King Kong (1933)

A film crew goes to a tropical island for an exotic location shoot and discovers a colossal giant gorilla who takes a shine to their female blonde star.

Writers:

James Ashmore Creelman (screenplay), Ruth Rose (screenplay),

Stars:

Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot

2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Fay Wray	...	Ann Darrow
Robert Armstrong	...	Carl Denham
Bruce Cabot	...	John Driscoll
Frank Reicher	...	Captain Englehorn
Sam Hardy	...	Charles Weston
Noble Johnson	...	Native Chief
Steve Clemente	...	Witch King (as Steve Clemento)
James Flavin	...	Second Mate Briggs
King Kong	...	King Kong

Storyline

Carl Denham needs to finish his movie and has the perfect location; Skull Island. But he still needs to find a leading lady. This 'soon-to-be-unfortunate' soul is Ann Darrow. No one knows what they will encounter on this island and why it is so mysterious, but once they reach it, they will soon find out. Living on this hidden island is a giant gorilla and this beast now has Ann is it's grasps. Carl and Ann's new love, Jack Driscoll must travel through the jungle looking for Kong and Ann, whilst avoiding all sorts of creatures and beasts.

---

Plot Keywords:

island | gorilla | beast | rescue | love | 

---

Taglines:

The Most Awesome Thriller Of All Time

---

Genres:

Adventure | Fantasy | Horror

---

Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 April 1933 (USA)

Also Known As:

King Ape

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Culver Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$670,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

RKO Radio Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min 104 min (restored)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Both Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack had been wrestlers, and they acted out the fighting moves for the battle between the T-Rex and Kong in the effects studio, before the animators shot the scene.

---

Goofs

As Kong puts Ann down atop the Empire State Building, a matte shot of the live actress replaces the animated model of Ann in Kong's paw, but the matte plainly cuts off a large corner of the shadow thrown by the paw on the building. The same error happens again a few minutes later.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Charles Weston: Say, is this the moving picture ship?
Watchman: The Venture? Yeah. Are you going on this crazy voyage?
Charles Weston: What's crazy about it?

---

Connections

Referenced in Wind at My Back: All This and Heaven Too (2000)

---

Soundtracks

"St. Louis Blues"
(1914) (uncredited)
Music by W.C. Handy
Whistled by Robert Armstrong

User Reviews

Scream and Scream Again!

So much has been written about this movie, which has been analyzed more than all but a few films, it's difficult to come up with anything new to say about it but to say that it's magnificently made, and dated as it is in certain respects, it plays as well as anything from seventy years ago, and has a dream logic of its own, which, if one submits to it, still works its charms.

A few points:

i.) There are no wholly sympathetic characters in the movie. While some people are more likable than others, there's really no one to identify with. Fantastic as the subject matter is, it's filmed almost like a documentary about an adventurer who captures a giant ape, takes it to New York, where it escapes, wreaks havoc in the city, takes down the el as if it were toy, and stomps on a lot of innocent people.

ii.) I've never heard more screaming in a movie than in this one. Men, women, children, natives, sailors, white people, dark people, you name it, they scream, often and loudly. Fay Wray is the chief screamer here, but there are plenty of others, such as the man chased up a tree by a dinosaur, and the sailors shaken off the log by Kong, as they fall to a horrifying death in the ravine. When Kong attacks the village there's screaming galore, then more screaming in old Manhattan, when the big guy breaks out of the theater. For his part, Kong does not scream. He roars. The great ape is angry, not terrified, while the people are only afraid.

iii.) As one of the chief characters is a documentary film-maker, it's impossible (for me anyway) to avoid making associations between what is going on in the film and the film-making process itself, as I wonder to what extent this entered into the minds of them men who made the movie, Merian Cooper and Ernest Shoedsack. To put it another way, film-maker Carl Denham wants to film the beast to show movie audiences something weird and exotic, so as to tickle their fancy. What he finds is so fantastic that he scraps the idea of making a movie and brings the creature back to civilization and puts it on display. But the beast has fallen in love with a woman, and when he thinks press photographers are hurting her, breaks free from his chains and goes on a rampage through Manhattan. Real life, which was supposed to make a "swell movie", proved so astonishing that it had to be brought back alive, to be shown to people as something that actually exists (i.e. not a thing made up by movie men), but in the process something went wrong, and the great creature went berserk. King Kong is in other words about a movie that didn't get made because life interfered, and proved more fantastic than the film that was abandoned. As such one might call it a cautionary tale (movie men, stick to your job). Or is it about the movies themselves? How, in their attempt to bottle life and sell it back to moviegoers as entertainment, like Kong, they have a way of breaking free and becoming real all over again.