A_Different_Drummer Review of King Kong

King Kong (1933)

We're genetically programmed to dismiss the 1930s...

[10/10 · 11 December 2013]

But the hard cold fact is that while the inevitable remakes have come and gone, this black and white, pre-CGI original remains one of the greatest films of its kind and even today has a better chance of mesmerizing an audience OF ANY AGE than any of the slam-bang thank-you-mam pyrotechnics that pass for quality entertainment in our era. THE SETUP IS ASTONISHING. Talk about your cinematic foreplay! Before any actor in this film ever sets foot on Skull Island, the audience is totally creeped out by the mists, the tall tales, the rumours, the strange goings-on shipboard... by the time we actually see Kong, it is almost anti-climactic. And this was the first film to fully develop the idea of transposing the "beauty and the beast" story to modern horror. What does that ape see in Fay Wray? What does she see in him? That 10,000 cartoonists have redone the final "skyscaper" sequence gives new meaning to "iconic." Un-equalled. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))