Reel Classics: King Kong (1933)

Today we are step­ping back near­ly 100 years (91 to be exact) to 1933 to take a look at one of the most famous giant crea­tures to ever come out of Hollywood.  I’m talk­ing about King Kong.  Reportedly the idea of the sto­ry came about from a dream Merian C. Cooper (the film’s direc­tor and con­tribut­ing writer) had about a huge goril­la attack­ing New York City.  RKO Studios went with the idea and even­tu­al­ly saw the film become the third high­est-gross­ing film in the US the year of its release. 

The film was not an easy one to make, how­ev­er.  There were no com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed spe­cial effects in those days.  The spe­cial effect uti­lized was called stop-motion pho­tog­ra­phy.  Eighteen-inch mod­els were built of the goril­la Kong with met­al skele­tons and joints.  The mod­els were then cov­ered with rub­ber and rab­bit fur.  This made the move­ment much smoother and lifelike. 

The scenes with King Kong and the ptero­dactyl were shot one frame at a time, tak­ing an entire after­noon to film one sec­ond of screen time. The bat­tle took sev­en weeks to com­plete­ly film.  We have seen this effort uti­lized in many films over the years (before the com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed effects took hold) and by famous spe­cial effects artists like Ray Harryhausen (whose films include Mighty Joe Young, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans).  Some of you may remem­ber a stop-action hero named Gumby from your youth. 

So now that we know how King Kong evolved, let us look at the sto­ry.  We begin in the city of New York where film­mak­er Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has char­tered the ship of Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) to sail to a remote island loca­tion to shoot his next film.  He recruits a young actress by the name of Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) to accom­pa­ny him to star in the new film.  He promis­es her “the thrill of a life­time.”  Little did they know.  The ship sets sail for an unchart­ed island (Skull Island) con­tain­ing a moun­tain in the shape of a skull where Denham has learned a mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture called Kong is said to live. 

Also on board the ves­sel is the first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) who, over the course of the voy­age, has fall­en in love with Ann.  Arriving on the island the crew finds a native vil­lage where the inhab­i­tants are in the midst of a cer­e­mo­ny offer­ing a sac­ri­fice of a young woman to Kong.  The chief sees the crew and spots Ann among them.  The natives lat­er kid­nap Ann with the plan to offer her to Kong.  It is then that we meet King Kong.  Denham, Driscoll and the crew mem­bers go after him to res­cue Ann from the grasp of the giant goril­la.  We encounter var­i­ous dinosaurs and crea­tures that King Kong must fight off, but we also see him take on a pro­tec­tive rela­tion­ship with his new sac­ri­fice, Ann.  We wit­ness the pur­suits of the crew and Ann’s lover Driscoll where they even­tu­al­ly save her from the grasp of King Kong and man­age to cap­ture him and put him in chains. 

Denham sees the for­tune to be made pre­sent­ing on stage in New York City “Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World!”  King Kong is pre­sent­ed on stage as planned, bound by chains with mobs of onlook­ers as well as press pho­tog­ra­phers present.  Ann and Jack are present on stage as well and as the flash bulbs go off as the pho­tog­ra­phers take their pic­tures, Kong inter­prets the flash­ing as an attack on Ann.  He breaks loose and there is hav­oc in New York.  Ann is rushed away to a hotel for her safe­ty but King Kong search­es for her.  Eventually he finds her and takes her to the top of the Empire State Building where he fights off attack­ing airplanes. 

I know I am giv­ing more infor­ma­tion about the sto­ry than I usu­al­ly do, but I can’t help but think that most, if not all of you read­ing this are quite famil­iar with the famous scene atop the Empire State Building.  So please for­give me if you are not. 

Upon the release of King Kong, it was the high­est gross­ing open­ing week­end ever at that time.  It debuted in New York City at the two largest the­atres in the city (Roxy and Radio City Music Hall) and seat­ing capac­i­ty was about 10,000.  It sold out ten per­for­mances per day at both of the the­atres.  It broke atten­dance records all over the coun­try and report­ed­ly saved the RKO Studios from bankruptcy. 

