buenos
Aires since, I think, there must also be a tooth and pieces of the rubber that
covered it, with horse hair stuck to it. Those are the memories that I have
left until now.” [fifteen]
Almost two years later, in a new contact, Venneri wrote to me again at the
request of a series of questions I asked him.
“The last time I was in Buenos Aires I found, at my sister's house
and not at my mother's, Kong's molar [see photo] and checking with
people I knew and relatives told me that the transport company that took him to
the place where I saw him was called Rivas. But they also do not remember
exactly where she was located; whether on Habana street, between Cuenca and
Campana, or Pareja street, between Cuenca and Campana. But they gave me the
assurance that one of them was safe.” [16]
With that information in my possession I went to Devoto. I toured the
neighborhood. I traveled through the indicated streets. I took photos. I
observed the entire building in detail and at night I sent Daniel the
photographs taken.
“I don't really recognize places. It's been a long time, but I'm sure
that if I stood in the plaza at Holguera and Habana streets and walked through
Habana (or Pareja), it was no more than three blocks, on the right side, about
30 meters from the corner . ” [17]
“I can tell you, almost certainly, that it was winter because I
remember getting under that green tarp that covered [Kong] to protect us from
the cold. That must be one of the reasons why a lot of people didn't even know
that Kong was there." [18]
“I have the memory of playing in the square and someone went to say
that Kong was in that place. We all ran out to see him. It was an open beach,
but I don't remember seeing anyone watching.
“It was an open place and I don't remember seeing any shed. Just a
big beach. What I do remember is that King Kong was divided into three
semi-trailers. We were only able to climb the one with the head. What I am sure
of is that there was no security guard because it is that time, you saw a
uniform of whatever it was and you stayed quiet, quiet.
“The trailer was one step away from the sidewalk. I seem to remember
that the head was with part of his trunk. There were no walls, no bars and we
accessed through a piece of canvas that was raised. The gorilla looked half
broken and the rubber was half rotten. I remember that because I had a piece in
my possession, which we later threw away. We also had hair, which we also threw
away in those years.” [19]
“The teeth were knocked out. I remember that there was someone who
was passing them, because they had to climb some metal pipes and it was quite
dark.” [twenty]
“Also, I'll tell you that my brother-in-law was here [Uruguay]
and he told me that he thinks the place where he was deposited could be on
Pareja street, between Cuenca and Campana. That in that place there was later a
paddle tennis court and then a soccer field and that today there is a huge and
modern building that overlooks both streets (by Pareja and by Habana). [twenty-one]
There was a lot of data to verify and I was on my way.
MEMORY, SOCIAL NETWORKS AND RUMORS
History , as a trade or discipline guided by rules and research
methods, maintains a very particular relationship with memory . Both
spheres are different, but there is no doubt that they are intertwined and
that, ultimately, they pursue the same and only objective: the reconstruction
of the human past.
Of course, history is born from memory , but this is not its
main object of study. We could consider it, yes, an important matrix when it
comes to understanding and explaining what happened, but when transforming it
into a story, one premise must always be taken into account: that things
are as they are and how they are remembered . Hence, it is always
necessary to confirm the sayings with other data, be they written, oral or
material.
We are all aware that memory wears out over time and is altered by knowledge
and data that are acquired later. Memories change. They are constantly reissued
and current feelings tend to be transferred to the past, giving that memory an
importance that, at first, we did not give it. Even the same event can be
remembered differently at different times of life.
We are not reliable witnesses. Memory is subjective, no matter how much it is
based on " lived experience ". It is fragile, volatile and
ephemeral. Generally tends to reconstruct the world without references. It is
not very careful of the context and the person who remembers (witness) usually
does not require proof for a simple reason: he thinks he is sure of “
his truth ”. And here is where the great difference with the
historian lies: the latter is not satisfied with the singular fact. He intends
to reconstruct the complete context in which that data was provided, knowing
that memory is something that can be aestheticized, updated and even sold. [22]
At first, Venneri's testimony was insufficient; but he presented many paths to
follow. It had to be contrasted with other evidence and data. And it was what I
decided to investigate more carefully than before.
We all know that the domain of fire turned out to be a very important step in
the history of mankind; and even when it is not entirely clear how we achieve
it, the derived consequences are evident and logical. By controlling fire, our
species (needless to say, is the only one that does so), was not only able to
cook its food, keep warm, successfully drive away the most dangerous predators,
but also fight for the first time the main source of our fears: the dark
But man's fears did not die with the taming of llamas. The heat and light took
hours away from sleep and allowed our species to congregate around a campfire,
generating new ones, coming from the fantasies that stemmed from one of the
activities that best defines us as humans : telling stories.
Today like yesterday, we continue to do it, but in a different way.
The modern stove that brings together (and paradoxically isolates at the same
time) millions of people every night is called the Internet. It is an
electronic heater. It does not produce embers, but it stimulates the
imagination, as much or more, than the old gatherings around the fire. The Web
is indebted to the flames and the crackling of the burning logs, becoming the
main powerhouse of the so-called urban legends . [23] And the King Kong doll has not been left out of this
powerful influence.
The half dozen stories that circulate about the fate that followed, after being
exhibited in Mar del Plata in February 1979, are excellent proof of this.
Each and every one of these stories should be reread with the above in mind,
since rumor and fantasy seem to be the foundations on which many of them were
built. [24] Perhaps most.
For this reason I thought it convenient to directly consult the newspapers of
the time and try to rearrange everything from the news published in the
newspaper La Capital de Mar del Plata. I assumed that a phenomenon like King
Kong could not be left out of the public interest at the time. I returned to
1979 with the sole purpose of reconstructing in detail what mere testimonies do
not reconstruct: the context.
It was thus that one piece of information led me to another, that one to a
third and so on; to the point of acknowledging that many of the things said and
repeated in numerous articles (including my first summary) had been left
halfway and that King Kong was always far from that “mythical”
Batán dump that the rumor spoke of.
Venneri and his tooth had opened a new path, full of questions to answer
A GORILLA IN THE RURAL, BUENOS AIRES, 1978
That Saturday, August 19, 1978, more than one reader of the newspaper La
Nación must have stopped in surprise on page 2. Surely the preparations
for the election of the new Pope were not the cause of the astonishment [25] or that Pinochet called for the unity
of the Chileans. It is that, with large block letters and a black and white
photograph that occupied more than half of the page, the Buenos Aires morning
newspaper announced the upcoming arrival in Buenos Aires of the most famous and
enormous monkey in Hollywood. [26]
There was no express indication of the day of his arrival, but what was
highlighted was the brute force that defined Kong, and to which the
then dictatorship was so affected. Likewise, the advertising announced that the
Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA) would become the host of the monster
and that the gigantic gorilla would share the same space with the fattest, most
groomed and most awarded cows in the country.
Those who were proud of the fact should not have been missing. That such an
important representative of development deigned to go down to the
south of the continent was further proof that the world had its eyes set on a
country that, since June of that year, had been world soccer champion. The
military dictatorship was having a good time and it had to be prolonged as long
as possible. That is why many did not hesitate, after some time, to consider
Kong a collaborator of the media circus deployed by the de facto
government.
