THE SON OF KONG/THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

MAX STEINER

Rating:

Golden Age Review by Tom Kiefner: Hoping to quickly cash in on the huge success of King Kong, RKO Pictures released the sequel The Son of Kong the very same year. This was very likely the first sound sequel something Hollywood has continued to do on a very regular basis. Even though Cooper had produced a winner, his budget for the remake was only one about third of the original $672,000 - around $250,000. As Ron Fortier wrote in the liner notes to this Marco Polo release, "some things in Hollywood never change", a true statement even today. The finished product was not close to what the original had to offer. Today, we have many movies which end up being sequel upon sequel. While there are exceptions, of course, the original film in a series is likely the best one, and the sequels are all downhill. The Son of Kong is no exception, including the soundtrack from Max Steiner.

Given a considerably smaller budget, Max only had 28 players to work with in his orchestra. According to John Morgan in the arranger section of the liner notes, the string players were asked to do double-stops (play two notes at the same time to give a fuller sound), and the woodwind performers had to play more than one instrument, such as clarinet and saxophone (important because the saxophone is featured in tracks on the score) In addition to the smaller budget, Max only had a little over two weeks to prepare 45 minutes worth of new material, something that the studio heads at RKO insisted on, as they felt this release was very important. A familiar story even today, considering the short period of time James Newton Howard had for preparing the score for the 2005 King Kong.

By far the most interesting track is "Runaway Blues", a wonderfully simple theme composed much like any American blues composition. In fact it is very much like "Deep River Blues", or many others. While Helen Mack strummed and sung it in the film itself, no lyrical version is presented in this reconstruction. While the "Runaway Blues" theme is used in several of the tracks, there is also a lot of use of previous material that Steiner wrote for King Kong. If you are familiar with the original score, its fun to listen and try and pick out how many phrases Max used from the original! And there is plenty of new material, including some eerie Debussy/Ravel stylings on "In Dakang", featuring oboe and woodwinds. One can easily conjure up visions of Bolero or La Mer quite easily. There is, of course, a Wagnerian leitmotif for "Kiko", or Baby Kong, a 4 note phrase. It is nicely incorporated into "The Black Bear" track using soprano sax and a rather complex orchestration that kept Bernhard Kaun, Steiner’s orchestrator at RKO, busy for a day or two. In fact, pulling his hair out was a recurring thought from time to time! And while Steiner wrote several other specific motifs, "Runaway Blues" and its variation upon variation is the key melody this score has to offer. Overall, the score still has that "broadway pit" feeling, like parts of King Kong.

The filming of The Most Dangerous Game started many months before King Kong, and an interesting fact is the same eerie misty jungle set was used in all three films but paid for by The Most Dangerous Game’s production budget of a mere $219,000! Another interesting note is Max was not the first choice to score this film. The scoring assignment originally went to W. Franke Harling, a composer who had done a film Rango for the studio. Cooper, upon hearing the music, was not happy with it at all, and managed to convince Steiner to do the film. Does it remind you of Shore/Howard/Jackson? I'm sure if one studied the tiniest bits of trivia you could probably come up with something interesting! Harling actually scored Invisible Man and The Bitter Tea Of Yen in 1933. His light, opera-like score did not work – it is interesting to note that Cooper actually paid attention to the music! The story, based on the outstanding 1924 short story of Richard Connell, is a classic. This is a story which has been done many times. Richard Banks, Joel McCrea, and Fay "King Kong" Wray star in this original version.

There are two very effective themes used by Steiner for this picture. The "Russian Waltz", eloquently performed by Leonid Makarevich as a solo piece on one of the tracks, is a theme that is put to use throughout the score. Part of the main theme is an almost disturbing two-note French horn motif used over and over throughout the score; the result is something similiar to Jaws. For those not familiar with the plot of the film, it involves the hunting of man instead of animal! Quite a disturbing concept.

This Marco Polo release is the only way to get the music from either film. At least as of early 2006 there has been no official original soundtrack release. The reconstructions of the score by John Morgan and, along with the performance of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg, are top notch. The engineering staff in Moscow at Mosfilm Studio do a good job in capturing the sound of the orchestra - clean, crisp, and distortion free. The liner notes seemed to be a bit confusing. There was material written by Ray Harryhausen, Bill Stromberg, John Morgan and Ron Fortier, and some of it repeated itself. This is however an extremely minor complaint. The more important aspect is that there is a lot of good interesting information. From Steiner photos of sheet music, to a very interesting anecdote about Max (which I won't spoil for you because I know you are going to buy it), to film notes, it has it all. All in all this is a good release one which I can recommend.

This CD is available for purchase online from Screen Archives Entertainment.

Track Listing: Running Time: 77 minutes 29 seconds

Marco Polo 8.225166 (2001)

Music composed by Max Steiner. Performed by The Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by William T. Stromberg. Original 1933 Orchestrations by Bernhard Kaun. Score reconstructions by John W. Morgan. Recorded and mixed by Edvard Shakhnazarian and Vitaly Ivanov. Album produced by John W. Morgan and William T. Stromberg.

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