
Carl Denham in 1933.
Carl Denham (1897 - 1956) was an American film director, adventurer and explorer from New York in the early 20th Century.
Biography[]
Denham was born in New York City, New York, in 1897. He moved to Los Angeles in 1917 working in Hollywood where he gained experience as a film director, but he moved back to New York City. Carl Denham had never had a truly successful film, despite turning in nature documentaries with often stunning footage. Although he made interesting pictures over the years, his work was dismissed as 'near success,' and he has little to no respect in the film industry. He decided that the answer was to make a film with a narrative, including a beautiful actress who could act as a love interest. He and his devoted, young assistant, Preston Hanks, obsessively searched for an actress to cast in this project, eventually discovering Ann Darrow. Just as in the original, she first believes Denham is searching for a prostitute, but Denham convinces her the job will involve no "funny business."
Denham had obtained a map of Skull Island, an unexplored and legendary island in the Indian Ocean, and opted to produce his next film there. This meant abandoning plans to film on set, which had lost him his studio's favor. They decide to take what footage he has and sell it as stock footage to other studios. This drives Denham to steal the equipment necessary to make it to the island. However, he had misinformed his crew that they were heading to Singapore. He only admitted the truth to screenwriter Jack Driscoll who was still working on the screenplay as they set off. This was then overheard by Jimmy Bell causing dissension among the men. Upon reaching the island, Denham unsuccessfully attempted to establish peaceful relations with the natives by giving a native child a candy bar. The natives attack, two crew members are killed, and this ends up driving Denham and crew back to their ship. That night, Darrow was captured by the natives and delivered to Kong (a legendary Giant Ape). Denham, Driscoll, Hayes, Bell, Lumpy, Choy, Bruce Baxter, Hanks, Sumner, and other crew members set off in a rescue mission.
He supposedly filmed the first dinosaur attack on camera and filmed the death of a crew member in the swamp. He supposedly survived the attack by a Triceratops, the manic Brontosaurus stampede, the swamp journey, and the log chasm and insect pit. Upon returning to the island, Denham was the first of the crew, besides Darrow, to see Kong. After surviving many attacks and eventually rescuing Darrow, Denham decided to switch his plan from producing a film to capturing Kong and sailing him to New York City after his camera was destroyed in the incident with Kong and the log, where he expected to make a fortune showing off Kong. Kong eventually escaped and rampaged through New York City (newspapers said it was an Elephant or a Rhinoceros who caused that destruction), captured Darrow and was eventually killed by airplanes. Upon reaching Kong's body, Denham was heard to say that "It wasn't the airplanes, it was Beauty killed the Beast." The US Army and the FBI carried the body of the creature, which was never seen again.
After the Kong Incident, Denham retired and he became a writer. He wrote a novel about his experience in Skull Island named Skull Island Journey. Denham gave the money he gained with his novel to Herb, Mike, Lumpy and Hayes' families.
He died in 1956, after a heart attack. Preston was the only one who assisted his funeral.