A monster to cover other monsters.
On successive days, the announcement of Kong's " live performance
" was repeated, highlighting what most attracted the attention of the
animatronic (robot): its size. [27] The " Eighth Wonder of the World "
competed, surpassing it, to the Obelisk of Corrientes Avenue. Fact that in
reality was not true, but that served as publicity, predicting a commercial
success more than sure.
It was so, on Sunday, August 20, 1978, the Sunday magazine of La
Nación dedicated an extensive note to the subject. For the first time the
Argentines had breakfast what was the thing. [28] Four pages (two in full color of the monkey and its
parts), under the title “ King Kong in Palermo ”, reported
that the protagonist of the film produced by Dino de Laurentis had finally
arrived in Buenos Aires.
They did not hesitate to describe it as " a true masterpiece of
cybernetics " [29] ,
highlighting its height, weight and effort required in its construction.
Obviously it was not easy to mobilize it, which suggested the important
investment and commitment to the country that the businessmen in charge of
bringing it had made.
“King Kong's trip to Argentina was as complicated as its
construction, since it had to be packed in parts. To move it, the San Diego
Freeway that connects Los Angeles with Long Beach had to be cut, and a police
guard that was in charge of avoiding traffic congestion. Finally, it was
shipped on the ELMA ship Jujuy II in 18 gigantic crates.” [30]
They said that Kong came to resurrect in adults the lost childish spirit and
their capacity for wonder. To do this, the “ spooky precision
” that the computer with which he handled it gave him, also became the
star of that “ true technical marvel ”. [31]
“In this decade, who cares about Kong's love story? What is
interesting is to know how this endless tower, 17 meters high and weighing 6.5
tons, was erected. It took 6 months to build it in studio number 17 of the
Metro G. Mayer and 1,700,000 million dollars were invested.” [32]
Beyond the exaggerations exposed in the article (which, as we will see later,
were not consistent with reality) the arrival of Kong to these extensive pampas
aroused enormous curiosity; fed by newspapers such as La Nación in
numerous successive notes.
On Sunday, September 3, 1978, he published in the Shows Section :
“ The gigantic King Kong travels to Buenos Aires ”.
“Montevideo, 2 (EFE)- The Argentine ship Jujuy II is located in the
port of Montevideo, which carries in its holds nothing less than King Kong, the
giant who recently sowed terror from the cinematographic screen, in Dino's
version of Laurentis. The monster, in whose construction 700,000 (sic)
dollars were invested, is passing through Montevideo, on a stopover on its
trip from North America, until this weekend. The captain of the Jujuy II
reported that early next week King Kong will arrive in Buenos Aires, where he
will be exhibited in rural Palermo. Although the arrival of the ship is
scheduled for the first days of the week, the landing of King Kong will not
take place until Thursday, since it is stored in the bottom of the holds,
explained the captain of the ship.[33]
Finally, as promised by the person in charge of the ELMA freighter (Empresa
Líneas Marítimas Argentinas), the gorilla disembarked on Thursday, September
7, 1978.
On that occasion, La Nación repeated a large part of the data that it
had recorded in previous notes, but it pointed out something that was unknown
until then and that, in the future, would be very important in the
investigation that summons us:
“After his performance in Buenos Aires, this technical phenomenon
will be transferred to Mar del Plata, and then he will continue his trip to
Venezuela and Mexico, and will return to Los Angeles, where he will be at the
end of next year, to film a second version of King Kong.” [3. 4]
As if all this were not enough, it did not take long for the
“famous” locals to join the troupe. TV host Pinky was
named " godmother " to the great gorilla (I wonder by whom);
she being the first person in the country who “(…) will
literally have the mechanical monster in her hands ”. [35]
After two days of preparations, on September 9, 1978, the packages containing
the different parts of Kong were transported, in the morning, from the port to
the headquarters of the Rural Society. [36]
That Saturday must have been somewhat particular for passers-by and motorists
on Santa Fe Avenue since, with the authorization of the city's military
government, the famous Buenos Aires artery had to change hands to expedite the
transfer of the " King " from the C dock. from Puerto Nuevo
to the Plaza Italia area. It was still mutilated in parts. That is why the
services of a transport company were required, which made 18 trailers available
to the doll, which, in single file, traveled the avenue to the intersection
with Callao, which was where the " godmother " (Pinky) was
waiting for him, with much more anxiety than the character played by Jessica
Lange in the film. Arrived at the agreed point, the driver got on one of the
trailers and accompanied her “ godson” to the aristocratic
estate that awaited him. [37]
The people of Buenos Aires had to wait 14 days for the premiere of the show.
Two weeks in which the newspapers, radio and television fed the desire of many
with publicity; and that, in the end, they turned out to be disappointed by the
level of the show… and the bouncer. [38]
Finally, on September 23, 1978, La Rural opened its doors at 2:00 p.m. for the
first performance of the many that took place over the next four months (only
on Saturdays and Sundays). [39]
That third spring of the dictatorship could already exhibit its largest gorilla
in the world.
FROM AMAZING TO FIASCO
Beyond the metaphors and poetic licenses in which the media fell, pursuing, of
course, an advertising purpose, the King Kong built for the 1976 film was never
a real monkey. She was an animatronic . A robot that pretended to
simulate a real gorilla. An immense puppet, made of cables, steel and rubber,
which sought to play for a while with our capacity for wonder, feeding (not
without a certain air of anthropocentric superiority) the always present
dichotomy between Nature and Culture .
Towards the end of the '70s, Carlo Rambaldi (1925-2012) was the master
and guru of the trade. Builder of Spielberg's shark ( Jaws ,
1975) and of the aliens that the same director used in Close Encounters of
the Third Kind (1977) and later ET (1982), Rambaldi was also
responsible for another disproportionate animal, not as famous as the previous
ones and the protagonist of the film Búfalo Blanco (1977), in which
an elderly Charles Bronson faced an albino buffalo of cyclopean dimensions in
the North American Far West. A kind of King Kong with four legs and horns that
went through the cinema without pain or glory. [40]
In the same way that today we are surprised by virtual animation ( 2005's
King Kong , directed by Peter Jackson, is a good example of this), in
the 1970s Hollywood impressed us with its enormous robotic puppets. Even the
Disney company contributed its own by displaying dinosaurs of the same type in
its Miami amusement park, a destination that ended up becoming the cultural
Mecca of the leavening, pro-Yankee and mediocre vernacular bourgeoisie of
the “ sweet silver ”.
But things are almost never what the media says they are. And King
Kong was no exception to the rule.
Let us agree that with the gorilla - robot the aim was always
to make money . The film industry, as is logical within the capitalist
scheme that gave rise to it, always pursued the business; especially with the
films that today we call “pochocleros” and that are the ones that
concentrate the greatest number of technological advances and special effects.
