Film review 3: King Kong 1933

King Kong (1933)

Breaking the trend of watching silent black and white movies for the space oddities project we instead watched a non silent film that is still in black and white. The original king Kong is still considered a classic and was arguably the first blockbuster film ever made at no where near the budget of current block busters. King Kong was made in 1933, directed by Merian C. cooper as well as being produced by Ernest B. Shoedsack using what was considered the best special effects they had at the time. This is an adventure film that took the audience to a new world during a time when they probably needed it. In this review I will start with a short synopsis followed by how it relates to some of the films key themes being adventure and the unknown as well as the special effects used to make this movie happen.

King Kong revolves around a director from America that want to travel to an un explored island to film a movie about the rumored monster that lives on the island called king Kong. Before he leaves with the crew he hires a lady called Ann Darrow to be the main actress of the film. After arriving they find that the island is inhabited by natives that offer woman to be King Kong’s bride and after seeing the main actress end up kid napping here to serve this purpose. This introduces King Kong witch ends up being a being a massive Gorilla and is pursued by Ann Darrow’s love interest along with several other crew members that also help in rescuing here. In the island forests they come across large reptiles from giant snakes to literal dinosaurs. Eventually, Ann Darrow is saved and Kong captured, brought back to America to be put up on a stage for entertainment. Kong of course escapes and proceeds to destroy the city until eventually climbing the empire state building only to be shot by airplanes which causes him to fall to his death.

I am going to talk about the themes of adventure and the unknown at the same time as I feel these are both very similar. At its core this film is an adventure film about exploring unknown worlds that are potentially very different from the on we are in. Even the characters in the film refer to there journey as an adventure to a previously un explored island heard only about in myth. Even the rumors of king Kong is established at this stage to make the audience wonder what the characters will find. In Kim Newman review from the Empire they said “The voyage to skull island has been fraught with expectation” (Kim Newman 2000) which I agree as the film has made every attempt to set up what the island would be. The pay of is finding an island inhabited by dinosaurs which could be considered a trope by this point but back then they where probably considered to be the equivalent of mythical creatures in a land that has been touched by modern people since the beginning of time. Then there is of course King Kong himself, a giant gorilla which is an idea that could have been taken out of people’s nightmares.

An interesting concept but what is even more interesting was how the creatures where brought to live using the best special effects that was available at the time. Before CGI, special effects for movies where done using stop motion that often used miniature sets and model miniatures that where directed by Willis O'Brien. In the scenes where you could only see King Kong’s hands or upper torso where not stop motion but instead animations at roughly the right size. As Roger Ebert said in his review “The movie introduced Kong and rarely cuts away from sequences requiring one trick or another” (Roger Ebert 2002) . From when Kong was introduced the rest of the film could be considered more of a stop motion animation then a film. From the point King Kong appeared the rest of the movie had some form of special effect, usually in the form of stop motion for the different creatures that appear. I imagine these where very scary for the time as people haven’t seen large scale creatures shown so realistically. Unfortunately, I found a lot of these scenes more amusing then scary as the flaws in the stop motion where hard to miss as I noticed the the models kept spontaneously shaking about and the close ups of king Kong’s face where goofier then anything due to how he raises his eyebrow’s or gives that grin.

In conclusion, I liked this movie but mainly because the special effects where so dated that I found them more funny then scary. However, I can appreciate that at the time this was scary as the people of the time probably haven’t ever seen anything like this done before. At the time this film was considered a block buster because of how well it did which is a little surprising as at the time America was experiencing the great depression and wouldn’t have that much money to spend. But this is an adventure film that is literally about going to an unknown island so people at the time probably used it is as a way to escape reality, even if it was for a couple of hours. This sort of behavior is seen today with modern cinema and video games. In James Berardinells review he stated that “King Kong remains not only a milestone of movie making, but a magical experience” (James Berardinells 2019). The influence this film has had on modern cinema can be seen in modern day block busters that also use the latest in special effects. Jason and the Argonauts that came out several years after King Kong uses very similar special effects for its mythical creatures that based of this film.

 

References

A poster of the movie king Kong 1933. (2019). [image] Available at: https://www.movieart.com/king-kong-1933-14984/ [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].

Berardinelli, J. (2019). King Kong. [online] Metacritic. Available at: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/king-kong-1933 [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].

Ebert, R. (2002). King Kong movie review & film summary (1933) | Roger Ebert. [online] Rogerebert.com. Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-king-kong-1933 [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].

Newman, K. (2000). EMPIRE ESSAY: King Kong. [online] Empire. Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/empire-essay-king-kong-review/ [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].

Failes, I. (2017). How 'King Kong' Movies Changed VFX History, Over and Over Again. [online] Inverse. Available at: https://www.inverse.com/article/28410-king-kong-visual-effects-hist [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].