The original Kong was expressive through stop motion, and a character that can’t speak has to convey these emotions in some way. I wanted to make this one in such a way that you could do that. I was working with Carlo Rambaldi on the project, who had a very different way of working than I did. I came from the school of foam rubber and he was from the school of slip rubber and polyfoam. He was excellent at mechanisms. He taught me that a mechanism doesn’t have to be beautiful to work. The mechanism was very simple. It was some bike cable and some hot glue and dental acrylic that held it in place to the rubber. The hardest part for me was that I was hoping to have more control over what I was doing. But I basically had no control over my face, other than being able to open the jaw. The facial movements were all done by a team of people pulling on these wires and levers. I had this big bundle coming out the back of my head, running down the back of my suit, and coming out whichever leg was most convenient for it to run out of. I cringe when I look at the Kong suit because they didn’t let me build it the way that I wanted to build it. But there are some moments that, for the time, are very good.
Primates, Primates, Everywhere Primates!
FM. To this day, the transformation sequence in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is considered by many to be one of the greatest technical achievements in special effects makeup. In fact, there were those who said it shouldn’t even have been possible. What was involved in the process of creating that scene? RB. Fortunately for me and my career—and my life—I met John Landis
at a young age. Making a Better
Monkey...Er... KONG
FM. You’ve made so many movies, from KING KONG and HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS to GREYSTOKE and GORILLAS IN THE MIST that see you creating various types of primates.
Are you drawn to creating primates or is it
something that just kind of happened? RB. My fascination with primates, and apes especially, came out of my fascination with monsters. I wanted to fool people with my makeup skills and I wanted people to believe that it was real. A ten-year-old Frankenstein didn’t scare people. They would say “Oh look, isn’t it cute? Ricky’s made himself into Frankenstein.” And I think, “ NO, I want you to be scared because I’m a monster.” I wanted to find something that was a real life monster. I had the misconception because of Hollywood and movies like KING KONG, that these were real life monsters, when really they were just Hollywood versions of gorillas, and such. So I studied films with gorillas in them whenever I could see them, went to the zoo and found out what I could. I became fascinated with animals. I thought, “I could do this. I could make a realistic gorilla suit.” And that became my quest. Not to make a Hollywood gorilla.
He was another Monster Kid, like me. When I was a young kid it was hard to find all of the materials I needed to make the things I wanted to make. So I’d go to Don Post Studios and buy rubber from Don who would let me buy a gallon at a time, as well as
polyurethane foams.
Opposite: Dave Garrick, Anthony Hopkins’ stunt double in a test make-up for THE WOLFMAN
28 FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • SEP/OCT 2011
Mind you, they didn’t tell you it made cyanide gas when you mix the two together, which I’d do in my bedroom numerous times—and had to go to the hospital for it. Any time I’d go to Don Post I’d bring pics. When Landis was going to do WEREWOLF, he went to John Chambers and gave him a bid that was out of his budget. So Landis went to Don Post and he was this hyperactive kid who wanted to make this $30,000, Trog-inspired film with a cheap gorilla suit. So they told him there was this kid who made these gorillas and they gave him one of my “Rick Baker Monster Maker” cards and he called me up.
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