Therefore, reimbursing what was invested quickly and obtaining profits by
taking advantage of the tailwind that advertising gives them are common
objectives in this type of undertaking, without necessarily contradicting their
artistic quality.
All investors seek their slice and to do so they promote, exaggerate,
exaggerate, the product they offer to mass consumption. That's what they did
with the Kong doll, when they took him out on tour around the world.
Technological wonder. Masterpiece of cybernetics. technical phenomenon.
Electronic marvel of terrifying precision.
In this way the enormous gorilla was presented upon arrival in Argentina.
“(…) They will marvel at the naturalness of that huge puppet
(…)”, Hugo Beccacece wrote in La Nación on August 21,
1978. “ He can blink, open his mouth, gesticulate and move his ears.
In addition, in the scenes of terror, his nostrils dilate ”, he
added in the article, while illustrating those words with a photograph that is
not at all sincere.
It is that the Kong that was shown in the shot was not the 17-meter
animatronic . Nor was it that doll that appeared in the first
advertisement of the month of August '78.
They lied to us. They weren't telling us the whole truth. Because behind those
realistic images, of a Kong that gesticulated like a real gorilla, there was an
actor. Not a robot. A guy dressed as a monkey (very well dressed, by the way)
who ended up being the main protagonist of the film.
His name was Rick Baker and he was a special effects and makeup specialist. He
was Kong in the Dino de Laurentis movie. He was the one who appeared in the
aforementioned advertisements.
The robot only had barely 30 seconds of fame in the entire film. The most
grotesque.
“The King Kong Robot was the biggest, boldest, most daring and
deviously misleading advertising campaign ever created to sell a movie.
(…) But de Laurentis knew that no one would take him seriously if they
knew he was just wearing a man in a monkey suit.” [41]
Time proved how right he was, as critics endlessly mocked his use of the suit.
But that was many months later. As the article Robot Kong! , "
The critics in 1976 didn't notice the difference at all ."
Those who did notice were all those naive people who went to the Rural de
Palermo to see the show. A circus show that turned out to be expensive,
mediocre and very short. Kong, after a display of clowns, jugglers and an
announcer who kept announcing what was going to happen, only appeared for 15
minutes. A real fiasco. [42]
Even so, the businessmen responsible managed to maintain the circus
until January 1979, the date on which the already discredited King Kong began
to pack his bags to spend the summer on the Atlantic coast.
PART 2
“-What happened to Kong's body?
-I was there, and then a
gang of men and took him away, and no one
You know for sure where it went.”
Brad Strickland and John Michlig
King Kong. King of Skull Island
Booket, Buenos Aires, 2005, p. 140
“It is not easy to destroy an idol:
takes as much time as
what is needed to promote
and adore him.”
E.M. Cioran
Breviary of Rot
Goodbye to Philosophy , Page 14
THE KING OF THE COAST, MAR DEL PLATA, 1979
They thought it would destroy everything. That being big was enough. They
believed that his Hollywood credentials were enough and that with the fame
gained since 1933 he would dethrone all other shows in that summer of 1979.
Mar del Plata was proud to receive it. She was proud of it. A small portion of
the developed world settled their estates on Avenida Luro, perhaps the most Mar
del Plata avenue.
They had brought it from rural Buenos Aires. It summed up all international
cinema. It was the star that would outshine all others. The ace in the hole
that the businessmen took out a little late, in February, a month after the
start of the summer season; but a special ace, insurmountable. The ace of aces.
The secret weapon of mass destruction that everyone wishes they had.
At first it was unbeatable.
Who could beat him, if he had been able to defeat tyrannosaurs and
pterodactyls, almost without breaking a sweat?
That giant gorilla, who arrived at the Buenos Aires coast and further enriched
the Pearl of the Atlantic , embodied sure success. The path
of fortune. The possibility of recovering the investment and lining their
pockets with money.
Kong's debut in Mar del Plata took place on February 1, 1979. “ A late debut ”, as declared by the newspaper La Capital the following day in an extensive article, which mixed promotion and information in equal parts. [43]
The site chosen to erect the inflatable tent ( aerostructure ) in
which the gorilla would delight children and adults , was more than
appropriate for a gladiator of his lineage: the site of the former Bristol
stadium. An old Mar del Plata boxing palace, demolished at the time; Much to
the regret of the nostalgic inhabitants of the city, accustomed (unfortunately)
to seeing their most emblematic buildings of yesteryear fall under the weight
of the pillory.
As indicated in the aforementioned article, the delay had been caused by
technical requirements. The monkey was so big that they had to carry out
special works to locate it, making it necessary to build a moat in order to
build an amphitheater, on whose stage Kong would stand. Apparently, the
Empresa Román (the same one that took him from the port of Buenos
Aires to the Rural) was in charge of transferring him to the coast in three
special trucks. [44]
And so the entire month of February 1979 passed.
Standing with his back to Jujuy Street, Kong, “ the greatest artist
of the summer ” [45] ,
“ the technical marvel ” of Dino de Laurentis, tried to
insert himself into the artistic world of the coast, helped by the engineer
Eddie Surkin, responsible for of all robot movements. [46]
“The King Kong show, obviously limited by its possibilities of
movement [Note: the doll never moved anywhere by itself], has been
solved through the skilful resource of using the questions asked by the
children in the audience, who are the that justify the [monkey's]
reactions .And it is no discovery to verify the degree of
sensitivity and ingenuity that the little ones can put into such an
undertaking. Some of the questions asked give King Kong the opportunity to be
euphorically affirmative (are you happy in Argentina?), after they awaken
nostalgia (do you miss your mother?), exalt his masculine ego (do you like
blonde girls ?), provoke stupor (do you use deodorant?), or feign anger (when
you get married, are you going to live with your mother-in-law?). Each question
has a correlated externalization of the body that, undoubtedly through facial
movement, denotes these different states of mind. After a presumed outburst of
anger, he raises his arms and breaks the shackled chains that held him down,
and as the end of the frame, a trapeze artist hangs down on a rope and rests on
her right arm, being raised with no effort. In this circumstance, and due to
the effect of the comparison, it is when the proportions of King Kong are best
appreciated and by derivation the risk, the investment and even the adventure
that bringing such a character from his country of origin is
dimensioned.”[47]
But something went wrong. The business did not work out and the King Kong
show in Mar del Plata ended up being a business failure.
The show continued to be mediocre, more expensive than in Buenos Aires and with
a bad reputation for drag that undermined its potential success. In addition,
many of the city's vacationers had already seen him " perform
" in the Rural Buenos Aires.
When the season ended, the tent that covered it was removed, the seats were
raised and a frozen autumn fell over Mar del Plata, while the gorilla robot
remained outdoors, barely covered by a tarp.
And one fine day it vanished.
THE MYSTERIOUS FATE OF KONG
What happened to King Kong's huge animatronic after his failed show in Mar del
Plata? Did he really end up in a garbage dump on the outskirts of Batán, being
scrapped by the inhabitants of a village, or was he taken to the Devoto
neighborhood, where a 10 or 11-year-old boy extracted part of his teeth, before
continuing on to the Exterior?
