King Kong may seem outmoded, with its exaggerated histrionics, its stilted dialogue, and its wooden acting, but then there's Kong, and how can you not still love him?
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"Hey, look out! It's Kong. Kong's coming!"
The big ape finally made it to disc.
In terms of DVD transfers, Warner Bros. say this was the most requested movie in their history. That doesn't really explain, though, why it took almost eight years for the 1933 classic "King Kong" to reach DVD, considering its importance. The movie stars one of the most popular and best-loved monsters of all time. Its stop-motion animation may not have originated with the film, but it's probably the most famous film to use it, and the animation technique inspired countless special-effects artists over the years. Max Steiner's musical score was revolutionary and influenced virtually everything that came after it. And the movie spawned two major remakes and any number of sequels and spin-offs.
The movie "King Kong" was the creation of Merian C. Cooper, who produced it, cowrote it, and co-directed it. The story line came from an early script by Edgar Wallace, the man upon whose novels and tales more movies were made than other author of the twentieth century. Cooper made a fortune with "Kong," going on to produce and/or direct a bevy of popular things, like "Flying Down to Rio," "Little Women," "Fort Apache," The Quiet Man," "This Is Cinerama," and "The Searchers." Cooper's co-director, Ernest B. Schoedsack was no slouch, either; he went on to make "The Son of Kong," "The Monkey's Paw," "The Last Days of Pompeii," "Dr. Cyclops," and "Mighty Joe Young."
Max Steiner, who did the original musical score for "King Kong," is generally credited with having invented film music. He always shrugged it off, saying it was an idea originated with Richard Wagner. Well, Wagner may have championed the idea of musical motifs, but in the early 1930s, film music was in its infancy. Sound had only just been added to movies a few years earlier, and filmmakers were anxious to find as much music as they could. Steiner's score for "Kong" was among the first (often cited as THE first) full-length scores with musical cues to underline specific segments of the story.
Not that all of the music is exceptional, but it is thoroughly entertaining. Moreover, it's one of those film scores that gets better as it goes along, with "Hey, Look Out! It's Kong. Kong's Coming" and the "King Kong March" among the better items. Then, too, Steiner does a terrific job evoking atmosphere and even imitating real-life sounds with his orchestra. "The Sea at Night," for instance, and "Cryptic Shadows" create wonderfully flavorful moods, and "Aeroplanes" sounds for all the world like real planes in action. Those fans interested in the music alone can find the reconstructed soundtrack on an outstanding (and inexpensive) Naxos CD, 8.557799, with William Stromberg and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.
But of all the people responsible for the success of "Kong," it's probably the movie's chief technician, Willis O'Brien, who should be singled out, the genius who helped pioneer the use of stop-motion animation. He began working in films in 1915, and prior to "Kong" his greatest success was in creating the prehistoric animals for Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World." His King Kong may not display the fluidity or grace of today's digital inventions, but whatever the creature loses in ultimate polish is more than compensated for in sheer personality. There's more character in Kong's eyes and facial expressions than in many of today's live actors. It's hard not to love the big, hairy lug.
Almost everybody knows the story, but in the event you're among the few who missed it, here's a run-down. A big-time director of action-adventure movies, Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), runs across a map to an uncharted island said to be inhabited by a ferocious demon. Sensing a hit movie, he hires a crew and heads for the place. But before he does, he decides he needs a pretty girl in the picture, too, somebody unknown, so he finds a lead actress, Ann Darrow (Far Wray), literally off the streets of New York. Denham says he wants to play up a "Beauty and the Beast" angle. On the voyage to Skull Island, Ann falls for the ship's tough-but-likable first mate, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), and their romance blossoms as the story goes on.
The movie actually doesn't have a lot going for it until Kong shows up. Then he easily steals every scene he's in. Still, we have to wait almost halfway through the plot before Kong makes his appearance. Once on the island, the adventurers meet the native tribesmen, who want to sacrifice Ann to their god, Kong. But little do they know that when Kong sees Ann, the beast has no intention of killing her. Instead, he falls in love with her! Thus, we get a movie which at heart is an old-fashioned love triangle: Ann, Jack, and Kong.
Anyway, Kong grabs Ann and takes her away with him to the interior of the island, with Denham, Jack, and some of the ship's crew in hot pursuit. There they meet further perils from prehistoric beasts, the Wife-O-Meter feeling sorry for a hapless stegosaurus that gets shot to death for simply being in the way. Later, after much derring-do, Denham captures Kong and brings him back alive to New York, there to show him off to the crowds on the Broadway stage. You saw Mel Brooks parody this gambit in "Young Frankenstein."
Yeah, "King Kong" is dated. Of the stegosaurus, Denham says, "It's something from the dinosaur family." Close, Ward. Close. A ticked-off brontosaurus is entertaining to watch, though. Kong's fights with a T-Rex and later with some kind of giant serpent are also fun and generate a fair amount of excitement; but it's mostly touching to see how fiercely Kong will defend his new love. I might add that Kong's defeat of the T-Rex, breaking open its jaw, is rather brutal even by today's standards. O'Brien's miniatures work better than the several full-scale model hands, arms, and faces that are used, which are rather clunky. And the acting can only politely be termed wooden. Yet in spite of these drawbacks, the movie still has more than its share of charms and is able to work an almost mystical enchantment on its audience. The concluding sequence of Kong on the Empire State Building remains classic, and, yes, the sexual implications are still as relevant as ever.
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