"After King Kong Fell"
From 1973, this is a short story by Philip Jose Farmer, relating about an old man (with the awful name of Tim Howller) watching the movie KING KONG on TV and explaining to his little granddaughter about the true events he witnessed as a boy in 1931 that the movie was based on. Fans of Doc Savage and the Shadow may have read that the two heroes appear in this story. They DO, but in extremely brief cameos of a few sentences. Neither takes active part in the events of Kong's rampage and death, but show up shortly after the great ape hits the street. Neither is named. Doc is described as "a giant with bronze hair and strange-looking gold-flecked eyes", who arrives on the runningboard of "a big black limousine with flashing red lights and a siren." This man talks to the mayor, governor and police commissioner briefly (we aren't told what he says) and then leaves.
The best touch is that the thirteen-year-old Tim turns to asks someone who that big man of bronze was. The stranger, "tall and thin, was with a beautiful woman dressed up in an evening gown and mink coat..." The man has "a hawklike face" and burning eyes. He doesn't even answer the child but whispers, "Come on, Margo, I've work to do."
And that's it for the two greatest heroes of their time.
The story itself is pretty well written, as Farmer could turn out a tight, disciplined short story in his day. The framework gives poignancy to the Kong event (as if it needed any more than it already has). Part of the interest is in Farmer's trademark speculation on inconsistencies and contradictions in the movie (such as it suddenly becoming daylight as Kong climbs to the top of the Empire State Building; surely his exhibition an hour earlier wasn't at five a.m.?), debate over what happened to the carcass and so forth. It's also touching when Mr Howller tells his little grandchild that Kong wasn't really bad. "He was an animal and he didn't know the difference between good and evil." But the unpleasant ending, revealing a young boy's adoration of his aunt ruined by the way they find her body, ends the story on a note that could be haunting but somehow seems unecessarily trashy.
"After King Kong Fell" has been reprinted in a number of anthologies, and if you love the tragic beast, it's worth reading. But if you're only curious because of Doc and the Shadow's appearance.... well, they're only on stage for a brief paragraph, and show up too late to save civilians or possibly capture Kong harmlessly. (And how is that some of those gas bombs that rendered Kong helpless on Skull Island weren't kept handy for the exhibition? You'd think they'd have a few convenient.)