What
more can possibly be said of the original KING KONG? It's the
grand-daddy of all giant monster movies and a landmark in both American
cinema and general Americana, a work whose impact still reverberates
nearly a century after its release. Everyone knows its plot particular,
but it can be broken down thusly: A film crew makes an expedition to an
uncharted island in the South Seas, where they find a gigantic ape that
is worshiped as a god by the natives, and the director intends to shoot a
movie about the beast. The woman who is along as the star of the film
is abducted by the natives as a sacrifice to the ape, who carries her
away through a jungle filled with deadly prehistoric animals to his
mountain top lair, and the film crew and ship's compliment give pursuit,
many losing their lives in the process. When the woman is rescued and
brought back, the ape follows and is brought down by the film crew's gas
bombs. Ferried back to New York City, the beast is put on display as an
attraction for the city's affluent, but the creature escapes and goes
on a deadly rampage until it finds the woman again and carries her to
the highest point in the city. It is there that the monster meets its
fate.
That description is basically what happens, but it in no way
communicates the richness of the film's black-and-white visuals, its
then groundbreaking stop-motion visual effects, its surprising level of
adventure, action and violence, Kong being something of a sympathetic
terror — after all, it was the white men who invaded his domain and
kidnapped him with an end goal of what amounts to enslavement — and
enough subtext to fuel decades of interpretation of the narrative's
"true" intent. KING KONG is a work that was way ahead of its time in
every way, while still being very much a product of its era in terms of
now "problematic" content regarding race and handling of its female
character, so newcomers are advised to approach it with what was
acceptable back in 1933 firmly in mind.
AS previously documented, I
was a monster kid from Day One, but I never saw the original KING KONG
until I was eight years old, five years after being exposed to the
character of Kong via Saturday morning reruns of the 1966 Japanese
animated Rankin-Bass cartoon show in which Kong was a hero who is
befriended by a young boy, and also the 1967 Toho film, KING KONG
ESCAPES, which brought Kong into the landscape of Japanese kaiju. I
loved both, but I did not experience the real deal until it was released
in a restored version in 1973. My mother knew and understood my love of
monsters, so when she heard of the grand-daddy of them all coming back
to the screen, she took me as a treat. My mind was blown, and though I
was raised in a socially-conscious Black household, I was still too
young to parse the movie as anything other than a riveting adventure
movie that happened to feature a rampaging 30-foot gorilla. The
"problematic" elements did not register at all, such was the power of
the story being told.
Following that inaugural screening, I saw
KING KONG on a yearly basis, as it became a perennial constant on WOR,
Channel 9 out of Secaucus, New Jersey. During the pre-cable years, it
aired every year on Thanksgiving as part of a two-day package of giant
ape and monster movies intended to give the kiddies something to do when
the holiday feasting was over and the adults watched football in
another room and/or got their drink on. That day was sometimes looked
forward to more than the family gathering with all of the slaved-over
banquet, because we got KING KONG, SON OF KONG, and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG on
the first day (though some years began the festival with MIGHTY JOE
YOUNG), followed by three random Godzilla movies (usually a trio of the
lesser ones) on the following day.
Vintage TV GUIDE ads for the annual Channel 9 festival of giant monster mayhem.
So
it was that every year Tri-State Area kids were refreshed on the
legend and tragedy of King Kong, and his story has stuck in our hearts
and minds ever since. Unquestionably the most culturally important giant
monster movie ever made, and without it its success we would never have
gotten the legion of city-wrecking titans that followed in his wake,
most significantly Godzilla.
In 2004, when word of Fay Wray, leading lady
in the classic 1933 version of KING KONG, screamer extraordinaire and
the cinema’s quintessential damsel in distress, passing away at age 96
hit, film fans worldwide were devastated. The black and white
image of her stunning blonde beauty, adorned in naught but a torn teddy
while struggling to escape the fearsome-yet-adoring clutches of the
thirty-foot monster god of an uncharted island had at that point been
carved in stone
as a cinematic landmark for seventy-one years and is unforgettable proof
of the dream machine that was once the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Upon
hearing of Miss Wray’s passing the first thing that crossed my mind was
“Was she the last person involved in KING KONG to go?” If she was, she
may have been the last of a dying breed, the old-school Hollywood movie
star. When one thinks of those who pass for stars these days, that’s a
sad thought indeed. Will Keanu Reeves, Brittany Murphy or even Adam
Sandler be remembered down the line with the fondness afforded Wray and
her contemporaries? I sincerely doubt it, and that’s ironic since Wray
publicly bemoaned the fact that the mythic status of her role in KING
KONG lead to the overshadowing of every other part she essayed.
With
the unabashed love that I have for giant monster films, it should come
as no surprise to anyone that the 1933 KING KONG is my favorite movie. I
say movie because film is a somewhat lofty term often applied to works
by artists such as Bergman, Kurosawa and Jarmusch, items of deep
examination of the human condition and such. Not so with KONG. KING KONG
is a rollicking piece of entertainment, sheer fun from start to finish,
with nothing on its mind except entertaining its audience and placing
the viewer firmly within an adventure into the fantastic. Fun and
entertainment is what it’s all about, and by those criteria KING KONG is
a great movie.
A
Depression-era adventure yarn like no other, KING KONG has mood,
romance, thrills and balls-out monster action from start to finish and
several sequences that have since become ingrained into the worldwide
popular culture. And considering that Kong himself has existed on his
island for thousands of years, I have always wondered what his typical
day was like. During the harrowing adventure shared by Anne Darrow and
Jack Driscoll deep within the teeming jungle of Skull Island, we see
Kong handing out ass-whuppings on his fellow jungle denizens like it was
Halloween candy. Remove the two hapless humans from that picture and
you have to realize that Kong’s day-to-day existence would have sucked
most egregiously when he wasn’t being offered native women with which to
do God only knows what. I can see it now: the big guy is lumbering down
a dense forest path when, suddenly, some primordial crawly thing drops
out of a tree and attempts to eat his face. Kong savagely dispatches
this creature and continues on his mighty way. Then, without warning, a
Tyrannosaurus Rex jumps out of a ditch and tries to bite his nuts off.
Our giant-ape-about-town puts much foot to scaly ass and vanquishes the
errant T-Rex by ripping off its head and taking a big dump down its
throat. After foraging for whatever may constitute the diet of a
thirty-foot primate, Kong returns to his mountain top lair to chill out
and relax. As he reclines and begins to nod off to Slumberland, a giant
carrion bird swoops from the skies and tries to lodge its beak up Kong’s
hairy ass. Kong clenches his titanic butt-cheek muscles, breaking the
bird’s neck like a Mister Salty pretzel stick. Kong then stands atop the
corpse, throws back his head and drums on his chest. He lets out a cry
of what may appear to be triumph, but he’s more likely saying “Can’t I
go through just one day without somebody trying to eat my ass??? FUCK MY LIFE!!!”
In
honor of Fay Wray’s passing, I watched the film again that night, and
it was sort of like attending the wake of someone I’d known since
childhood. I just wish that I could have invited everyone I know over to
share it with me.
In short, the 1933 KING KONG is quintessential seminal giant monster
cinema and should be experienced by every true lover of movies, and
especially of monster movies in particular. A landmark of 20th Century
Americana in no uncertain terms.
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