Merian C. Cooper

King Kong

Cooper said that he thought of King Kong after he had a dream that a giant gorilla was terrorizing New York City. When he awoke, he recorded the idea and used it for the film. He was going to have a giant gorilla fight a Komodo dragon or other animal, but found that the technique of interlacing that he wanted to use would not provide realistic results.

Cooper needed a production studio for the film, but recognized the great cost of the movie, especially during the Great Depression. Cooper helped David Selznick get a job at RKO Pictures, which was struggling financially. Selznick became the vice president of RKO and asked Cooper to join him in September 1931, although he had only produced three films thus far in his career. Cooper began working as an executive assistant at age thirty-eight. He officially pitched the idea for King Kong in December 1931. Shortly after, he began to seek actors and build full-scale sets, although the screenplay was not yet complete.

The screenplay was delivered to Cooper in January 1932. Schoedsack contributed to the film, focusing on shooting scenes for the boat sequences and in native villages, leaving Cooper to shoot the jungle scenes. In February 1933, the title for the film was registered for copyright. Throughout filming there were creative battles. Critics at RKO argued that the film should begin with Kong. Cooper believed that a film should begin with a "slow dramatic buildup that would establish everything from characters to mood..." so that the action of the film could "naturally, relentlessly, roll on out of its own creative movement", and thus chose not to begin the film with a shot of Kong.

The iconic scene in which Kong climbs to the top of the Empire State Building was almost cut by Cooper due to legal concerns over a similar sequence in The Lost World (1925). RKO's purchase of the rights to The Lost World neutralized the legal risk, allowing the sequence to remain in the film.

Overlapping with the production of King Kong was the making of The Most Dangerous Game, which began in May 1932. Cooper once again worked with Schoedsack to produce the film.

In the 1933 version of King Kong, Cooper and co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack appear at the end, piloting the plane that finally finishes off Kong. Cooper had reportedly said, "We should kill the sonofabitch ourselves." Cooper personally cut a scene in King Kong in which four sailors are shaken off a tree trunk bridge by Kong, fall into a ravine, and are eaten alive by giant spiders. According to Hollywood folklore, the decision was made after previews in January 1933, during which audience members either fled the theater in terror or talked about the ghastly scene throughout the remainder of the movie. However, more objective sources maintain that the scene merely slowed the film's pace. Despite the rumor that Cooper kept a print of the cut footage as a memento, it has never been found. In 2021, film historian Ray Morton stated in an interview that, after looking through the films shooting schedule, he found no evidence the sequence was ever filmed.

In 1963, Cooper argued unsuccessfully that he should own the rights to King Kong; later in 1976, judges ruled that Cooper's estate owned the rights to King Kong outside the movie and its sequel. Selznick left RKO before the release of King Kong, and Cooper served as production chief from 1933 to 1934 with Pandro S. Berman as his executive assistant.

In the 2005 remake of King Kong, upon learning that Fay Wray was not available because she was making a film at RKO, Carl Denham (Jack Black) replies, "Cooper, huh? I might have known."

Pioneer Pictures, Selznick International Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Cooper helped the Whitney cousins form Pioneer Pictures in 1933, while he was still working for RKO. He was named vice president in charge of production for Pioneer Pictures in 1934. He would use Pioneer Pictures to test his technicolor innovations. The company contracted with RKO in order to fulfill Cooper's obligations to the company, including She and The Last Days of Pompeii. Cooper later referred to She as the "worst picture I ever made."

After these disappointments, Pioneer Pictures released a short film in three-strip technicolor called La Cucaracha, which was well received. The film won an Academy Award in 1934. Pioneer released the first full-length technicolor film, Becky Sharp in 1935. Cooper helped to advocate and pave the way for the ground-breaking technology of technicolor, as well as the widescreen process called Cinerama.

Selznick formed Selznick International Pictures in 1935, and Pioneer Pictures merged with it in June 1936. Cooper became the vice president of Selznick International Pictures that same year. Cooper did not stay long; he resigned in 1937 due to disagreements over the film Stagecoach.

After resigning from Selznick International, Cooper went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in June 1937. A noteworthy project that Cooper was involved in was the fantasy film War Eagles. The film, which would have used extensive special effects, was abandoned in approximately 1939 and never finished. Cooper was to return to the Army Air Force.

World War II

Cooper re-enlisted and was commissioned a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He served with Col. Robert L. Scott in India. He worked as logistics liaison for the Doolittle Raid. Thereafter, Cooper and Scott worked with Col. Caleb V. Haynes at Dinjan Airfield. They all were involved in establishing the Assam-Burma-China Ferrying Command. This marked the beginnings of The Hump Airlift.

Colonel Cooper later served in China as chief of staff for General Claire Chennault of the China Air Task Force, which was the precursor of the Fourteenth Air Force. On October 25, 1942, a CATF raid consisting of 12 B-25s and 7 P-40s, led by Colonel Cooper, successfully bombed the Kowloon Docks at Hong Kong.

He served from 1943 to 1945 in the Southwest Pacific as chief of staff for the Fifth Air Force's Bomber Command. At the end of the war, he was promoted to brigadier general. For his contributions, he was also aboard the USS Missouri to witness Japan's surrender.

Argosy Pictures and Cinerama

Cooper and his friend and frequent collaborator, noted director John Ford, formed Argosy Productions in 1946 and produced such notable films as Wagon Master (1950), Ford's Fort Apache (1948), and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). Cooper's films at Argosy reflected his patriotism and his vision of the United States.

Argosy negotiated a contract with RKO in 1946 to make four pictures. Cooper was able to make Grass a complete picture. Cooper also produced and directed Mighty Joe Young, which recruited Schoedsack as director. Cooper visited the set of the film every day to check on progress.

Cooper left Argosy Pictures to pursue the process of Cinerama. He became the vice president of Cinerama Productions in the 1950s and was also elected a board member. After failing to convince other board members to finance skilled technicians, Cooper left Cinerama with Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney to form C. V. Whitney Productions. Cooper continued to outline movies to be shot in Cinerama, but C. V. Whitney Productions only produced a few films. Cooper was the executive producer for Ford's The Searchers (1956).