Rating: B
Dir: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
Star: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher
Of all the movies we’ve reviewed in this feature, Kong may be the most broadly influential. Sure, the likes of Frankenstein may have led to any number of sequels and remakes. But you could make a case that without King Kong, there would be no Godzilla or Jurassic Park movies, in addition to the slew of more general “giant monster” films, including Them! This didn’t just create a franchise, it spawned an entire sub-genre of cinema, which continues to roll on successfully, close to a hundred years later. The techniques used in it were unprecedented, and pushed cinema into unexplored territory, in much the same way as something like Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
It was certainly a good year for horror, especially compared to some we’ve seen. Nine features reached the thousand vote cut-off, and two-third of these score an IMDb rating of better than six. The Invisible Man pushed Kong hardest, with Mystery of the Wax Museum rounding out the podium. Below that vote limit, I was also tempted by La Llorona, the first Mexican horror movie with sound. Considered lost for fifty-odd years, it spawned its own sub-genre of moist and ghostly Hispanic horror, some of which we’ve reviewed before. I’m working on an overflow feature for November 1st, where I will be covering some of the interesting classic horror films which didn’t make the cut. Think I’ll add La Llorona to the list.
My first impression: wait, this only runs a hundred minutes? That stands in sharp contrast to the Peter Jackson remake, which is not far off double that length. Admittedly, my review opened by calling that, “The finest 2-hour film of the year. Pity it runs 187 minutes” and I do have to wonder where all the extra came from. Even Jackson thinks, “It should have been half an hour shorter”. It’s been a long while since I saw that version, but about the only additional thing I remember is the sequence where the expedition are attacked by a slew of over-sized bugs, which is the stuff of nightmares. Legend says a similar sequence in the original movie was removed after it proved too traumatic for preview audiences.
I can only imagine, because what’s in here is very much pre-Code, with cuts being required from the film for subsequent re-releases. There is surprisingly explicit and shocking footage of Kong chewing down on victims like they were a Slim Jim, or pausing and quite deliberately crushing them under his giant feet. It’s not the only one, with a brontosaur also defying paleontological efforts to label it a vegetarian. Then, of course, you’ve got the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow (Wray), who is worth six native women, according to the tribal chief. Though I’m not quite with film-maker Carl Denham, when he proclaims Ann, “The bravest girl I have ever known.” There’s a better argument for Ann being the first scream queen: Wray has quite the pair of lungs on her. And uses them. Often.
What it does share with Jackson, is a fairly languid first half. It’s over forty minutes in before Kong is first glimpsed, and to be honest, it’s not up to much. You’re watching the largely unconvincing chemistry between Ann and ship’s first mate, Jack Driscoll (Cabot). This goes from him proclaiming women on ships “a nuisance” – nowadays, he would just be gay – to them making kissy-face, in concerningly short order. That’s just before she gets abducted by the Skull Island natives, which feels like a better lifestyle choice, to be honest. Although I’m fairly sure there’s no actual Indonesians among them. Still, one dark-skinned furriner speaking oogah-boogah is much the same as another, right?
I have to say, once Kong shows up, it’s a whole different movie. I was genuinely impressed by far more of the effects than I expected. Not in a “Aw, isn’t that adorable?” way, either. It is likely a case where watching the film in less than BluRay-quality – downloaded from the Internet Archive quality, to be specific – probably helped, blurring the edges a bit. But considering how this kind of thing had rarely been attempted before, particularly not in this volume, they knock it out of the park. I think the stop-motion Kong perhaps works even better than the large, animatronic version, which to quote Chris, “looks a bit pervy.” It certainly doesn’t have the same range of motion.
I was particularly surprised by the way footage of the live actors were mixed in with the stop-motion footage. Really, I’ve seen modern movies that do a much worse job in this area. It’s a constant barrage as well, with hardly a scene not including some kind of effects shot. I particularly loved the battle between Kong and the T-Rex, and it’s no wonder that Willis O’Brien’s credit in the opening credits is so prominent. Amusingly, Schoedsack and Cooper are credited only as producers, not as directors. Nobody officially directed this. I guess they all forgot in the excitement, though I can’t blame them. Once things get going here, there’s hardly a pause for breath, or to notice that Kong might not be entirely consistent in his size.
Then we get to the finale (above), which remains a classic of its kind. Again, I was more than satisfied by the effects work here, and I suspect most viewers would be able to buy into the concept. I will argue with Denham’s famous final line: “It was beauty killed the beast.” I suspect being riddled by large-caliber machine-guns, followed by a plummet from somewhere over a thousand feet up, were probably significant factors. Mind you, even back on Skull Island, Denham and his team clearly never met a large animal they didn’t want to shoot, without so much as a yell of “It’s coming right for us!” I guess we’re probably about ten years from it being time for another remake. It’ll have to go some to improve on the original.
This article is part of our October 2025 feature, 31 Days of Vintage Horror.