King Kong (1933)

King Kong
Directed by Merion C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
Written by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose from an idea conceived by Edgar Wallace and Merion C. Cooper
1933/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Carl Denham: We’ll give him more than chains. He’s always been king of his world, but we’ll teach him fear. We’re millionaires, boys. I’ll share it with all of you. Why, in a few months, it’ll be up in lights on Broadway: Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The granddaddy of all special effects movies withstands the test of time beautifully.

Adventurer/impresario Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has convinced a skipper and crew to take him to an unknown location where he intends to make an unknown movie.  He needs a female lead. Desperate, he picks up starving Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) in the city and it is off to the races.  First mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) does not like the idea of having a woman on board.  He gets over this quickly and Ann and Jack are in love before too long.  Denham coaches Ann on her screaming technique.

As the ship nears its intended destination, Denham explains that they are going to an uncharted island to make their picture.  When they get there they find that villagers are engaging in a ritual.  They prepare a young woman to be sacrificed as the bride of Kong to placate the giant ape. When they see the lovely Ann, they decide that she will make a better bride than one of their relatives.  They tie her to some posts and she screams her lungs out as the Kong plucks her off her platform.

There follows a pursuit which kills most of the crew of the ship.  Kong takes Ann through a jungle populated by dinosaurs, stopping to defeat them one by one.  He seems to be protective of Ann during these encounters.  During one such battle she manages to slip away so she can be rescued by Jack.

Denham is not deterred from his project.  He sedates King Kong with gas bombs and brings his captive to New York City where he plans to put him on exhibition.  Then all hell breaks loose.

This is still amazing for its time. It is hard to imagine how much work must have gone into the elaborate stop-motion animation, matte paintings, and projections needed to make this work. It is impressive that we end up being scared by and feeling pity for what is, after all, a rubber puppet covered with rabbit fur. The Max Steiner music, one of Hollywood’s first purpose-written full-length film scores, adds to the suspense.  Even after several viewings, I found myself in suspense during the scary moments.  Essential.

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I also watched Lowell Sherman’s “The Greeks Had a Name for Them”/AKA “Three Broadway Girls”  (1932). Three women are the best of friends.  Except when it comes to stealing wealthy men from each other. Ina Claire will resort to the lowest of tricks to do this. Joan Blondell is more sensible. Madge Evans has a very wealthy boyfriend David Manners whom she loves for himself. But Ina is not about to leave him alone. She also steals pianist Lowell Sherman who had offered to finance Madge’s piano lessons and be her sugar daddy. It’s a very pre-Code movie but nothing to write home about in my opinion.