King Kong (1933 film)
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King Kong is the original monster movie, released by RKO Pictures in 1933.
"Kong" is a giant gorilla living on a hidden island in the South Pacific. When a charter ship travels to this island, the oversized primate becomes enraptured by the crew's sole blonde woman, whom the island natives offer up to it in sacrifice. The crew rescue the girl and even manage to capture Kong, bringing the creature back to Manhattan for a spectacle. However, Kong escapes and causes mayhem in the streets of New York before being shot off the top of a skyscraper.
King Kong was added to the National Film Registry in 1991.
Tropes used in the 1933 version of King Kong include:
- Aluminum Christmas Trees: Safari and wildlife travelogues were pretty popular at the time, and a filmmaker like Carl Denham would have been famous.
- Cavemen vs. Astronauts Debate: The original film is a quite literal depiction of the Trope-naming argument. Merian Cooper was a man fascinated by both the past and the future. He traveled the world studying primitive societies that had not changed for hundreds of years. He was also a bold innovator who made important advances in aviation and motion pictures, and talked in his later life about his wish that he could live long enough to travel in space. In King Kong this duality becomes a violent conflict between the mighty but savage Kong and the technology of the modern world. Cooper recognized that the modern world would eventually win, but in many ways his sympathies lay with the primitive.
- Expospeak: The opening lines are rather painful.
- Fan Service: Fay Wray wears a rather thin and clingy dress in the screen test scene.
- Giant Spider: Hoo boy, the spider pit has got many of them, but only in the deleted scene from the 1933 original.
- Moe Greene Special: How they take out the stegosaurus.
- Punny Name: Ann's last name is a Shout-Out to famous lawyer Clarence Darrow, best known for his participation in the infamous Scopes "Monkey Trial".
- Tagline: "The Eighth Wonder Of The World!" for the 1933 release.