Editing King Kong (1933 film) (section)

===Sound effects and score===
[[Murray Spivack]] developed the sound effects for the film. Kong's roar was created by mixing the recorded vocals of [[lion]]s and [[tiger]]s and slowly playing them backward.<ref>{{harvnb|Dyson|1997|pp=36–37}}; {{harvnb|Von Gunden|1989|p=117}}</ref> Spivak himself provided Kong's "love grunts" by grunting into a megaphone and playing it at a slow speed. For Kong's footsteps, Spivak stomped across a gravel-filled box with plungers attached to his feet and wrapped in foam.{{sfn|Dyson|1997|p=37}} The sounds of Kong's chest beats are recordings of Spivak hitting his assistant, who had a microphone held to his back, on the chest with a drumstick.<ref>{{harvnb|Dyson|1997|p=37}}; {{harvnb|Von Gunden|1989|p=117}}</ref> Spivak created the hisses and croaks of the dinosaurs with an [[air compressor]] for the former and his own vocals for the latter.{{sfn|Von Gunden|1989|p=117}} The vocalizations of the Tyrannosaurus were additionally mixed in with [[cougar|puma]] growls.{{sfn|Von Gunden|1989|p=117}} Spivak also provided the screams of the various sailors.{{Sfn|Von Gunden|1989|p=117}} Fay Wray herself provided all of her character's screams in a single recording session.{{sfn|Morton|2005|pp=75–76}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Von Gunden, Kenneth|year=2001|title=Flights of Fancy: The Great Fantasy Films|publisher=McFarland|page=117|isbn=9780786412143}}</ref> Wray explained that afterward she "couldn't speak even in a whisper for days".{{Sfn|Cotta Vaz|2005|p=223}} Her screams have been used in other movies such as ''[[Son of Kong]]'' and ''[[Game of Death]]''.<ref name="tcm notes">{{Cite web |date=2019-12-16 |title=King Kong (1933) – Notes – TCM.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250122202220/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/2690/king-kong/#notes |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/2690/king-kong/#notes |access-date=2025-01-20|archive-date=22 January 2025}}</ref>

Even though funding for the film was nearly gone, Cooper and Schoedsack decided it needed an original score because they worried that Kong might be too unbelievable as a character and also did not want to use a generic soundtrack.<ref>{{harvnb|Smith|2020|p=100}}; {{harvnb|Slowik|2014|p=235}}; {{harvnb|Wierzbicki|2009|p=135}}</ref> They hired [[Max Steiner]] for the job.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=100}} Steiner began composing the score on December 9, 1932, and completed it after eight weeks.{{sfn|Smith|2020|pp=101, 110}} The orchestra comprised 46 members, but upon recording sounded so full it is sometimes described as having 80 members.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=110}} A 46-member orchestra was large compared to many other film orchestras of the time.{{Sfn|Slowik|2014|p=237}} According to Steiner, Cooper paid him $50,000 of his own money to pay for the orchestra.<ref>{{harvnb|Smith|2020|p=100}}; {{harvnb|Wierzbicki|2009|p=135}}; {{harvnb|Tatna|2020}}</ref>

Steiner decided to make the music, in his own words, "impressionistic and terrifying".{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=100}} During composition he took inspiration from [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]] and [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]], specifically for the music that was to play during the ocean scene when Denham and his crew travel to Skull Island.{{sfn|Smith|2020|pp=Smith 100–101}} During this scene "Boat in the Fog" begins to play; the harp reflects the waves and the stringed instruments reflect of the fog.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=101}} Steiner also incorporated dissonance into the score for action scenes, such as when Kong falls to his death.{{sfn|Smith|2020|pp=100–101, 110}} Laurence MacDonald explains that this dissonance is also reflective of Debussy's compositions.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=244}} The ocean scene is the first instance in which music begins to play. This is because Steiner wanted an association between music and the film's fantasy elements.<ref>{{harvnb|Smith|2020|p=101}}; {{harvnb|Slowik|2014|pp=231, 233}}</ref> Music historian Michael Slowik suggests that such an association invokes a sense of the unfamiliar,{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=233}} also pointing out that music is connected to the audience's need to suspend belief.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=234}} Music does not play during Kong's fight with the T-rex and is replaced by animal sounds, making it the only Skull Island scene without music.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=105}}{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=235}} Music plays in the later New York City scenes except for when the airplanes surround Kong.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|pp=232–233}} One of the techniques that Steiner often wrote into the score is called [[Mickey Mousing|mickey-mousing]]. MacDonald dubs it "perhaps the single most noteworthy aspect of Steiner's score".{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=239}} According to Slowik, the score includes more mickey-mousing than other film scores of its period.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=239}} He remarks that its "obsessive mickey-mousing"{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=264}} is reminiscent of the music that would play for a cartoon rather than for a Hollywood production.{{Sfn|Slowik|2014|p=240}} In one scene the chief of the island people walks toward Denham's group and the music aligns with his steps.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=239}} The score also reflects actions happening off-screen, such as when Kong walks toward the altar where Ann is to be offered to him. Formerly, this technique had been used for silent films.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=240}}