If we go back to the testimony that Daniel Venneri gave me in 2013, one
sentence should be rescued, in a very special way:
“ The only thing I remember is that they had brought it from Mar del
Plata and then they would take it to Brazil.”
Did the witness really have that information in 1979 or was it a later addition
that he inadvertently made to the story? To what extent did the data, which he
surely acquired over the years, influence the way of updating the events that
occurred in his childhood? Wouldn't he be unconsciously committing a blatant
anachronism in remembering?
We have already said that memory has its pitfalls, for this reason, at first, I
thought that Venneri was wrong and that, in reality, he had been rummaging
through Kong's body before he was taken to Mar del Plata and not
after. . But the facts revealed by the newspapers of the time (consulted in the
National Library) showed that this hypothesis was not correct.
Kong had no previous “technical stopover” after leaving
the Palermo Rural Society's property. He was disarmed and sent directly from
Plaza Italia (Federal Capital) to the Buenos Aires coast, without any
rest along the way.
In that case, if Daniel saw it after passing through the coast, what happened
to the robot after staying on that beach in Villa Devoto? Did he finally leave
for Brazil, as Venneri suggested in his testimony?
With the last of the questions in mind, I decided to search the Internet for
some data that would tell me something about it and it didn't take long to
verify that it was true.
Indeed, a series of articles in Portuguese reported that King Kong had been in
the city of São Paulo and exhibited to the public in a place called
Playcenter . But in 1977 . That is, two years before having
passed through Mar del Plata. [48]
I did some research on what kind of place that Playcenter was and
found out that it was a very famous amusement park back in the day. A species
and São Paulo Italpark , well known and loved by Brazilians, opened
in 1973.
Four years after its opening, in July 1977, Dino de Laurentis, Carlo Rambaldi
Jessica Lange and a large group of technicians and co-producers of the '76
film, visited Brazil in order to promote the film that was about to be
released. debut in that country. The arrival of the main star, who with her
beauty and sensuality had captured the attention of much of the planet, did not
go unnoticed by the media and numerous journalistic notes echoed such important
visitors.
The owner of Playcenter , Marcelo Gutglas, a successful businessman
from São Paulo, did not miss the opportunity and took advantage of the
Americans' stay to place his amusement park in the eyes and mouths of everyone.
[49] He summoned de Laurentis, Rambaldi
and Lange to make an appearance at Playcenter.
One of the park managers, Mauricio Kus, wrote:
“We had a meeting with Alexander Adamiu, president of Paris Film, and
Fernando Elimelec, marketing director of Playcenter, from which it turned out
that the Engineering Department would build (with Rambaldi's supervision) a
15-meter-high gorilla that would be exhibited by 90 days in the most central
point of the park.” [fifty]
But we weren't talking about the same Kong. He was not the original. That huge
Playcenter monkey turned out to be much rougher, hieratic and smaller.
He wasn't even a robot. He was another Kong. A poor quality copy that
had nothing to do with the gorilla that, two years later, would scare the kids
on Avenida Luro in Mar del Plata.
I stayed calm. I thought that with these data, Kong's trip to Brazil after
having been on the Atlantic coast was completely ruled out and that, somehow,
Daniel Venneri had confused that visit in '77 with another after the tooth
extraction in Devoto. [51] But that
logic was short-lived.
Two or three days after confirming the passage of Jessica Lange, Rambaldi and
Laurentis through São Paulo, a new photograph came to ruin everything again [
see photo below ]. [52]
It had a caption that read: “ King Kong at Playcenter, 1977
”.
But there was a problem: the gorilla in the photo looked a lot like the one in
Mar del Plata. It was almost identical and was nothing like the one that had
been built by the engineering department of the Brazilian park.
I looked at the photo carefully and, at first (perhaps guided by prejudice) I
thought it was a little smaller. How tall was he really? Was there a way to
calculate the exact height from the photo?
I consulted a mathematician (numbers were never my favorite field) and he
advised me to use the direct proportionality formula . But to do this
you had to have a real measurement from which to start (and despite the fact
that several people appeared in the photo, he did not know how tall they were).
What he did know was that the animatronic from Argentina was 17 meters
long and that, if it were the same, the doll in the trailer must have been the
same.
Or had they built two robotic King Kong dolls?
It was a possibility. In fact, somewhere she had read, in passing, something
about it. I went back through my notes and, sure enough, I found what I was
looking for.
Uriel Barros, in his aforementioned article King Kong Died in
Argentina , wrote that after the failure of the show in Mar del Plata:
“(…) the American licensees of the huge ape asked for the heads
of the Argentines. These same licensees were the owners of the only two
King Kong models that remained intact at Universal Studios in Florida
until a couple of years ago, when they were devoured by the flames of
the fire that hit said studios .” [53]
According to this, there were no longer two, but three gorillas that had been
built. She didn't understand anything. He was confused. Lost. In the middle of
a road full of back and forth, rumors and contradictions, crossed news and
photos that became more and more enigmatic the more he watched them. What two
dolls was Barros talking about? Was one of them the one that ended up being
photographed in a Playcenter trailer in 1977 ?
If he wanted to know the true identity of that doll, he first had to find out
more about that pair of Kongs that Barros was referring to.
And he had only one clue: the aforementioned fire at Universal Studios.
On June 1, 2008, the fire destroyed much of Universal Studios in Los Angeles,
California. [54] Offices, film sets,
warehouses, and important film archives were lost forever. More than 400
firefighters and helicopters had to act to put out the flames. At first, its
spread in surrounding forests was feared. Fortunately, they were able to
control it in time. Still, the losses were catastrophic.
Page 12 reported, two weeks later, regarding the balance left by the
incident:
“In a first and last official report, it was said that the losses
included the super classic decoration of the streets of New York; at least one
complete film studio, the giant animatronic of King Kong , the
set of Back to the Future (…) and the abstract Video Vault, where at first
no one remembered that masters of musical recordings of the Universal label
were also stored, Decca and AM Records.” [55]
Was that animatronic a second copy made for the Dino de Laurentis movie?
It was enough to go through the images of the doll given by the newspapers and
newscasts that covered the fire, to notice that it was nothing like the Kong
used in the film (even though it was the main character's crutch).
That gorilla was not Carlo Rambaldi's creature . It was a much younger
monkey. It had been built by Bob Gehr in June 1986 to be installed in the
Universal amusement park and, in essence, was a large inflatable balloon that
moved very naturally. A far cry from the stiff robot that traveled (by my
guess) to Brazil in '79.
Regarding the other gorilla that Uriel Barros mentions as he passes by, there
are two possibilities: either it was another doll part of the Universal show
(which was also burned) [56] or it was
alluding to the puppet that traveled to Paris in 1976 to promote the premiere .
Of course, this was not an animatronic, but a doll made of foam rubber and
pipes that survived and was rented for the film Bye Bye Monky . [57] As far as is known, it remains to this
day at a fair in the city of Rimini, Italy [see photo below].
