KING KONG (1933)

By John Thonen     March 03, 2000

There's a tendency when writing about film to become overly reliant on hyperbole. Words like 'brilliant,' 'genius,' and particularly 'classic,' can be so overused that they lose their meaning. It's at that point, just as a reminder of what these words really mean, that it's worth taking a trip back to the films that have stood the test of time and proven they really deserve such superlatives. Back to a film like the 1933 version of KING KONG. The very definition of a classic.

Nearly 70 years after KONG's production, there's hardly any need to recount its story. The film's tale of ape-meets-girl, ape-gets-girl, ape-loses-girl--and life--is simply an indelible part of our collective cinematic psyche. Its acting style is way out of vogue today, and its special effects are at times more nostalgically entertaining than truly dazzling. Yet, the film has lost none of its power over the decades.

There's not much that can be said here about this film that hasn't been said many, many times before. Simply watching KING KONG is a far more eloquent tribute to its brilliance and strength than any recapping of the story could ever be. Likewise, cataloging its technical achievements is equally superfluous. While surpassed in many ways today, their influence continues unabated in the work of the finest special effects artists of our era. Still, while there is little new that can offered, in these days of often mindless special effects orgies, it never hurts to be reminded of what greatness really is.

From a historical perspective, there's a long list of reasons why KING KONG still places high on any list of the great fantastic genre films. Along with GONE WITH THE WIND, it is one of the first great examples of the Hollywood studio system working at the height of its power. Those were the days when a studio could assemble its best talent in one place and turn out a film that was truly more than the sum of its parts. KING KONG was simply cinematic kismet. The right people, the right place, the right time. No one connected with the film ever came close to achieving this level of perfection later in their careers. In fact, few of them ever did anything again that was particularly better than average. For all concerned, this was their one bright, shining moment. A moment that continues to shine even today.

KING KONG is also notable as one of the earliest and purest examples of the three-act screenplay structure. The format is de rigueur today, but it was a fresh concept in 1933, and so perfectly executed in KONG that the film is still used today as a teaching tool in writing classes. KONG is also remembered as one of the first features to contain completely original music. The intervening decades have failed to rob Max Steiner's score of any of its power and majesty. So perfectly are film and music intertwined, that it's hard to even remember the film's classic moments and key characters without also recalling Steiner's accompanying music.

While KONG set the stage for many films that followed, there are other aspects of the film that seem positively prescient. In 1977, George Lucas was praised for his mix-and-match use of multiple special effects techniques in STAR WARS. Lucas ignored the long accepted method of using one or two techniques, even if they weren't best suited to all of a film's needs; instead, he used them all. It was a trend-setting and decidedly clever approach, but hardly new. Willis O'Brien, using miniatures, mattes, glass paintings, cell animation, dimensional animation, full size mock-ups and more, had done the same on KING KONG.

The '70s, thanks again to Lucas, saw a tremendous interest in the power of classic, universal myths in storytelling. The woefully dry, philosophical writings of Joseph ('Hero With A Thousand Faces') Campbell, became part of every filmmaker's personal library, and his theories influenced most films seen over the past 30 years. But Campbell wasn't even born when King Kong tore through the jungle trees, as mythical and symbolic a figure as ever stomped its way across a screen. This was Homeric tragedy told with an 18' puppet, for Kong was the very definition of a tragic hero.

KING KONG was also, and always will be, more than a little erotic. This is a tale of an impossible, unrequited, obsessive and self-destructive love. While its sexual politics would hardly be politically correct today, the film remains a classic love triangle with more than a little sexual undercurrent. A fair case could even be made that KING KONG is, in some ways, a forerunner of the classic noir films of the '40s, which used varying shades of darkness to illustrate their tales of a man drawn to a woman who would lead to his destruction. Director Merian C. Cooper and effects wizard Willis O'Brien used much the same visual motifs to reach a similarly downbeat ending in their tale. While Fay Wray was not the predator the femme fatales of the noir films would prove to be, her presence was no less deadly to Kong.

The litany of reasons to respect KING KONG and to take the time to watch it--whether for the first time of the fiftieth--could go on and on. But the best reason is the simplest one to state. It is, quite simply, a great movie that you will have a great time watching. What better recommendation could a film be given? It would be interesting to see if, some 70 years from now, many of the hit films of the last few decades will hold half the value, and deliver a fraction the entertainment that KING KONG does today. Don't count on it.