King Kong - Liked It - DOUBLEFEATUREPREACHERS

King Kong - Liked It

10/9/2017

Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot
Director: Merian C. Cooper
Runtime: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Adventure | Horror | Sci-Fi | 1933

To start the movie off is something called an overture. So the orchestra played for about 5 minutes, that I promptly fast forwarded through even though I’m sure it was a lovely piece of music. Carl (Armstrong) wants to film a movie, and he can’t find another woman to be the lead because all his trips are dangerous. So he goes out and finds his own star, Ann (Wray) for the film. At first, he won’t tell anyone where he is going. But finally, it’s revealed that they are going to a secret island to watch the natives.

When they get there, the natives are doing a ritual, one that obviously is preparing a poor woman to be sacrifice, but to what? Well, it happens to be an extremely large ape, who we will call King Kong. So the majority of the story is the crew on Carl’s ship breaking past the wall that encages Kong to save Ann (since the natives decide a blonde is better than their own for sacrificing).

At first, the movie was really stale and fairly boring. We don’t see King Kong until halfway through, but once we do, it was so very exciting to watch. Never having seen this film before, I was surprised by all the monsters that were living on the island with Kong. And each fight that Kong had to keep his prize was just as exciting too!

By this point, they were able to overcome the beast and decide to bring him back to New York, where they show him off. Now, this is the part that I envisioned for the film, because that’s all I’ve ever known. The huge ape taking the woman to the top of the Empire State Building. I had no idea the majority of the movie took place on a random island in the middle of the jungle. I liked it very much.

Obviously, I can’t compare the effects of this 1933 film to that of today, but I enjoyed it tremendously (I don’t think it would have worked if it wasn’t in black and white). King Kong himself was interesting to look at and watch each scene. And the fighting with the dinosaurs (that’s what I’m calling them anyway) were very exciting.

I’m pretty sure Wray got the part because of her screaming capabilities. That’s for the most part all she did (with the exception of a small love interest), and she was damn good at it if I do say so myself. I’m going to give this film a “Liked it” rating. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before, it being such a staple in the classic monster universe and being as exciting as I felt it was. I don’t think I’ve seen any movies with King Kong as the main event. Perhaps I’ll have to invest some time to watch those. Have you all seen the one from 2005? Is it worth my time? (4/5)

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