In conclusion, everything indicated that there had been only one original
animatronic for the '76 film. And although that information was not completely
confirmed, a pending problem remained to be solved: was it the King Kong in the
photo of the Playcenter trailer (dated in 1977), the same one that had
traveled to Argentina two years later? There was no data, no evidence that the
original robot protagonist of the film had been in Brazil with Jessica Lange
and Laurentis (and in that case, why would they have built another one of poor
quality, to place it in the center of Playcenter ?). It wasn't logical.
I had to know how big the Kong in the trailer was and the calculation of direct
proportionality required, as we said before, having a real size of some of the
objects that appeared in the photo. The most obvious was the truck. I checked
what the average height of the cabin was (2.80 m), which in the photo was
equivalent to 2 cm. I measured the gorilla (11.3 cm in the photo) and the
result was approximately 16.5 meters.
It was the same doll. [58]
There was surely a mistake. And that mistake had to be in the dating of the
photograph.
It couldn't be 1977.
Therefore, I delved again into the history of the São Paulo amusement park,
coming across a revealing report made in 2012 to the owner of
Playcenter , Marcelo Gutglas.
And this is what the businessman revealed when asked “How was the
King Kong episode at Playcenter? ”:
“ There were two moments .
In 1977 , when the film was released, actress Jessica Lange
and Special Effects Oscar winner Carlo Rambaldi arrived in Brazil and visited
the Playcenter for the film's premiere. At that time, the doll used was
designed and built by the park itself . In 1979 , we
brought the original doll used in the film from the United States. He
was 20 meters tall and 80 moves in the face. At the time, it was a huge
sensation with queues for miles. The curiosity was such that it hit the
attendance record at the time with 450,000 visitors in July
.” [59]
Eureka!
Indeed, the photo was from 1979. Specifically, from the month of July of that
year.
Now things were beginning to take shape and the testimony (as well as the
tooth) of Daniel Venneri became a true and important landmark in the
reconstruction of the robot's path.
Daniel hadn't been wrong. Be that as it may, the information he received from
Devoto, while he was tooth-deadening the monkey with his friends, was largely
true: Kong was waiting, on that neighborhood beach, covered with a
green tarpaulin, to leave for Brazil . [60]
MUDO, ABANDONED AND WAITING FOR THE AUCTION
At this point in the work, when everything seems to indicate that Kong did
indeed make his last stop at a beach in the Devoto neighborhood, it becomes
necessary to return again to Mar del Plata at the beginning of 1979 to find
out, through the newspapers of the time, what was said about the subject at the
time.
It is impossible for the Mar del Plata media to neglect such a bizarre matter.
Kong was not just any character. He attracted attention. Therefore, guided by
that premonition, I went back to the newspaper library of the National Library
and rescued all the articles that the newspaper La Capital would publish on the
subject throughout 1979.
It caught my attention (and now I understand why) that the “ Kong
affair ” completely disappeared from the pages of the newspaper
towards the end of April. Since then, the subject has not been discussed again.
The Hollywood gorilla (the only one built for the '76 film) evaporated from the
journalistic record; but the information collected in the only five articles
that I found, allowed me to know some extremely important data that had been
completely forgotten.
There were, of course, many questions to answer. I needed specific names and
surnames, witnesses and protagonists of the events, who could tell me what had
happened to the animatronic on Avenida Luro and España. And with the
newspapers in hand, the names did not take long to appear.
After the theatrical season, at the end of February '79, references to King
Kong in the local newspapers were made to wait for a month and a half. It was
only on April 15 that an article in La Capital announced, to the
surprise of many, that the King of Skull Island was ready to be
finished off.
For the first time, business failure was made public.
“King Kong will be finished off (…) according to some reports
collected in court media. Such seems to be the fate of the immense mechanical
gorilla that was left abandoned on the grounds of the old Bristol stadium.
According to the versions, Joaquín Leitao, a public
auctioneer registered in the court records as a judicial assistant, will be in
charge of the unusual auction. The offer of the electromechanical ape to the
highest bidder will take place around the end of the current month [April].
Meanwhile, King Kong waits motionless, still standing his almost ridiculous 15
meters (sic) tall, on the land that includes a good part of the block comprised
of Luro Avenue and España, Jujuy and 25 de Mayo streets. It still remains
where days ago it starred in one of the most significant failures in terms of
shows that is remembered in Mar del Plata.” [61]
Poor Kong was already beginning to be branded ridiculous. The days of
admiration for him were over and like every tyrant, those who once applauded
him, began to pour criticism and disqualifying adjectives on him. His colossal
height no longer surprised anyone. He was a failed giant.
The thing is
“(…) thanks to the little attraction that his presence caused
and also as a result of the debts contracted by his Argentine guardians, the
monkey now seems to sing 'here I am stranded without money and without faith',
as the tango of Cadícamo and Barbieri says. .” [62]
Who would go to buy it? Who would bear the bad image (according to La
Capital) that it had left on the entire Buenos Aires coast? It was rumored that
the owner of the Tihany Circus (very famous in those days) was interested. But
the matter did not prosper.
Everyone was surprised. Even the auctioneer himself selected for the
auction.
“Indeed I have been raffled for the auction –he said in a
report, intermingling his words with a smile.- In my life I have auctioned off
everything. From chickens and pigs, to a boat, but I never imagined that at 60
years of age I would finish off a 15-meter-high orangutan (sic) . [63]
But until that moment it was not at all clear what had been the reasons that
had initiated the judicial process.
Who were, really, the "Argentine tutors" named above? How had the lawsuit
started and why?
Kong, mute and abandoned, could not answer these questions; among other things
because the electronic equipment that allowed his terrifying screams and
grotesque movements had disappeared (despite, according to the newspaper, being
in the inventory).
Four days later, on Thursday, April 19, 1979, at noon and carrying an order
issued by Judge Dr. Jorge Orlando Ramírez (Court 5, Secretary
9), a justice official appeared on the Luro Avenue lot and put the gorilla in
the possession of auctioneer Leitao; who proceeded to reconnoiter the giant,
formally verifying the disappearance of the sound equipment used to bring the
ape to life. [64]
But at that very moment (4/19/79), a complaint filed in the First Section of
the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires was going to block the whole
process, revealing the true protagonists of the story and a commercial plot
somewhat complicated. Even so, the auction continued to stand, setting April 29
as the date for it. [65] But for a short
time.
Seven days later, on April 26, the Justice suspended the auction.
What had happened?
Not even the auctioneer Leitao had things clear.
"I have received Judge Ramírez's certificate, where I am notified that the
suspension of the auction was decreed, but the reasons I cannot establish
exactly." [66]
Only on April 28, and through the lawyer Néstor Mario Lorusso, legal
representative of the company that had brought Kong to Argentina, were we able
to find out the details and the outcome of this whole story. [67]
THE DOCTOR. KONG
The company in charge of bringing Kong to our country made its first public
appearance with a notice of thanks in the newspaper La Nación , one
day after the animatronic arrived at the Rural Society of Palermo. [68] With this expression of open
recognition, King Kong Producciones demonstrated its
good relations with the Buenos Aires military government and the Federal
Police, by allowing Santa Fe Avenue to change hands to expedite the transfer of
the ape from the port.
