#41 - King Kong

This is another one of those movies that just kind of has to be on the list. Made in 1933, this special effects marvel has been heralded as a groundbreaking masterpiece for almost eighty years. But is this lofty reputation deserved?

The major thing that the film is heralded for is its use of special effects. A lot of people nowadays would say that the effects were primitive and you could obviously tell that this towering gorilla was not real. But I look at it from a different angle. I see this as more of an accomplishment than, say, "Avatar." When I was watching "Avatar," I knew that most of what I was seeing was done on some computer. But "King Kong" left me wondering with more of a "How-did-they-do-that?" factor. I legitimately do not know how they made King Kong interact with the other people. In this age of computers, the answer would be easy. But with more "primitive" technology, the answer is more elusive and perhaps more interesting.

But other than that, it's hard to see why the film has sustained such a healthy reputation for years. Fay Wray deserves credit, of course, for being the original "scream queen." She spends about half of her time in the movie just yelling out of fright.

But other than that, I was not altogether impressed with the story of a film crew that travels to the jungle and brings back "The Eighth Wonder of the World." They sensationalize him, creating a Broadway show with him starring, chained up. He gets loose, climbs the Empire State Building, you know the rest. Perhaps the story has become so well-known that it lost some of its original glitter.

It seemed to me like this movie was carried by its effects, which were amazing for 1933, four years after the stock-market crash. But I would have liked a better story, and maybe some characters that I could get more involved with, instead of just hearing them scream their heads off for an hour and a half. Call me crazy.