King Kong

Released: April 7, 1933

Studio: RKO

Genre: monster/romance

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 10.0 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack

Screenwriting: James Ashmore Creelman, Ruth Rose

Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher

Review:

This “classic horror-fantasy thriller” ^FS is “one of the masterpieces of cinema.” ^FS Willis O’Brien’s ““ground-breaking technical effects (stop-motion animation)” ^FS “of monster ape Kong [are] still unsurpassed,” ^LM “an emotional and special-effects marvel.” ^RS

The movie tells the story of filmmaker Denham (Armstrong) and his plan to shoot a jungle movie starring “a lovely, nubile starlet (Wray)” ^FS and fortune-hunters “in search of the fabled giant ape, the magnificent, exotic, and dangerous ‘King Kong.’” ^FS They “travel to remote, fog-shrouded Skull Island…a prehistoric world populated by dinosaurs and giant snakes.” ^FS

In addition to an adventure story, this is “a beauty-and-the-beast drama.” ^FS Wray is used to lure and capture the fifty-foot gorilla and then “Denham brings him back to New York City as a sideshow attraction.” ^FS However, Kong “escapes and goes on a rampage, ransacking the city in search of the young actress.” ^FS The “final sequence atop Empire State Building is now cinema folklore,” ^LM “but it wasn’t the airplanes that killed the mighty Kong – ‘It was beauty killed the beast.’” ^A07

The movie “accomplishes the astounding feat of making a horny male (i.e. Kong) who lusts after a blonde bimbo half his age seem sympathetic, tragic and downright endearing.” ^ML “Kong is the definitive wronged male of the cinema century.” ^RS The movie was remade in 1976 and again in 2005.