The production company had its legal address at 140 Garay Street, 8th floor
(between Azopardo and Paseo Colón), but it would be several months later, in
the midst of a legal scandal after the Mar del Plata failure, when its real
name was exposed to public opinion. public. It was called
International Transax SA , with offices at 1535
Libertador Avenue in the Federal Capital, and its president was a certain
Beky Simone Pérez y Pichtón , associated with other
shareholders, especially Mr. Ricardo Gangeme . [69] Together they were the "Argentine
guardians" of the great ape and those responsible for the robot before the Dino
de Laurentis Corporation, to whom they had rented the enormous doll until May
5, 1979. [70]
When the company decided to continue its business in Mar del Plata, it
contacted José Miguel Cuffia 's Airestructura
SRL in order to rent the tent where Kong would perform his show.
According to the contract, discussed by Dr. Lorusso, Cuffia received as advance
and guarantee two promissory notes of 10 million pesos each (with maturity on
February 20, 1979). Such documents could not be endorsed or negotiated with
third parties since their amounts would be amortized with daily deposits of 10%
of the total box office, collected by the show in the Luro avenue marquee.
When the show was closed at the end of February, Transax SA was forced
to pay a large sum for electricity and SADAIC that, by contract, Cuffia had to
pay. [71] When Transax made the claim,
and at the same time requested the return of the two promissory notes as
collateral, since the producer had made the 10% deposits in a timely manner,
they received no response. The reason was revealed shortly after: Cuffia had
delivered the promissory notes to a certain Juan Carlos Ferré, who, wanting to
execute them, found himself unable to do so. For this reason, Ferré initiated
a lawsuit against Transax and here is the judicial procedure that explains the
request for seizure of the doll.
When the Mar del Plata media echoed the embargo and the future auction of the
robot, Transax SA acted immediately, excusing itself for the delay (remember
the several days of the news in the newspapers). He claimed that he knew
nothing about the auction. That they hadn't found out due to two procedural
errors. The first of them was that the trial was filed in Court 5 Secretary 9
and not in Secretary 10, as they had believed from the beginning. And the
second was due to the fact that the summons had been sent to Avenida Luro y
España, and not to the company's legal address (Garay 140/142 de Cap.
Fed.).
As soon as Pérez and Pichtón and their partners became aware of the whole
problem, they immediately traveled to Mar del Plata and on April 18, 1979 they
deposited the sum of 15 million pesos law in the Court, thus managing to stop
the auction. [72]
Once the deposit was made, Dr. Lorusso, dated April 28, 1979, stated:
“Transax paid the claimed capital, costs and fees, to release
King Kong . They do so for the sole purpose of being able to comply
with the release of the electromechanical doll on May 5 and also satisfy the
commitments they have made abroad. But they make this payment by making it
clear that they do not owe anything to anyone and preparing to repeat it
against whom it corresponds (...) The giant, in a few more hours, will
embark on its spectacular journey to strange countries ”.
[73]
The rescue of the popular gorilla was over. [74]
CONCLUSION
In a few words: King Kong did not die in Mar del Plata, nor in any other part
of Argentina. The great ape finally found a way to overcome his problems with
the justice system in Mar del Plata and, after a fleeting visit to a beach in
the Devoto neighborhood in Buenos Aires, he left our country forever.
Daniel Venneri recalled that “ the gorilla looked half broken and the
rubber was half rotten” . Perhaps for this reason it did not go
directly to Brazil and was sent to the United States for repair and fine-tuning
before being sent to the Playcenter headquarters in São Paulo towards
the end of July 1979.
There, Kong was once again treated as what he had always been: a King
.
Still with some false teeth.
I do not know for sure what their subsequent destinations were. But he kept
traveling. Dino de Laurentis amortized the several million dollars that its
construction cost him and Eddie Surkin, the engineer who brought him to life by
manipulating the console that controlled his screams and crude movements, was
in charge of accompanying Kong everywhere until 1985.
How do we know that?
Towards the end of the data search, when I already had the entire journey
explained above in my head, consulting a digitized newspaper library on the
Internet, I accessed a small article in a North Carolina (USA) newspaper, the
Times News of Hendersonville, NC on Monday, April 29, 1985, announcing
that Hollywood's most famous monkey had arrived at his final resting place. [75]
I tried to communicate with E. Surkin. I was not lucky. Everything indicates
that the engineer is still alive and owns a special effects company in
California. But this last attempt connected me with a specialist in the history
of Hollywood cinema, the writer Ray Morton, author of the book King Kong:
The History of Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson (2005), to whom I
sent the article from Times News put together a few questions, which
they generously responded to promptly.
Ferdinand:
There was only one large-scale Kong robot, built for the 1976 film (…)
and which was sent to Argentina and then to Brazil. I've heard things about the
fate of that robot. One, that was abandoned in South America, as you say. The
other, which returned to the United States and ended up on the set of Dino de
Laurentis' studio in North Carolina. I haven't been able to confirm either one.
Every person I talked to had a different story. Of course, the article you sent
me confirms what I had already heard: that they traveled the world with the
robot for a few years and then it ended up in storage, in a Los Angeles
warehouse near the airport, until Dino moved to North Carolina to early '80s.
So Gary Martin, manager of Sony Studios, told me,[76]
Now me too.
FJSR
JUNE 2015
sotopaikikin@hotmail.com
* Professor of History at the Faculty of Humanities of the UNMdP.
** The photograph of King Kong's molar and
tooth has been kindly provided by its current owner, Mr. Daniel Venneri.
[1] See the author, King Kong in Mar
del Plata . Available on the Web: http://www.monografias.com/trabajos98/king-kong-mar-del-plata/king-kong-mar-del-plata.shtml
[2] Note: Remember that the first version
of King Kong dates back to 1933. At that time, the monkey was nothing more than
a small 45-centimeter articulated doll, covered in rabbit fur, designed and
wonderfully manipulated by Willis O'Brien .
[3] It is highly unlikely that such a
17-meter monster could have gone unnoticed and not even a photo of that
incident survives. On the other hand, that a pharmacist shelled out a fortune
for such a prodigy of technology back then doesn't bother me either; without
considering the operating expenses that he would have needed to mobilize that
mass. Moving Kong from one place to another was always expensive and
complicated. The logistics required to move it for sure were beyond the reach
of a small trader. It is most likely that the pharmacy in question (of which no
name or specific location is given) has placed, taking advantage of the
publicity of the recent film and the gorilla show in the city, an inflatable
doll, made of foam rubber or another hard material which led to confusion.
[4] Curubeto, Diego, 100 years of
horror movies, sex and violence. Bizarro Cinema , Editorial Sudamericana,
Buenos Aires, 1996, pp. 230-232. There, the author (without referring to any
source) writes: “ After a successful season in rural Palermo, Kong
began a tour of the interior that culminated in Mar del Plata. When the
Argentine boys got tired of seeing the few movements that the gorilla could
make, the producers of the event simply evicted the poor monkey and threw it in
a vacant lot, where it could be seen for a long time covered by piles of
garbage "(p. 232).
