King Kong (1933)

A Giant Ape comes to town as an ideal for the commercialised world to indulge in. The human race is full of curiosity at the unknown, so why not bring what worlds we know of only in imagination and books to please our physical eyes? Thus is the motive of the story "King Kong", where an intrepid photographer/film maker decides to go on an epic mission to find a place that he heard of from one of his travels.

The use of one stop motion animation and real time film is notible for its time, being top notch for visual effects in the 1930's. There is noticable editing between the animated model and the unanimated puppetised gorilla suit, used for close up shots of King Kong. However, this was back in a time where editing was still a skill in training, and thus the way the shots were arranged together really works harmoniously towards each other.

The acting within the film at some parts becomes somewhat cheesy, however stretches out the fact that a lot of the acting skills being used by the actors within the film were relatively new at the time. One thing I did happen to notice was the political correctness involved. Its amusing to witness the derogative terms used towards black people and women throughout the film, and as the film inevitibly is based around the plot of a female being used as prey, this notion is broad and obvious. The film even implies how mediocre love was viewed back in the early 1900's, where men who strictly stand up for how women get in the way of their working lives and manly indulgences find it aqwuard to admit their feelings towards the opposite sex.

I did notice also that when King Kong is shot and holds his bleeding breast, he picks up Fay Wrays character and when placing her back down she is perfectly clean. Perhaps, even in such derogatory times the sight of blood and nutidy are to be kept at a far more unexplicit basis.

A great film which, in turn, inspired many other "monster in a big city" style epic movies of comparible nature.
The remake is truely a mere homage to the original, however the ending is over expressed due to us having more tools to be tempted to indulge in with special effects.

Chris