Last Man to Strike the Gong for the Opening of J. Arthur Rank Presentation Dies
Ken Richmond was a mammoth man, but even he would admit that the image of his muscular body striking that gong was just another case of movie magic. The gong wasn't real, you see. It was merely papier-mache and the ringing sound of the gong was added in later.
Richmond was a bronze-medal winning Olympic wrestler and part-time actor before stepping in as the third "Gong Man" for the Rank Organisation. The image of his big body pounding at that gong stays with anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to watch stuch movies as The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and Great Expectations. Just about every great movie to come out of England was preceded by the image of the banging gong.
Richmond's image as the quintessential Rank Organisation gong man puts him up into the stratosphere alongside Leo the Lion and the Columbia lady.
Published by Timothy Sexton - Featured Contributor in Arts & Entertainment
Timothy Sexton was named this site's very first Writer of the Year. Today he has several columns on Yahoo Movies and a weekly column on The Simpsons on Yahoo TV. He has published over 8,000 articles coverin... View profile
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2 Comments
Post a CommentI'm sure that's true, Mark, you'd know far better me, of course. The problem is that so many movies are becoming so reliant on CGI and effects that they are becoming more noticeable. I'm sure it's easier to put in an effect where a ceiling that isn't really there looks realistic, or a crowd is half-computerized, but then you've got craptacular set-pieces in movies like KK and Brothers Grimm that just look positively horrible and destroy whatever pretense toward reality the movie has been building
Here's a great bit of trivia about Black Narcissus: None of the it was shot outdoors. Those views of the mountains? All done inside a studio. Simply amazing. Makes the CGI being done today look like what most of it is: crap.