King Kong is one of the most famous monster motion pictures in film history. The movie was released in 1933 and remains a classic adventure story and a masterpiece of animation and trick photography.
The title of the film is the name given to a giant ape called Kong who lives on a remote island. An American film producer leads an expedition to capture the animal and return it to New York City to be put on exhibition. After violent confrontations on the island between the ape and the film crew, the Americans capture Kong and transport him to New York City. There he escapes and goes on a destructive rampage through the city.
King Kong is actually a variation of the fairy tale about Beauty and the Beast. The ape falls in love with a young woman who accompanies the expedition to the island. On the island, Kong saves the woman from attacks by prehistoric animals. In New York, he kidnaps her and carries her to the top of the Empire State Building, where he is killed by fighter airplanes. The film producer in the movie observes, “It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.”
In King Kong, Fay Wray played the young woman, and Robert Armstrong played the film producer. The co-directors were Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. Willis H. O’Brien supervised the film’s highly praised special effects.
King Kong was remade several times. The most notable remakes were an updated version, released in 1976, and a version that followed the original film, released in 2005. King Kong battles the famous dinosaurlike monster Godzilla in the movies King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021).
