Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong [Hardcover]

Cover blurbs reflect this reader's approach as well: picked up for the information on King Kong but relished for the other information on Cooper. This is a pretty good read (four stars) of a truly amazing life (five+ stars). If you are a history buff, you will be astounded how many events Cooper saw/participated in; Pancho Villa, First World War, Russian Civil War, Interwar Pacific, Second World War China (with Flying Tigers), etc. The photographs being scattered through the text rather than plates in the center of the book helps with grasping it all. Overall, this book a very nice read for a fan of the old King Kong films or someone who likes early 20th century history. (I bought myself a copy and my father a copy as we used to watched King Kong, Son of Kong, and Mighty Joe Young when it was broadcast every Thanksgiving on Secaucus, New Jersey's Channel 9.)

Mark Cotta Vaz's latest film book is his most important to date as it is the first biography of a true cinema pioneer, Merian C. Cooper. The life of the creator of KING KONG is richly detailed in a work that is hard to put down. The concluding chapters tie everything together nicely in a poignant way while at the same time explaining the lasting impact of Cooper's greatest film. There may be future bios that probe even deeper into this truly larger than life figure and his many achievements, but Mr. Vaz has laid the foundation and has done an admirable job-- one Cooper would be proud of.

The capture of Kong and his arduous voyage to a New York theater were child's play compared to the task facing biographer Mark Cotta Vaz. To him fell the challenge of binding the life of one of the twentieth century's great adventurers, Merian C. Cooper, within the covers of a reasonably sized volume. No one need blush to admit that Cooper [1893-1973] truly seemed "bigger than life." From the time at age six when Cooper devoured the writings of adventurer Paul Du Chaillu--with descriptions of a carnivorous gorilla and a giant snake [hmmm...]--Cooper sensed at the very least that the world was an adventurous place for the person willing to take chances.

Vaz plays particular attention to the two war experiences that in a strange way serve as bookends to Cooper's life. Cooper was no conventional soldier. He was kicked out of Annapolis but fought courageously through World War I in that particular theater that attracts cutting edge soldiers--the air corps. He nearly lost both his hands in a fiery crash, but rather remarkably remained after Versailles to fight at the side of the Poles in their struggle for independence from the Russians. He was captured by the Cossacks, tortured, and imprisoned before a daring escape from a camp near Moscow.

Cooper returned to New York both traumatized and energized, so to speak. His air experience led him to a longtime professional administrative involvement with fledgling Pan American Airlines. But his true professional love was film. Having made the acquaintance of a skilled young cameraman, Ernest Shoedsack, the two men traveled extensively through Africa and Asia with an eye toward a somewhat unconventional type of film-making. One might call it "National Geographic on Steroids." Through the 1920's Cooper with Shoedsack produced and directed on-site several remarkable films of natural drama involving migratory treks of tribes and animals alike. Two in particular, "Grass" and "Chang," were critically acclaimed and evidently successful at the box office.

Even from afar, Cooper kept a finger on the American audience and the changing technology and expectations after the "talkies" arrived in 1927. The idea of a Kong-like film had long been a staple of Cooper's future planning. With the Depression in full force, an epic of this nature faced innumerable hurdles, but Cooper enjoyed remarkable luck in his execution. First, the major set of Kong's island was in storage from another film, ready for extended use. Second, Cooper found a studio [RKO] and a young executive [David Selznick] both on the make to crack the inner sanctum of Hollywood's elite. And third, he was able to draw upon a stunning technological breakthrough by artist Willis O'Brien, who discovered that hand coordinated stop-action manipulation of miniature dinosaurs and gorillas translated into stunning full screen visual effect. Ironically the globe trotting Cooper shot the most exotic picture of his time without leaving California.

Vaz treats the "King Kong" story with just the correct proportion: enough detail to meet the reader's questions without the film dominating the entire book. The author's stance throughout this phase can be summed up as follows: "If you've seen Carl Denham, you've seen Merian C. Cooper." Actress Faye Wray recalled that the coffee shop scene in which Denham persuades Ann Darrow to join his improbable voyage was almost a verbatim rendering of her own first production meeting with Cooper. Released in 1933, "King Kong" would frighten and captivate audiences into the next century.

What clearly frightened Cooper, however, was the cost of creating such an epic. Succeeding Selznick as production chief, he determined that volume was the key to RKO's viability. RKO released 49 films the year of KK's release, including such opposites as "Little Women" with newcomer Katherine Hepburn. Cooper did not believe that his strategy would sacrifice quality, and generally it did not. When other studios had given up on silent film director John Ford, Cooper coaxed him back to work, where Ford turned out "The Lost Patrol" [1934] and "The Informant" [1935] before rescuing the western film genre with an extraordinary run from "Stagecoach" [1939] to "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." [1962] For Cooper, however, his greatest movie may have been one he never made, "War Eagles." From Vaz's description the project envisioned an apocalyptic air war that for all the world resembles a 1940-ish "Star Wars."

But Cooper was distracted by real war, World War II, and soon enough found himself first chief of staff to none other than General Claire Chennault of the famous Flying Tigers of the Asian war theater. Cooper was ubiquitous, with a hand in everything from the Doolittle Raid to the surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri. His flying skills remained peerless, but his political outspokenness on behalf of the Chennaults was not welcomed in all corners. He was more in his element after the war with John Wayne and John Ford in the making of "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," [1949] and "The Searchers" [1956] among other post war releases.

Cooper did not lose his taste for cutting edge technology and in 1952 as he turned 60 he unveiled "This Is Cinerama." Despite the interest in the film he was losing artistic ground to younger competitors like Mike Todd. Until his death in 1973, however, Cooper was a fountain of ideas as befit a man of his broad experience and imagination. Vaz uses his final segment of the book, "The Legend," to trace the postmortems of Cooper's many friends and collaborators, such as Shoedsack and Wray, and his creations, notably KK. The character Kong, for example, was the subject of the famous suit brought by Universal Studios against Nintendo over "Donkey Kong." The history of remakes and stunts surrounding the film in recent decades only confirms the superiority of the original product and the man who brought it to life. Those who enjoy this book, incidentally, will be pleased to know that Vaz has produced an extensive body of literary work on cinema that is well worth perusing.