I recently had a private tour of Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. I was shown the famous stage where the original “King Kong” was filmed. “Do you know how big the real King Kong was?” The tour guide asked me. “He was huge!” I exclaimed.” “Wrong answer,” she said. “King Kong was an 18-inch puppet. Magnification and special effects did the rest.” Next we went into the prop room where a model submarine only a few feet long was hanging on a wall. “That's the real Red October,” she said. The rest of the movie was filmed on a stage set. Then she showed me an ordinary parking lot. “Here is where we parted the Red Sea in ‘The Ten Commandments.' ” A trench had been dug in the middle, and then the whole area was flooded with water. The film was edited and restitched backward so that the trench looked like it was emptying out. “Everything here is fake. That's what you have to realize,” she said.
