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This 1933 black and white film, King Kong, is
a classic adventure/ fantasy story with the theme of man verses
beast, with elements of horror, romance, human ignorance and pride
melded into the story's core. This film is the forerunner of such
films as the Alien and the Jurassic Park Trilogy films, because
it tells the tale of how man's overconfidence in modern technology
and his own ability to control the environment and the creatures
he considers beneath him, combined with a lack of respect for
the power of nature brings disaster and havoc to man's civilized
world. Yes, in this story, a huge beast of a gorilla is foolishly
brought to the city of New York, after many men are killed, to
be displayed as "the eighth wonder of the world."
The story begins in New York, when
a hotshot, adventure-driven film maker, Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong)
plans to take an expedition, consisting of a beautiful actress,
his filming crew and armed boat personnel on a ship to an undisclosed,
unknown tropical island, called Skull Island. The island has only
been seen by one other expedition, which did produce a map, along
with a lot of death and mayhem for most of the party members.
Especially intrigued by this ill-fated
expedition's report of a mysterious, huge wall that blocks off
part of the island, Denham is determined to film his next picture
there. One big problem stands in his way. No acting agent will
give him any actresses to choose from, because he refuses to give
them any details on what he plans to have this actress do. So,
Denham takes a trip downtown, and spies a beautiful, but poor
and hungry, blond young woman, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) stealing
an orange from a vendor. After bailing her out of trouble, he
offers her this acting job, which she eagerly agrees to take.
The expedition is soon on its way to Skull Island.
On the way, Ann Darrow and First
mate, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) become acquainted and subsequently
fall in love. Upon arriving, the fog is so dense, that the island
can't be seen, but mysterious drum beats can be heard. When the
fog lifts, the expedition can see the huge wall from the boat,
and all proceed to land to investigate, including the wanna-be
blonde actress. They enter a village of the local people and observe
that a big ceremony of some sort is going on, with circles of
villagers, dressed up with hairy arms and head pieces dancing
around in circles. A rather solemn village girl sits in the middle,
being waited on and pampered by others.
Denham decides to film them, and
of course the village people notice the expedition party, not
too pleased with these intruders. The native chief (Noble Johnson)
offers to trade 7 of their own young women, for the beautiful,
blonde-haired Ann Darrow. The expedition party returns to the
ship. During the evening, Ann Darrow can't sleep, so she decides
to go up to the deck for some air (bad idea). As she stands there,
alone (like a dumb bunny), enjoying the evening air, she is kidnapped
by some determined villagers who feel she will be perfect for
the honored position as the bride of Kong! Uh oh!!
Well, of course, when her kidnapping
is discovered, a rescue party is formed, armed with guns and special
grenade bombs. They rush into the village, but discover that the
giant King Kong has already taken her, who is fascinated by her
beautiful hair, very pleased with this newest gift from the villagers,
and treats her like his prized possession.
Much to their folly, the rescue
party goes behind the huge wall, into the prehistoric world of
dinosaurs, full of dangerous and inhospitable forces. While managing
to blow up some rather nasty characters, the brave rescuers are
chased by an irate dinosaur, with the result being that some would-be
rescuers become part of the food chain.
When they catch up to Kong and the
terrified Ann, a bunch of men race onto a log bridge. After carefully
putting Ann up in a high safe, place in a tree, Kong picks up
one end of the log bridge, knocking them off man by man, to the
valley floor below.( In the original cut of the film, the men
fall to the jungle floor where they are eaten alive by huge spiders.
This horrified the test audience so much, that Cooper cut it out
of the film.)
Only two men from this particular
rescue party, one of them being Jack Driscoll, survive. Lucky
for him, Kong is distracted by a T- Rex, who he engages in a battle,
again defending Ann. ( The battle between the T-Rex and King Kong
is one of this reviewer's favorite scenes.) Finally, when reinforcements
arrive, and because of the bravery of Jack Driscoll, Ann is rescued,
with the final result being that King Kong is captured by Denham,
who decides to bring King Kong back to New York as the eighth
wonder of the world, hoping to make a fortune.
Well, of course, King Kong finds
a way to escape, causing havoc in New York City. Being a clever
animal, he finds the love of his life, Ann Darrow, who then needs
to be rescued once again, by the love of her life, Jack Driscoll.
In a spectacular scene, King Kong climbs the Empire State Building
( the biggest building in 1933 New York), in hopes of finding
a safe place for Ann and himself. After finding a safe place for
the terrified Ann, he turns to swat at the planes, which eventually
bring his downfall.
Both Merian Cooper and his longtime
partner, Ernest B. Schoedsack directed KING KONG, bringing all
elements together to offer an involving, exciting classic tale
that kept 1933 audiences at the edge of their seat. The action
sequences with 1933 innovative special /visual effects still hold
up very well, and are still very entertaining to the modern audience,
though probably not as thrilling, breathtaking as they were to
the 1933 audience, who loved this film.
Merian Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
were also the producers, working with executive producer, David
O. Selznick. The level and amount of talent that was pooled together
for the creation and production of KING KONG, really is what makes
this a classic in its genre, and propelled whoever was involved
with it to more success in the movie business.
This wildly popular, thrilling action
/ adventure yarn was written by Merian C. Cooper, and Edgar Wallace,
(James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose.) Interestingly, the character
of Carl Denham was an exaggerated image of Merian C. Cooper himself,
as Cooper had traveled the globe making adventure documentaries
in exotic places seldom traveled by film makers. Before becoming
involved with the film industry, Cooper and Schoedsack made such
exotic documentaries as Grass (1925), Chang (1927), and Gow the
Head Hunter (1928). After KING KONG, Cooper had a long, successful
career making / producing great action / adventure/dramatic films,
and near the end of his career, in 1952, he received a special
Oscar for his "many innovations and contributions to the art of
motion pictures"
Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a very
prolific novelist, a master of writing suspenseful films. KING
KONG was his last story before he died, but Wallace holds the
record for a 20th century novelist, who has had the most novels/stories
made into films, even to this day, 70 years past his death. From
1910 - 2002, over 172 films were based on his prolific life works.
The black and white cinematography
(Edward Linden (1896-1956) , J.O. Taylor, Vernon Walker) , Oscar
nominated optical photography (Linwood Dunn & William Ulm), the
editing ( Ted Cheesman), the special effects (Frank D. Williams
and Harry Redmond Jr.) and visual effects (Frank Williams & Clifford
Seine) are all innovative, do a wonderful job setting the right
ominous, mysterious, believable atmosphere, bringing the storyline
to life in a huge, scary way. All these men must be spinning in
their graves because of Ted Turner's recently released colorized
version of KING KONG, which is truly awful, ruining their skillful
use of the qualities / properties of black and white film to create
a total masterpiece of black and white cinematography. Luckily,
not much color was added to the battle scenes, and they still
are thrilling.
The musical score, which is the first
one of its kind to fully integrate into whatever was taking place
in each scene, describing musically in some instances the emotions
of the main characters on screen, in the process of scoring individual
scenes for their content. This was the brilliant work of the musical
genius composer, Austrian-born Max Steiner. Stiener was a child
progeny who was composing complex, complete works by age 16. He
studied under Gustav Mahler. Shortly after coming to the United
States, talkies became a reality, and he was snatched up by the
studios. He revolutionized the kind of musical scores which were
made for films, and became one of the most respected, innovative,
and brilliant composers of film music (1930 -1960's), "creating
a truly staggering number of exceptional scores for films of all
types." Over the course of his long career, he earned 18 Oscar
nominations for his musical scores and won three times.
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