King Kong (1933)

Terry's Grade: A-

Maybe I'm getting old, but this movie is better than I remember. I remember it being boring, probably because it was B&W. I was probably less than 10 years old.

Lessons learned from this movie:

• If you need an actress for your shady, interracial sex romp movie, first you look at the women's shelter. If everyone there is too old and ugly, you may find a suitable substitute stealing apples on the street (which is something people tend to do a lot in movies).
• If you stumble upon the last surviving dinosaur on the planet, shoot it. Then shoot it again. And again until it is dead.
• "Open-front suits" are fancy

You've gotta love/hate the "natives" in this movie. They managed to build a 40-foot-high stone wall, with a giant, functional, lockable, door, yet they seem to live in tiny bamboo huts. Also, they are very adept at finding the one spot on the ship where Fay Wray happens to be hanging out all by herself. I don't remember seeing any natives with bones in their noses/hair, but I definitely saw one with a coconut-shell bikini top.

King Kong is full of famous tropes, and definitely had a part in making at least some of them famous. Like so many classic films, King Kong is remembered for its groundbreaking achievements. There are many things in this film that are often thought of as modern innovations. I remember seeing an interview recently (in the past 10 years or so) with an actor who was talking about the challenges of acting against a digitally-animated character, who wouldn't be added until post-production. Seems like an artifact of the CGI era, but there it is, in King Kong, as Denham and Driscoll walk past a writhing, dying stegosaurus, commenting on the fact that it's not quite dead yet, perfectly in synch with the beast's tail making a last desperate attack.

Although the technical aspects of this movie are probably its strength, it's also great story-telling, and meta-story-telling. I love the scene when Denham is addressing the crowd of reporters in New York, as they try to figure out their angle on the King Kong story. Is Driscoll the hero, because he saved Ann Darrow? Is Denham the hero, because he had the presence of mind to bring out the gas bombs? Or is the story Darrow herself? "That's your angle," Denham tells them. "Beauty and the beast." Ever the showman, he's still spouting that bs at the end of the movie; "No, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast." (or something like that). After seeing Sullivan's Travels so recently, it's fun to see another movie about filmmaking.

Time-out: what are the classic films about filmmaking, anyway? We've got King Kong and Sullivan's Travels. Immediately I also think of Adaptation (and maybe Synechdoche, NY, but that's theater not film). Ed Wood. Mulholland Drive (not really). Any more? I'd love to see some in the comments.

Okay, I'm way off track now, so let's end with a long quote from Inglourious Basterds:

Okay, my native land is the jungle. I visited America, but the visit was not fortuitous to me, but the implication is that it was to somebody else. When I went from the jungle to America, did I go by boat?

Yes.

Did I go against my will?

Yes.

On this boat ride, was I in chains?

Yes.

When I arrived in America, was I displayed in chains?

Yes!

Am I the story of the negro in America?

No.

Well, then, I must be King Kong.

And that's that.