King Kong - 1933
| December 14, 2007 at 6:00 pm | Category: Movie Spotlight |
| by hollywoodjoker | |
Story :
The 1933 King Kong film is the original classic movie about the most famous and moving giant ape love story, which had many remakes and sequels. Carl Denham is a film director, who recruits a poor girl, Ann Darrow (played by Fay Wray), as star for his upcoming film and set out to shooting with his team towards an uncharted Skull island. On the Skull island, the natives kidnap Ann (okay! woman-nap Ann) and offer her to King Kong, a 50-foot giant ape. King Kong seems to treat her initially as a toy, but later seems to be attached to her. When Denham’s group tries to save Ann, Kong pushes them over a log and kills many of them.
Kong saves Ann from the Tyrannosaurus and battles with it ferociously. Ultimately, Kong breaks the Tyrannosaurus’s jaws apart and kills him, thus truly showing his “King” status to Ann. Kong also battles with other creatures and conquering them, but meanwhile Ann is rescued by her love interest, Jack Driscoll. As Kong chases after them, he is capture by Denham by knocking him unconscious with a gas bomb.
Mortal Combat: King Kong battles Tyrannosaurus
Denham brings the captured Kong to New York City and showcases him as the Eighth Wonder of the World before a large stunned audience. The flashing camera lights irritate Kong. He breaks away the chains and goes rampaging all over the city killing many people. Ultimately when Kong finds Ann, he carries her off to the top of the 1250 feet tall Empire State Building.
In the most famous climatic battle between King Kong and the army airplanes, Kong manages to destroy one airplane. But, with bullets pouring all over him from other airplanes, he finally succumbs to the injuries and falls off to death from the Empire State Building. Seeing King Kong dead, a cop concludes “The airplanes got him”. Denham’s reply: “Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes; it was beauty killed the beast.”
Even though this movie was released during the “Great Depression” of 1930s, it proved to be a “monster” hit at the box office. Not only was this movie the top grossing box office blockbuster of 1933, but also in 1952 when it was re-released, it topped the movie charts beating all the newly released films. Although King Kong’s costume may appear a lit bit funny and there may have been other deficiencies in the special effects and size of Kong may seem to vary in different scenes, when we take into consideration the time it was made, this film’s achievement seems colossal. There are many different religious, political or sexual symbolisms given by various film commentrators, but it’s producer/director Cooper downplayed all this by saying “King Kong was never intended to be anything more than the best damned adventure picture ever made. Which it is, and that’s all it is”. This is one classic movie you simply should not miss.
Starring :
Fay Wray as Ann Darrow
Robert Armstrong as Carl Denham
Bruce Cabot as Jack Driscoll
Movie Gossip :
The Eighth Wonder :Originally this film was to be named “The Eighth Wonder” and pre-release booklets with the same name were sent to theaters.
Varying Heights :King Kong’s height seems to different in different scenes. On the Skull island, he seems to 18 feet “small”. In the New York City stage scene, his height seems to be 24 feet. After climbing the Empire State Building, Kong’s height is a massive 50 feet. I guess as the film progresses, he grows more and more into a monster.
Peter Jackson’s dream come true:The tremendously talented Lord of the Rings’ director Peter Jackson was only 9 years old when he first saw this 1933 original King Kong in 1970. He was so impressed that it inspired him to a film director. He always used to dream about making his own remake of King Kong, but he never had enough budget until the blockbuster success of Lord of the Rings trilogy. Eventually, he did get a chance to turn his dream into reality and he did it very successfully by providing the 2005 hit remake.
Adolf Hitler’s favorite:This film is rumored to be Hitler’s favorite film. I wonder why didn’t Hitler commit suicide by climbing the Empire State Building.
Movie Ratings :
Hollywood Jokes Rating : 10/10
Box Office :
Budget : $0.65 million
Revenue : no information available, but this movie has been made lots of money at the box office in all of it’s re-releases. None of the remakes and sequels were able to match this performance with the exception of talented director and avid King Kong fan Peter Jackson’s successful 2005 remake.
Popularity: 9%
You got my vote.
Comment by DD2 — December 18, 2007 @ 7:44 pm