King Kong was one of the first Hollywood films to uti­lize a ful­ly sym­phon­ic score.  Max Steiner was the com­pos­er, and he went on to com­pose and or con­duct music for many famous films includ­ing Casablanca, Bringing Up Baby, Gone with the Wind and Christmas in Connecticut. 

Though Fay Wray is famous for her role in this film, she was not first choice.  Jean Harlow and Ginger Rogers were offered the role, but both declined.  Fay Wray took the part and wore a blonde wig for the part.  An inter­est­ing note about her being offered the role was that Merian C. Cooper told her “You’ll have the tallest, dark­est lead­ing man in Hollywood.”  She thought he was describ­ing Clark Gable.  Wray was a busy actress in those days.  The year 1933 when King Kong was released, she also appeared in 10 oth­er films released that year.   And Bruce Cabot was not the ini­tial choice for the role of Jack Driscoll.  Joel McCrea was pur­sued but report­ed­ly want­ed too much mon­ey, so the part went to Cabot. 

Press reviews were pos­i­tive upon the film’s release.  The New York World-Telegram crit­ic wrote that it was “one of the very best of all screen thrillers, done with all the cin­e­ma’s slick­est cam­era tricks.”  The Chicago Tribune described it as “one of the most orig­i­nal, thrilling and mam­moth nov­el­ties to emerge from a movie studio.” 

More mod­ern reviews are also pos­i­tive.  Rotten Tomatoes’ crit­ics’ con­sen­sus states “King Kong explores the soul of a monster—making audi­ences scream and cry through­out the film—in large part due to Kong’s break­through spe­cial effects.”  In 2002 Roger Ebert wrote “But King Kong is more than a tech­ni­cal achieve­ment.  It is also a curi­ous­ly touch­ing fable in which the beast is seen, not as a mon­ster of destruc­tion, but as a crea­ture that in its own way wants to do the right thing.... Kong cares for his cap­tive human female, pro­tects her. Attacks only when pro­voked and would be per­fect­ly hap­py to be left alone on the Pacific Island.  It is the greed of the Hollywood show­man that unleash­es Kong’s rage....”  This rais­es the ques­tion “Who is real­ly the mon­ster in this sto­ry?”  Ebert has also includ­ed King Kong on his list of “Great Movies.” 

The American Film Institute has list­ed King Kong at num­ber four on its list of 10 Greatest Fantasy Films.  In 1991 the United States Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry. 

King Kong was re-released mul­ti­ple times and in 1952 again proved to be a box office suc­cess.  That suc­cess report­ed­ly inspired Warner Bros. Studio to make the film The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms in 1953, lead­ing a surge of giant mon­ster movies in the 1950s.  Another suc­cess­ful giant mon­ster was born in the 1950s.  Tomoyuki Tanaka cre­at­ed the Japanese giant Godzilla.  He was quot­ed as say­ing “I felt like doing some­thing big.  That was my moti­va­tion.  I thought of dif­fer­ent ideas.  I like mon­ster movies, and I was influ­enced by King Kong.”  As you may know, over the years we have seen mul­ti­ple clash­es of King Kong and Godzilla on the big screen. 

Another note on Fay Wray.  Those famil­iar with the movie know there is a lot of scream­ing from Ms. Wray through­out the movie.  Reportedly she spent an entire day in the sound stu­dio record­ing a series of screams for the film.  She called it her “Aria of the Agonies.”  Her screams were very notable as they have been used in mul­ti­ple films over the years.  Fay Wray became very renowned for her scenes with Kong on the top of the Empire State Building.  Two days after her death in 2004 the Empire State Building dark­ened its lights in her memory. 

The film ends with the death of Kong and with a very famous quote.  A police­man approach­es Denham and says “Well, Denham, the air­planes got him.” 

“Oh no,” says Denham, “it was­n’t the air­planes.  It was beau­ty killed the beast.” 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates King Kong at 7.9 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a crit­ics’ score of 97% and an audi­ence score of 86%.  In search­ing my Roku device, I could find no free stream­ing sites, but there is a copy of the DVD at the Clark County Public Library. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia. I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.