Review of King Kong (1933) by Patrick P — 31 Mar 2009

Is there anyone that this ape didn't inspire? The creation was the work of four people in particular; Merian C. Cooper (the producer, who wanted to originally put a gorilla up against a Komodo Dragon), Ernest Shoedsack (the director), Willis O'Brien (the special effects genius), and Ruth Rose (the writer and wife of Shoedsack).

But the most important member was an 18 inch puppet made of steel, cotton, rubber, and fur. Every director ever interested in filming fantasy, every special effects person in Hollywood since 1933 (including one Ray Harryhausen), traces their interest in movies back to this film.

For me, no film has ever scared me as much as the shot of Kong parting the trees to leer at Anne Darrow (Fay Wray). Later, when I summoned the courage to watch the rest of the film, I began to empathize with the giant ape, and actually found that the scariest monsters in the film are the crowd at the New York theater.

Their insensitivity to each other and the captive ape is truly monstrous-and it is what we all are capable of. Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) pronounced the epitaph that touched all of our hearts forever; "Oh, no.

It wasn't the airplane. It was beauty that killed the beast!".