King Kong: The Eighth Wonder of the World
Reexamining the the impact of the cinematic classic on its 90th anniversary
Usually when discussing the greatest films ever made, the same handful make up the top of the list. Films like Citizen Kane (1941), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Vertigo (1958), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and The Godfather (1972) are almost always included at the top of any such list. In fact, those five films appear in the top fifteen of lists curated by both the American Film Institute and British Film Institute as of 2022. It’s hard to argue against the inclusion of any of those films. They have been deeply influential on the medium, and they are still watched by many people to this day. One film that feels conspicuously absent from such discussions is King Kong (1933) from director Merian C. Cooper.
I know what you’re thinking. Why would a movie about a giant gorilla running amok in New York City be mentioned in the same breath as those other films? I’m glad you asked, imaginary person I made up for this question. King Kong created the template for the blockbuster action-adventure film. It features a large and diverse cast of characters (especially for 1933) as they embark on a fantastic adventure filled with cutting edge special effects, inventive camera techniques, and heartfelt performances that bolster a tight plot and quickly paced runtime (only 100 minutes). The film’s massive success (raking in $5.3M at the box office with a budget of under $675,000) led to a sequel (Son of Kong) being filmed and released the same year. It was only the first of eight official live action sequels, remakes, and spinoff films to feature the giant ape. That doesn’t include various cartoons, comic books, video games, television series, and novels that would also feature the beast. Nor does it include the many films that would take inspiration from it like Mighty Joe Young (1949), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Godzilla (1954), and Jurassic Park (1993).
I realize I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. While it’s almost impossible to not have at least a passing familiarity of King Kong through cultural osmosis, it’s reasonable to assume not everyone is intimately familiar with the plot of a movie whose nationwide theatrical release happened over ninety years ago on April 7, 1933. The basic plot is that a filmmaker named Carl Denham (played by Robert Armstrong) seeks to make a movie on location on the ominously named Skull Island in hopes that he’ll capture footage of a legendary monster that the native population refers to as Kong. He recruits Ann Darrow (played by Fay Wray) to be the lead in his film, and he charters a ship to take him there. Once there, Ann is abducted by the indigenous people there who offer her as a sacrifice to Kong (who is revealed to be a giant ape standing roughly sixty feet tall) who becomes instantly infatuated with her and carries her off into the dense jungle of the island. A rescue party is formed and led by Jack Driscoll (played by Bruce Cabot) that pursues the giant ape into the jungle.
As the rescue party makes its way through the jungle, the group encounters prehistoric dinosaurs that were thought to be extinct that inflict casualties on the party as they continue to search for Ann. They are charged by a territorial stegosaurus, chased by an angry brontosaurus, and are periodically attacked by a defensive Kong himself. These harrowing sequences rely on a combination of stop-motion animation, rear projection, and miniatures to bring the scenes to life. The stop-motion effects were done by legendary special effects artist Willis H. O’Brien (who would later go on to mentor the arguably more legendary Ray Harryhausen).
While the scenes involving the rescue party fighting off prehistoric beasts are harrowing, the most memorable sequences involve Kong battling other monsters to keep Ann safe. Kong ends up fighting creatures like a pteranodon and a plesiosaur, but the showstopper is his one-on-one showdown with a tyrannosaurus.
This scene is the one that really captured my imagination as a child. I had the movie on VHS as a kid that I’m pretty sure my parents recorded from an airing on Turner Classic Movies. No one under thirty understood any part of that sentence. I watched the movie quite a bit, but it was that scene in particular that I constantly rewatched. I’m still impressed to this day how they managed to make it feel believable despite the technological limitations of the era.
I’m sure most folks know the story from there. Ann is rescued and Kong is captured to be brought back to New York City as little more than an attraction for people to gawk at. Kong breaks free, tracks down Ann, and carries her to the top of the Empire State Building for a final confrontation with mankind. For as simple a story as it appears on the surface, the aspect that makes it a true classic is the way the filmmakers are able to make Kong sympathetic. O’Brien and the special effects team do a phenomenal job of bringing some humanity to the stop-motion animation of Kong’s face. He can go from being a terrifying monster one moment to being almost childlike the next. It’s extremely impressive.
That’s ultimately what makes King Kong so impressive. It’s a special effects heavy adventure movie from over ninety years ago that still holds up today due to the infusion of heart into not just the human characters but the monster title character as well. It’s well worth watching today, and it deserves far more respect than it gets.