The latest FILMFAX #134 has a startling article, published without additional editorial comment, by Paul Niemiec, claiming that his brother saw KING KONG's famously missing "spider scene'' totally intact during a screening at the Denver Art Museum in 1987.The scene, which he calculates lasted maybe 50 seconds, included the triceratops trapping the sailors on the log and a single giant black spider in the pit devouring a sailor. None of the existing stills that have surfaced over the years actually show the scene as recalled by his brother from that 1987 showing, the article asserts.According to the story, which is quite detailed and Kong-knowledgeable, the showing was part of a Smithsonian traveling exhibit called 'Hollywood: Legends and Reality'' that opened at the Denver Art Museum on Aug. 19, 1987 (after a stop in Cincinnati on June 23).The article says the exhibit included numerous Hollywood props, some of them quite high end -- Judy Garland's ruby slippers, a miniature Yoda, the spaceship from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, the piano from CASABLANCA, armatures of Kong and Mighty Joe Young. Plus a plaque outside a small theater room that explained why the "spider scene'' had been removed in 1933.Niemiec then writes this (all through the eyes of his then 24-year-old brother):"Having read the plaque, my brother enters the theater -- a little curtained-off area containing maybe 12-18 seats. The video projector starts. KING KONG unfolds. Soon, the sailors are scrambling through the primordial jungle of Skull Island ...''After describing further action, we get to this:"Driscoll crawls down a vine into a little cave in the far wall of the ravine. The sailors try to back off the log, away from Kong, but a triceratops has come up behind them, roaring, ready to gore or trample any sailor it can reach. Kong grabs the log by its roots, heaving it ..."One sailor's fall is caught by a nest of vines or webbing strung from one ravine wall to another, avoiding death by brutal impact. Stuck fast, he cannot free himself. The vines are coated with sticky webbing. The sailor struggles, kicks. From a dark recess, bit by bit, a giant spider emerges, a spider the size of a jeep. It feels the vibration in its web and it investigates."Sensing a meal, the spider surges forward. Pinned in his cave by Kong, Driscoll can neither aid his friend nor injure the spider. The ensnared sailor, seeing that he is to be eaten alive by this nightmare beast, can only scream as the spider's mandibles close over his torso. The rest of the film unspools as normal.''Wow.The 10-page article is amazingly detailed, including brochures and newspaper clips about the Denver show (none mention the spider scene although Niemiec recalls a newspaper article at the time did note the spider scene).There are also numerous photos and sketches we've seen before, and a hand-drawn storyboard (!) by Niemiec from his brother's memory of what the scenes looked like. Included is a storyboard shot that was from the spider's POV.What makes this different from other "I saw the spider scene" recollections from Ray Bradbury or others is this isn't a childhood memory, which as we all know can get fogged and enhanced over time. This is a grown adult recalling something he saw as an adult.-- The search for the missing spider scene was well-known in 1987. How could this not have surfaced until now?-- The Smithsonian was involved? The Denver Art Museum? No one has come forth and said, hey, we have that footage??-- Peter Jackson and all his resources (certainly his people canvassed the Smithsonian), never turned this up?-- It seems flat out impossible that no one in all these years has emerged to say they saw the scene at this exhibit.If this was the spring, I'd wonder if this was an April Fool's issue, but Niemiec is dead serious in the telling. The article is extremely well-researched.Editor Michael Stein makes no mention besides the cover blurb -- 'Lost KING KONG Spider Scene Found!' The spider scene controversy has had quite a run in FILMFAX after a multi-part article, rebuttals and letter after letter debating the issue in the magazine. Perhaps he thought the article would strike new fan gold. (Heck, I'm typing this in right now, am I not?)Is this similar to the LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT claim of a few years back (that the movie was in a reel at a warehouse in the 1980s?). Somehow, this seems more substantial than that. And yet...When I googled Paul Niemiec, I find an artist -- the storyboards he drew for the article are quite artistic so it's likely him. I will reach out to him and Michael to try and find out more.But this is truly something worth discussing.david'We're millionaires, boys. I'll share it with all of you.'