Slowik identifies three musical themes throughout the score: Kong's theme, Ann's theme, and the jungle theme.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=238}} Steiner took inspiration from [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] in creating Kong's theme.{{sfn|Smith|2020|pp=100-101}} Steiner used a method called [[chromaticism]] in Kong's theme, which comprises three descending notes.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=102}} According to Peter Franklin, the other themes stem from the three-note sequence in Kong's theme.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=238}} "King Kong March", a [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]-style score played during Denham's show, is an adaptation of Kong's theme, though the notes ascend rather than descend.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=106}} Ann's theme ("Stolen Love") is a Viennese waltz and begins with notes similar to those in Kong's theme.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=103}} Steiner eventually combined both themes in one song just before Kong dies.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=109}} Musician biographer [[Steven C. Smith (author)|Steven C. Smith]] identifies what he calls the "danger theme". It is written with four notes and is meant to sound "questioning". It first appears in "The Forgotten Island".{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=103}} Later, it is reworked into a major key when Driscoll confesses his love for Ann. Smith suggests that this points to what he calls "the perils of romance".{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=103}} Later in life Cooper expressed that "much of the reason for [''King Kong''<nowiki/>'s success] is because Maxie Steiner was able to create what no other man that I knew of in Hollywood at that time could".{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=114}} Steiner himself remarked that the film "was made for music".{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=100}}

Upon the film's release its score received little critical review, being overshadowed by the film's innovations in special effects.<ref>{{harvnb|Smith|2020|p=113}}; {{harvnb|Wierzbicki|2009|p=133}}</ref> However, it received more attention as the movie became more famous in the years that followed.{{sfn|Smith|2020|p=114}} [[Christopher Palmer]] wrote that the score "marked the real beginnings of Hollywood music".{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=230}} Mervyn Cooke adds that it "almost single-handedly marked the coming-of-age of nondiegetic film music".{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=230}} In his book ''After the Silents: Hollywood Film Music in the Early Sound Era, 1926–1934,'' Slowik argues that ''King Kong''<nowiki/>'s score did not influence Hollywood film scores that many music scholars think it did. He suggests that, because the movie was unusual, the score was unable to introduce an alternate way to write film scores.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=249}} He also suggests that Steiner drew upon already-established patterns of Hollywood music.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|pp=2, 231}} He writes that rather than single-handedly shaping the [[Classical Hollywood cinema|Golden Age of Hollywood]] music, King Kong is just one film among others that helped shape it.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=263}} Slowik explains that the score features both "original and symphonic music", something that was not common in film scores of the time.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|p=236}} Portions of the score were reused in ''[[Double Harness]]'', ''[[The Last Days of Pompeii (1935 film)|The Last Days of Pompeii]]'', and ''[[The Last of the Mohicans (1936 film)|The Last of the Mohicans]]'', among others.{{sfn|Slowik|2014|pp=113–114}} The island music appears as an orchestra scene in Jackson's 2005 remake.{{sfn|Wierzbicki|2009|p=223}} Over the years, Steiner's score was recorded by multiple record labels and the original motion picture soundtrack has been issued on a compact disc.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/KingKong1933.htm| title = King Kong – 75th anniversary of the film and Max Steiner's great film score| access-date = March 2, 2019| archive-date = March 6, 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190306044804/http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/KingKong1933.htm| url-status = live}}</ref>