But note that he does not speak of Batan. In my opinion (and after a subsequent
reading of my article), Curubeto refers to the property at Avenida Luro at
3400, which at that time, and according to testimonies published in the
newspaper La Nación (on the exact date recorded in the photocopy to the I had
access), it was full of garbage. I quote verbatim: “ Today, more than
a month after the epilogue of the summer cycle [it is very possible that
it will be at the end of March 1979], King Kong remains lonely, abandoned,
like one more gigantic waste of the many that there are
in the apple of Luro, Jujuy, May 25
and Spain ”.
[5] Barrios, Uriel, King Kong died in
Argentina , July 23, 21011. Available on the Web: http://mondomacabro-cine.blogspot.com.ar/2011/07/el-dia-que-king-kong-murio
-in-argentina.html
[6] See: S/A, The Tragic Fate of Carlo
Rambaldi's King Kong . Available on the Web: http://king-kong.fansforum.info/t551-Le-destin-tragique-des-King-Kong-de-Carlo-Rambaldi.htm
[7] Moench, Doug, “ King Kong:
Monarch of Monsters. An in-depth look at the greatest movie monster of all
time ,” in Monsters of the Movies. Wild Tales , Special
issue, Edita j. Perales, Vertex Editions, Spain, 1974, pp. 9-15.
[8] American silent film of 1925,
directed by Harry Hoyt and based on the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle. Available
on the Web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJaXxY3citM
[9] See my essay, Approach to the
imaginary of the explorer in times of imperialism (1875-1914) based on the
novel The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle . Available on the Web: http://letras-uruguay.espaciolatino.com/aaa/soto_fernando/aproximacion_al_imaginario.htm
[10] See: Blog Historika, The Lost
Humanity. The Myth of King Kong. Available on the Web: http://dhistorika.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/la-humanidad-perdida-iii-el-mito-de.html
[12] See: Soto Roland, Fernando Jorge: Monsters and unknown animals: the dreamlike universe of cryptozoology. Available on the Web: http://letras-uruguay.espaciolatino.com/aaa/soto_fernando/monstruos_y_animales_desconocidos.htm
[13] See: Boia, Lucian, Between the
Angel and the Demon , Editorial Andrés Bello, Barcelona, ??1995.
[14] The text says: “
I am selling the monkey tooth used in the 1976 King Kong movie at a
good price. It is a long story how it came into my hands. If you are interested
in knowing more, contact …”. Available on the Web: http://www.forodecine.com/archive/index.php/t-876.html
[15] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (03/10/2013).
[16] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (05/09/2015).
[17] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (05/09/2015).
[18] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (05/11/2015).
[19] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (05/11/2015).
[20] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (05/11/2015).
[21] Author's archive: written
testimony of Daniel Venneri (05/11/2015).
[22] See in this regard: Traverso, Enzo,
“ History and Memory. Notes on a debate ”, in Recent
History: Perspectives and challenges for a field under construction ,
Florencia Levin and Marina Franco (compilers), Editorial Paidos, Bs As, 2007,
pp. 67-97.
[23] See: Brunvand, Jan Harold, The
Fabulous Book of Urban Legends. Too good to be true , Alba Editorial,
Spain, 2003 edition.
[24] For an excellent definition of
“ rumor ”, see text by Edgard Morin cited by Delumeau,
Jean, El Miedo en Occidente , Editorial Taurus, Madrid, 1979.
“A local rumor is nothing more than the thin layer that emerges from
a myth that is neither local, nor isolated, nor accidental; that comes out of
the depths of an unconscious subsoil; that once launched, manifests itself with
a wild force capable of amazing spread. Muttering attraction and repulsion at
the same time, it rejects the verification of the facts, it feeds on
everything, it promotes metastases in multiple directions, it is accompanied by
hysterical processes, it crosses the barriers of age, social class and sex.
Moving from the status of 'it is said' to that of certainty, the rumor is an
accusation that denounces some guilty parties (...). At the end of the cycle,
counteracted by various repressions, it spreads into a swarm of mini-rumors and
derived micro-myths. However, he has not died. He stays in the shadow" [P.
229].
[25] The death of Pope Paul VI had
opened the transition to the papacy of what, for a very short time, would be
Pope John Paul I.
[26] King Kong in Plaza Italia
, Diario La Nación , 08/19/1979, pgs. two.
[27] See: La Nación newspaper
of 08/21/1979.
[28] See: Beccacece, Hugo, “
King Kong in Palermo ”, Magazine of the newspaper La
Nación of 087/20/1979.
[29] Note: The article even compared it
to La Gioconda.
[30] See: Beccacece, Hugo, “
King Kong in Palermo ”, Magazine of the newspaper La
Nación of 087/20/1979.
[31] See: Beccacece, Hugo, “
King Kong in Palermo ”, Magazine of the newspaper La
Nación of 087/20/1979.
[32] See: Beccacece, Hugo, “
King Kong in Palermo ”, Magazine of the newspaper La
Nación of 087/20/1979.
[33] See: La Nación newspaper
, Shows section, Sunday, September 3, 1978.
[34] See: “ King Kong has
arrived and will perform in La Rural ”, in La Nación
newspaper , Thursday, September 7, 1978, p.6 Sect. 2. Note FJSR: The announced
second part was not filmed until 1986 and this doll was not used, but part of
another that served to promote the '76 film in Paris, France. On the other
hand, Mexico was not the next scale of the monkey, but Brazil.
[35] See: “ Out of Script
”, in La Nación newspaper , Thursday, September 7, 1978, Sec.
2nd. Page 3.
[36] See: “ The transfer of
King Kong to Palermo ”, in La Nación newspaper , Saturday,
September 9, 1978, p.18.
[37] See: “ King Kong towards
the rural ”, in La Nación newspaper , Sunday, September
10, 1978, p.18.
[38] See advertising and acknowledgments
in La Nación newspaper , 09/13/1978.
[39] See: “ Presented today at
Rural King Kong ”, in La Nación newspaper , Saturday,
September 23, 1978, p. 14.
[40] See film White Buffalo
(1977). Available on the Web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kti2SM8iNWk
[41] See: “ Robot
Kong !”. Available on the Web: http://www.pulpanddagger.com/canuck/Kong_rob.html
[42] For a precise and entertaining
description of the show, read “ King Kong in Argentina ”
by Uriel Brrios. Available on the Web: http://mondomacabro-cine.blogspot.com.ar/2011/07/el-dia-que-king-kong-murio-en-argentina.html
(Without a doubt, one of the best pages on the theme).
[43] See: “ Since yesterday
the enormous King Kong has been doing his show in the Luro and Spain tent
”, in Diario La Capital , February 2, 1979. Page 9, Second
section.
