It shows the armature that existed underneath the rubber and fur stop-motion model used to create King Kong’s performance as orchestrated by Willis O’Brien and his effects team.

A special effect on movie history Stop-motion: Ray Harryhausen says 1933’s ‘King Kong’ changed his life, and his life has changed the movies.

He realized stop-motion was the perfect way to express his creativity, saying, “It was such a great experience that I never looked back.” “Missing Link” is beautiful, heartfelt and ambitious.

In the original King Kong, released in 1933, it was special effects pioneer Willis O’Brien’s unprecedented blending of a stop-motion monster with live-action footage of actors.

Willis O’Brien was tasked with creating stop motion armatures of King Kong to film with, and one of these skeletons can be found sitting next to Nakajima in the photo.

About 30 minutes of a new 140-minute documentary on the making of “King Kong” on the DVD are actually devoted to the production of the missing sequence.

But King Kong's most vivid descendants came to life during the golden age of stop-motion fantasy flicks.

Speaking of stop-motion animation, when the original Willis O'Brien animated version of King Kong was rereleased in 1938, about 5 minutes of footage was chopped out of the film.

Starring Fay Wray and a giant, brilliantly rendered stop-motion ape, 1933's "King Kong" returns as part of Fathom Events' TCM Big Screen Classics series.