King Kong (Blu-ray Book)

King Kong (Blu-ray Book) Review

King Kong is Merian Cooper's story about a giant ape and the beauty who ultimately brings him crashing to earth. But you would have to search pretty far afield to find a better supporting cast than the variety of Mesozoic nasties King does battle with on Skull Island. Cooper's initial take on the film was to feature a man in a gorilla suit and Komodo dragon lizards as the dinosaurs. However, after seeing footage from an unfinished epic by Willis O'Brien, the dean of dinosaurs, Cooper hired O'Brien to bring his ape and other animals to life, and O'Brien delivered.

The story, which at one point in pre-production went under the title The Beast, tells the tale of a film crew shooting on location on the mysterious Skull Island. The filmmakers discover a wall constructed by the natives to protect them from something mysterious that lives on the other side of the island; something called Kong. During the night, actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) is kidnapped by the natives and tied to a sacrificial altar; the better to become the bride of Kong. To everybody's surprise and horror, a giant ape arrives and takes the girl. The crew, headed by Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) and John Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), gives chase and soon encounter terrifying dinosaurs who succeed in killing most of the rescuers. Ann is finally rescued and Kong is captured and taken to New York, where he escapes and destroys much of the city before meeting his fate atop the Empire State Building.

Much of O'Brien's animation work was done by matching live action footage with minatures and models, but he also utilized specially constructed tabletop sets and a variation of the then-accepted form of rear-screen projection. It was arduous work, but the results are some of the most memorable dinosaur scenes in movie magic history, including Kong's fight to the death with a Tyrannosaurus Rex, an Apatosaurus rising out of the water and capsizing a raft, and Kong fighting a Pteranodon as it tries to carry Ann away (physically impossible, but extremely entertaining and well-animated).

I could go on and on about this truly classic film, but I won't. Just do yourself an enormous favor and buy it.

King Kong (Blu-ray Book) Overview

Captured on Blu-ray at last comes "the greatest of all horror films" with "masterly special effects" (Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic). Memorable moments abound: a moviemaking expedition on a fantastic isle filled with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures; the giant simian's lovestruck obsession with the film shoot's blonde starlet (scream queen Fay Wray); Kong's capture; his Manhattan rampage; and the fateful finale atop the Empire State Building, where Kong cradles his palm-sized beloved and swats at machine-gunning airplanes. "It was beauty killed the beast." But in these and other great scenes, King Kong lives forever.

King Kong (Blu-ray Book) Specifications

"Now you see it. You're amazed. You can't believe it. Your eyes open wider. It's horrible, but you can't look away. There's no chance for you. No escape. You're helpless, helpless. There's just one chance, if you can scream. Throw your arms across your eyes and scream, scream for your life!" And scream Fay Wray does most famously in this monster classic, one of the greatest adventure films of all time, which even in an era of computer-generated wizardry remains a marvel of stop-motion animation. Robert Armstrong stars as famed adventurer Carl Denham, who is leading a "crazy voyage" to a mysterious, uncharted island to photograph "something monstrous ... neither beast nor man." Also aboard is waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and Bruce Cabot as big lug John Driscoll, the ship's first mate. King Kong's first half-hour is steady going, with engagingly corny dialogue ("Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy") and ominous portent that sets the stage for the horror to come. Once our heroes reach Skull Island, the movie comes to roaring, chest-thumping, T. rex-slamming, snake-throttling, pterodactyl-tearing, native-stomping life. King Kong was ranked by the American Film Institute as among the 50 best films of the 20th century. Kong making his last stand atop the Empire State Building is one of the movies' most indelible and iconic images. --Donald Liebenson

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