King Kong

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Changing gears from monsters played by actors, to monsters played by stop motion creations, it's time to cover the one and only original 'King Kong' - the film that pretty well single-handedly brought the giant monster movie genre into play. Even the great Godzilla wouldn't show up for another twenty-plus years!

New York director, Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is working on a film, with the perfect location to shoot, known as Skull Island. However, he still lacks a leading lady to make things complete. Enter Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), who Carl promises her the acting opportunity of a lifetime, which she agrees to.

Carl is unwilling to divulge to the rest of the crew what they might encounter on the island, but soon enough we find out that it is home to a giant ape named Kong, who the islanders pretty much worship. Upon seeing Ann, they eventually kidnap her for a sacrifice to Kong, offering her up as his "bride". Meanwhile, the ship's first mate, John Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), having fallen for Ann (very quickly) takes it upon himself to go find Ann, and get her out of Kong's clutches.

Things go haywire, as most know by now, when Kong is captured and brought to Manhattan to be shown off on stage, eventually leading to the ever-iconic scene of Kong climbing the Empire State Building, which at the time of the film's release was a mere almost two years old! I can only imagine what the film did for New York tourism at the time of its release.

Most of us have seen some version of this film, be it this one, the '05 Peter Jackson version, or even the 'Simpsons' Halloween special version. The important and memorable bits are all pretty much there, and may only be found among those titles considering how much it looks like things are taking a different route with this new giant monster universe. It's another case, much like 'Frankenstein' where we question the monster, not seeing it as evil, so much as a creature who doesn't know any better.

With that said, Kong's body count here is so hilariously high, he practically puts Jason Voorhees to shame. I get the impression that at the time, this was probably a pretty damn scary film, considering its amount of violence combined with the unfamiliarity of a stop-motion monster. It had been done before, but I feel like this is where things really took off.

Nowadays, however, that stop motion is the funnest part of the whole film. Some of these deaths combined with some of Kong's reactions are perfect for those of us who appreciate a good falling dummy, followed by a nonsensical scream. It really has gotten to the point where this could be considered so dated that it's a straight up comedy now. That's also dated as in dialogue. It's definitely the kind of film where you can point out things they couldn't get away with nowadays. So that might be a little something to bear in mind, but remember that in 1933 the world was very different as far as acceptance went.

If you're any sort of fan of giant monster movies, and you've never seen this original classic, you need to get on it. At this point, it's a whole lot of fun, and moments that are supposed to be dramatic or scary have become pretty well downright funny now. But don't take my word for it. Grab some popcorn, check it out for yourself with a group of friends, and have a well-deserved laugh at how unexpectedly over the top this movie is.

​4/5

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