By Todd Russell
Of course the big talk in pinball right now is Stern’s newest cornerstone game, by the king of monster designers Keith Elwin, it’s King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. I hadn’t seen the 1933 King Kong movie in maybe 40+ years or so, but remember it scaring the hell out of me as a kid. I wasn’t real happy with the spider in the game, wondering how and where that spider fit, because I didn’t remember (see: Stern Pinball second cornerstone of 2025 is King Kong: Myth of Terror Island to be talk of Humpday Wednesday S2E2)
On Saturday, after finishing my longest live stream ever playing Keith Elwin’s first pinball game Iron Maiden for 104 games, my son and I were chatting on the phone over movie deals on Fandango. King Kong (1933) was in one of the deal bundles for like $3 or $4, so we picked it up. The regular price is $9.99 (https://athome.fandango.com/content/browse/details/King-Kong/10500) so, check out their bundles and deals section if you want to pay what we did.
The movie starts with a four minute overture. This was added, according to Wikipedia in 2005, as part of a Warner Bros. restoration effort. The music in this movie is fantastic and really sets the mood and pacing. It’s like tribal aggression and bombastic. It really holds up and showcases the film 90+ years later.
King Kong was the first movie of the dozen or so purchased that I watched and everything about the movie came back to me. I vividly recalled what scared me so much about the movie and made me want to cheer for King Kong, a true monster, to kick butt.
Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD
What follows will spoil the movie, so if you don’t want spoilers, might want to go watch it yourself and then come back and read what follows. I don’t like spoiling movies or books, but it’s vital to the rest of this article, so stop reading and please come back after you’ve watched/rewatched if you don’t want to know the ending of that movie.
Fay Wray’s character Ann is Kong’s love interest as well as first ship mate Jack Driscoll. Fay talked about how honored she was to be remembered for this film, as her screams in it are legendary.
Rewatching the 1933 movie, I was immediately taken with how great the setup was for the last half of the film which is almost pure non-stop action. Everything from where Ann is sacrified by the tribe then Kong is pursued by Denham, Driscoll and the rest of his crew through the prehistoric hell of monsters to Kong being gassed and captured. Then we return for the final act of the film where Kong has been chained up on in a theater and Carl Denham is using Kong as a freak show.
When the camera flashes spotlight Ann on the stage with Driscoll, as they are now married, Kong goes into a jealous rage. Kong goes on an epic destruction spree, breaking out of the theater, crushing people under his feet, upending a train and smashing it. Kong climbs a building and reaches in a window and grabs a sleeping woman, only to find it’s not Ann, so he just drops her off the building to her death. Then he finds Ann and scales the Empire State Building where airplanes machine gun him pepper him to weakness.
So weak to the point he falls off the building to his death far below.
In retrospect, what I feared younger, the great King Kong, was really a sympathetic beast, mocked by man instead of appreciated and respected.
Kong was happy in that prehistoric jungle … he lived free … yes, he had danger around him, but he was the king of that jungle, he never should have been captured and brought to America … makes for riveting movie fare but if you stop and think about it, human beings are pretty wrecked … what makes the story so fantastic is they never really tell us the subtext of the story. We’re just freaked out by this giant ape wreaking havoc …we understand why he’s pissed but they don’t lecture us with the subtext. Movies today would spend an hour lecturing us … this movie is just pure raw action and suspense with a killer soundtrack.
It really does make for a good pinball game and can see why it’s been the subject of so much interest. Ironically, the movie itself will be going into the public domain in 2029. The original novel is already in public domain, which is how other can make their own version of King Kong without any licensing as long as it’s based off what’s in the original novel. Meanwhile, Universal is making modern Kong movies and claiming they own the rights in some way. It’s a rocky copyright situation. If you want to read more on that side, check this out:
“To that end, anyone can seemingly do anything with the original King Kong novel, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of any other versions of the monster and make sure they’re operating solely on the basis of what is found in that book. If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is, but other companies have also realized that this is a framework they can tap into as well. Licensing the specific appearance of any version of Kong from a studio would be costly, but if the King Kong novelization is public domain, can’t anyone do anything with it? Seemingly, yes, but there are apparently still some lingering doubts.” – King Kong’s Complicated Rights Issues Explained – ComicBook.com
This takes us the original story Stern is using to base their newest pinball machine, King Kong: Myth of Terror Island.
Stern Pinball and that spider!
Designer Keith Elwin played some of King Kong, showing off the many varied shots and the game looks like it plays great. I was not as psyched by the teaser and promotional video, and still don’t care much for the way the artwork looks, but I’m a lot more interested in playing the game at the upcoming NW Pinball & Arcade show.
One of the things I didn’t understand in Stern’s new pinball game was the use of the prominent use and placement of the spider (see: Stern Pinball second cornerstone of 2025 is King Kong: Myth of Terror Island to be talk of Humpday Wednesday S2E2). You can watch me in the following short clip from the Humpday Wednesday pinball show having a hot take on the spider.
The fact is Ann is the main love interest for King Kong, she’s the central character and she doesn’t appear to be in the King Kong game as much, at least from what I’ve seen on the playfield. There is little to no interaction with a woman being the reason to drive Kong into a jealous rage. Imagine if the ball had been the woman, spinning around, drawing Kong’s interest .. or maybe it is? Maybe that’s used in the storyline of this game. I think there could have been a real creative moment here that just seems to be missing in place of this spider pit.
And yes, there was a spider pit and spider, but you have to go behind the scenes. To what was left on the cutting room floor.
There were giant spiders planned to be in the original 1933 movie, but they were cut because the scene scared the early screeners. It was thrown in the trash, literally. And what does Stern do? They take and bring that spider back. Sure, Myth of Terror Island is a Stern original story and they can make a spider part of that story … and maybe that’s precisely what they are doing.
“The most famous of all lost film sequences is that of the Spider Pit (or Bug Pit) of 1933’s King Kong. As stated in the IMDb: It was a graphic scene following Kong shaking four sailors off the log bridge, causing them to fall into a ravine where they were eaten alive by giant spiders. At the preview screening, audience members screamed, and either left the theater or talked about the grisly sequence throughout the subsequent scenes, disrupting the film. Merian C. Cooper said, “It stopped the picture cold, so the next day back at the studio, I took it out myself.” What wasn’t stated is that Merian Cooper apparently tossed the cut sequence in the trash since it has not been seen since.” via https://www.neatorama.com/2018/12/12/The-Lost-Scene-from-1933-s-King-Kong-the-Spider-Pit/
Peter Jackson for his modern movie re-imagined this sequence as a DVD extra for the film shooting in the style of the original 1933 movie:
Guess my lack of knowledge on this spider history is showing. The fact is there were giant spiders in King Kong lore, just not part of the final cut of the film. Certainly, there would have been spiders in the prehistoric hellscape that Kong lived in, but I still feel like this is not a very prominent case for one in the game. It’s more of a giant easter egg for really ardent fans. Thought I was one of them, but this makes me rethink just how much I knew about classic King Kong lore. The spiders are an afterthought, so much that the original director tossed them based on public sentiment. Ironic that Stern would resurrect them here, but somewhat fitting.
Now, I’m intrigued how much the actual story will progress in Myth of Terror Island with these giant spiders. Is that the mother spider that traps the ball? What happens with the story and that spider? I hope this is something tied into the future when the code reaches 1.0. In the meantime, I’ve learned more about the spider and see how it could be important in this Kongverse that Stern has created and also gotten to see and appreciate the original movie again. It’s a great film, btw, if you haven’t watched it in awhile or ever, go check it out.
As for Stern’s pinball? Will have much more to say about that once we get to play it in early June.
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