King Kong [1933] (DVD)

King Kong [1933] (DVD) Description

Now you see it. Youre amazed. You cant believe it. Your eyes open wider. Its horrible, but you cant look away. Theres no chance for you. No escape. Youre helpless, helpless. Theres 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 ships first mate. King Kongs 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 century. Kong making his last stand atop the Empire State Building is one of the films most indelible and iconic images. --Donald Liebenson, .comOn the DVD: Although a little light on extras, this is happily the Directors Cut, restoring scenes that were censored after the films original 1933 run, including Kong peeling off Fay Wrays clothes like a banana, and our hirsute hero using unfortunate natives as dental floss. The ratio of 4:3 is correct for a film of this age; the picture and (mono) sound are perfectly acceptable without being revelatory. The 25-minute making of documentary from 1992 is a 60th anniversary tribute to the film, which details all of Kongs many ground-breaking contributions to cinema, from Willis OBriens use of stop-motion and rear projection effects to Max Steiners music score. There are contributions from film historians, modern admirers of the film including composer Jerry Goldsmith--who admits that Steiner created a template that Hollywood composers are still following--and a few surviving participants such as sound effects man Murray Spivak. Apparently, director Merian C. Coopers original idea was to capture live gorillas, transport them to the island of Komodo and film them fighting the giant lizards! Thanks to Willis OBriens pioneering effects work good sense prevailed and a cinema classic was born.