Note: This is #6 of my 52 Classic Movies in 52 Weeks challenge for 2009.
When I popped in the original 1933 King Kong movie, I thought that this 52-in-52 project had finally brought me to some familiar ground: a genre movie. A big, special effects laden monster movie full of action and a giant ape who fights dinosaurs and possibly rides a giant motorcycle. And I guess I got that, it’s just unfortunate that King Kong was such a bad movie as to be almost unwatchable.
Of course, the story of the eponymous ape is pop culture touchstone for Americans, and most of us probably know the gist of the story: film director and thrill seeker Jack Denham and his crew travel to Skull Island in search of something really amazing for their next movie. There they find lots of danger, half of which is in the form of a giant ape named “Kong.” The beast absconds with the film’s leading lady, but through the heroics of the humans she’s rescued and a subdued Kong is hauled back to New York to be part of a a Broadway show. Only that doesn’t turn out well and there’s a big shootout atop the Empire State Building.
Right. Fine. Sounds like fun. And from what I’ve read the special effects (mostly stop motion model animation) were truly ground-breaking and amazing back in 1933. They’re laughably “bad” now, of course, with Kong and the other denizens of Skull Island looking more like a child’s toys having epileptic fits than menacing monsters. And I mean “laughably” literally here. There was this one gimmick that the film makers used where Kong would pop an innocent bystander into his mouth and chew. The camera would cut to a close up of a fake, expressionless Kong head whose jaw worked mechanically up and down on an actor who was sticking halfway out of the maw and gesticulating comically. They did this twice, and I couldn’t help laughing and shouting “OM NOM NOM!” at the screen each time.
Of course, judging special effects from the 1930s against today’s standards seems a bit unfair, and I get that. But the problem is that once you strip away the velour of King Kong’s special effects, there isn’t much else of merit there. The acting is simply atrocious most of the time, with pretty much all the actors delivering their lines like they’re seeing them for the first time at a cold table read. It’s wooden and painful, and there was no real spark or chemistry between any of them. The directors also seem to have this weird way of arranging the actors in a shot so that they were standing extremely close together.
Finally, what the movie seemed to get really wrong was that there was no relationship between Kong and Ann, the blonde woman whom he kidnaps. She’s really just a shiny object to him, and she spends the entire film being understandably terrified of him and screaming her lungs out. Kong is just a dumb animal, and this absence of empathy robs the audience of any potential pathos when Kong meets his end. He wasn’t misunderstood or tragic. He was just a marauding ape that had to be put down. This is one of several things that Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake vastly improved upon. That film had its problems, but it was a a MUCH better movie than the 1933 original in every way that didn’t involve just being the first to do something technically impressive.
Also, Jeremy reviewed Doubt (2008) this week.
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