[44] This information is not entirely
certain. After a communication with one of the directors of the Company, he
informed me that they no longer had the documentation referring to that
operation.
[45] See La Capital newspaper ,
Friday, February 9, 1979, p. 6, Second Section.
[46] Eddie Surkin agreed, in those days,
to a small interview with the newspaper La Capital, explaining some technical
details about the way in which the doll is handled. “A surprisingly
small console for the functions it must fulfill, it interpolates the electrical
or hydraulic energies, to enable the movements of King Kong, which has the
capacity to play each of its parts indistinctly. That is to say, Surkin tells
us, that he can alternatively move his bars, arms or fingers, with total
independence from the other organs, as occurs in real animals. (...) Regarding
his voice, to define it in some way, it is not about programmed sounds but
rather acoustic deformations to the exclamations of different people, which are
emitted through microphones, with the intensity that corresponds to the states
of mood of the ape: anger, good humor, nostalgia, indifference.” [La
Capital , 2/9/79, p.9].
[47] See La Capital newspaper ,
Friday, February 9, 1979, p. 6, Second Section.
[48] ??I even found a television
commercial announcing the arrival of the giant gorilla in a rather original
way. Available on the Web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fiaD9EF5g8
[49] Playcenter opened on July 27, 1973.
It was the first major amusement park in São Paulo, based on the great parks
in the United States and Europe. He was active for 39 years. It closed its
doors on July 29, 2012 with the promise of reopening it shortly. Towards the
end of 2014, the property was still abandoned and showed no signs of
reopening.
[50] Kus, Mario, King Kong. What
would you say? Finished in Playcenter. Available on the Web: http://mauriciokus.hol.es/mauriciokus.php?id=4mnZr#.VWBI3dJ_Oko
[51] Note: I should clarify that in his
first email, Venneri was vague when it came to dating his foray into the
gorilla's mouth. “ It was the year 1977/78 and the monkey doll from
the King Kong movie was brought on tour to South America, ending up abandoned
in a shed in the Villa Devoto neighborhood where he lived .” Later
he recognized his mistake. The year was 1979. Available on the Web: http://www.forodecine.com/archive/index.php/t-876.html
[52] The photo in question appeared on
the following website: https://www.pinterest.com/arianedias/oldschool-stuff/
[53] Barros, Uriel, King Kong died in
Argentina. Available on the Web: http://mondomacabro-cine.blogspot.com.ar/2011/07/el-dia-que-king-kong-murio-en-argentina.html
[54] Here we find the first mistake: It
was not the Florida studios that burned, but the California ones.
[56] There is another photo showing a
much smaller Kong, holding a man in one of his hands, with Universal Studios
handwriting, 1986.
[57] Italian film directed by Marco
Ferrari in 1978. The film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival that year.
Original title “ Ciao Maschio ”. Main actors: Gerard
Depardieu and Marcello Mastroiani. In Argentina it was titled in Spanish
“ Adiós al Macho ”.
[58] At an angle from which he had been
photographed, Kong explained the centimeters of difference to reach the famous
17 meters of the doll that was in Rural and Mar del Plata.
[59] Article, “ Chegou at the
time of moving, says founder of Playcenter ”. Available on the Web:
http://projetocopadomundo2014.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/chegou-hora-de-mudar-diz-fundador-do.html
[60] Author's note: And I say
“partly” because Marcelo Gutglas, creator and today ex-owner of the
closed Playcenter, clearly indicated that the Kong animatronic, in July 1979,
had been “ brought directly from the US ”.
[61] See: “ The huge
mechanical gorilla is ready for auction ”, in La Capital
newspaper , Mar del Plata, Sunday, April 15, 1979, p. 12.
[62] See: “ The huge
mechanical gorilla is ready for auction ”, in La Capital
newspaper , Mar del Plata, Sunday, April 15, 1979, p. 12
[63] See: “ The huge
mechanical gorilla is ready for auction ”, in La Capital
newspaper , Mar del Plata, Sunday, April 15, 1979, p. 12
[64] See: " King Kong the huge
mechanical gorilla is now at the disposal of the auctioneer ", in La
Capital newspaper , Mar del Plata, Sunday, April 19, 1979, p. 12
[65] See: “ King Kong in cash,
without a base and to the highest bidder ”, in Diario La Capital,
Mar del Plata, Saturday, April 21, 1979, p.12.
[66] See: “ Justice suspended
the commented auction of the gorilla King Kong ”, in La
Capital newspaper , Thursday, April 26, 1979, p. 12.
[67] See: “ Colorín colorado
the story of King Kong is over. The electronic monkey would be disarmed and
transferred today ”, in the newspaper La Capital de Mar del
Plata, Saturday, April 28, 1979, p. 9.
[68] La Nación newspaper ,
Wednesday, September 13, 1978, p. 6.
[69]In the course of this investigation,
and after having access to specific names and surnames for the first time, I
had the intention of contacting Ricardo Gangeme. I searched for him on all
social networks with no luck, until I came across several newspaper articles
reporting his death on May 13, 1999. Gangeme had been murdered in Trelew at the
age of 56. He was a journalist and worked for a newspaper called El Informador
Chubutense. It is assumed that the motives for the crime were something related
to the sensitive information that Gangeme handled and brought to light with
impunity. His murder was never clarified and the perpetrators remain at large.
Two articles in the newspaper La Nación confirmed that Gangeme was one of
Kong's “tutors”. La Nación, May 14, 1999, published: “In
September 1978 [Gangeme] brought to Argentina the gigantic mechanical gorilla
with which Dino de Laurentis filmed the movie King Kong (...). Thanks to his
contacts with the military government at the time, the businessman managed to
change the direction of traffic on Santa Fe Avenue (...) He thought he was
going to cause a sensation (...) with the robot. It was a failure".
[70] According to the producer's lawyer,
Dr. Néstor Mario Lorusso, in the contract signed with de Laurentis, they
constituted his legal address at 142 Garay Street in the Federal Capital.
Coincidentally with the advertising in La Nación.
[71] Testimony of the lawyer Lorusso to
the newspaper La Capital on April 28, 1979.
[72] At the same time, Transax SA filed
a complaint for fraud against Cuffia in the First Section of the city of Mar
del Plata. (See: La Capital newspaper , 4/28/79).
[73] Testimony of the lawyer Lorusso to
the newspaper La Capital on April 28, 1979.
[74] I would like to state that one
final piece of information regarding the company that apparently moved from
Kong to Mar del Plata, once the legal mess was over. Once again, through the
Internet search, I came across a very brief comment from a lady who said.
“King Kong was taken from MdP by the Atlántida company”. I
communicated with her through a friend that we (coincidentally) had in common
and he confirmed her statement: “ Atlántida Construcciones was a
company that no longer exists. Armando [her husband] worked there, but we
didn't know anything else. I'm sorry I can't give you any other information.
Also, unfortunately, the partners of the company have also passed away. So I
have nowhere to consult r”. Car file.
[75] Available on the Web: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19850427&id=q3sbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VE4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5378,10207692&hl=es
[76] Author's archive.
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