1933 Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
An adventure film about a film crew in search of a monster on a remote island. The crew finds King Kong and decides to take him back to New York as a money making spectacle. The film is a masterpiece of Stop-Motion in filmmaking history and inspired a line of King Kong films.
"The Eighth Wonder of the World"
Often times I wonder what it was like to see classics up on the big screen when they were first released. At that point, they had no idea how much of the entire landscape of the medium would be changed within a mere hundred minutes.
Think about how lucky we must be to witness some of our own, soon to be, hopefully, classics. The ones that shape our decade, or create an entirely new means of showcasing the medium. But at these points, we don't know. We have no idea what will go down in film history and what will simply be dust in the wind.
This is not what we get here.
This…
94/100
King Kong was and always will be a rip-roaring, dynamic, and stunning adventure film, overloaded with spectacular set-pieces and a classical sense of tragedy. The magical stop-motion effects still are unmistakably brilliant, and combined with the marvelous matte work, this 1933 classic is unrelentingly vital, never stopping and always providing a genuine aura of spectacle.
Do you hate monkeys? Then don't watch this movie. It's got one of the biggest monkeys I've ever seen.
Film #10 of Project 30
” He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization, merely a captive, a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong: the Eighth Wonder of the World!”
This is as amazing as it can get. A wonderful and staggering action-adventure which after all these years is still breathtaking and pleasing. The most astonishing thing about this top-notch thriller from 1933 is that it hasn't aged at all, of course Kong looks quite strange with the stop-motion animation but surprisingly the film’s action scenes and the overall visuals still look marvelous. Kong’s fight with the giant T-Rex, his madness in the streets of…
Warner Bros. Blu-Ray
1.37:1
Monochrome
35mm
A
”It was beauty killed the beast”
Brutal capitalistic venture and complicit colonialism echoes on screen as Cooper and Schoedsack’s staggering genre-defining and dauntless epic concludes with an undeniably poetic final scene that cuts deep to the bone. What is most staggering is that on said conclusion the film itself showcases no compunction for the characters actions or damages. Perhaps to decapitate any contextual complicity of what can be conveyed as an analogy of the American slave trade? or to convey that such terrors are elicited throughout human history due to the characteristics of man itself, both are ominous. The score by composer Max Steiner is glorious and in full efficacious tone with deliciously bleak and powerful cinematography that evokes such a delicate sense of questionable moral ambiguity.
91
King Kong (1933) is the definitive version of this story, no sequel/remake/re-imagining can come close to the cinematic magic this film contains. 85 years on and this film still holds up as one of the best action adventure films ever made. Which in no small part is due to the fantastic production values and excellent camera work. King Kong is an intense, swashbuckling adventure that lives up to the description and its cinematic reputation. The special effects and imaginative creature designs are immersive and the fabulous set and costume designs add a level of mysticism that helps play into the "stranger in a strange land" concept the film has going throughout the first hour or so.
The film also features…
An old childhood favorite now seen with adult eyes and my adult eyes can now see the weird-ass racial politics in it. Nevertheless, the story has endured, and the visual effects are stellar for their time, filled with a crazy poetry. And never forget: Fay Wray is one of the great scream queens of cinematic history. And King Kong is a great cinematic monster: ferocious and primal and filled with pathos.
He scaled a building looking for Fae Wray, found a sleeping woman and pulled her out of the building, once he saw it wasn't Fae Wray he discarded this woman from his grip ..25 stories in the air.
This movie is metal as fuck.
Dang I really zoned out on that one. Hey at least I managed to cross this film off my list of things I've pretend to have seen but have only experienced through gradual cultural osmosis.
Classic monster movie has a film crew going to an island where they find much more than what they were expecting. Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) winds up on the island and discovers a giant ape that the natives call Kong. Soon the wild beast kidnaps the lovely Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) before she's rescued by her boyfriend (Robert Armstrong). Denham, always thinking of money, decides to capture Kong and take him to New York City to show him off.
KING KONG is without question a classic monster movie and certainly one of the most memorable pre-codes from the era. Watching this movie today it's pretty exciting just to think what audiences in 1933 must have thought of the film. The…
I love this film and have watched it dozens of times. So it is blasphemous of me to say I actually like KONG:SKULL ISLAND just a little bit more?! I generally like any movie with King Kong in it (unless it has LIVES in the title).
Watched this for Unspooled pod; it's hard to believe this came out in 1933. The level of practical effects was clearly ahead of its time and for that alone it deserves a place on the AFI 100. On top of that, it is a historical film oddity because of so much of the pre-Code content that is on blatant display in the film. I enjoyed this way more than I thought, this should probably be one of the top 10 quintessential Hollywood Classic films.
"Women just can't help being a bother...made that way I guess" -Sexist Cracker
Unspooled: AFI 100 Rewatch/Rerank-boxd.it/1Rgry
Kong Ranked: boxd.it/1Tifo
If you can get past the race and gender issues of King Kong then this movie is great. What cinematography owes to Citizen Kane, special effects films owe to King Kong. The movie makes you feel genuine sympathy for the stop-motion Kong. There is so much fun stuff but also suspense and amazing action. Fay Wray!
This was worth watching to see how they did some very impressive visual effects in 1933 and also the character of Carl Denham.
Loses points for racism and sexism.
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