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Dec 16, 2014TwilightBlue rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet King Kong - The 8th Wonder of the World! (And, like, don't he know it!) Even though 1933's King Kong (filmed in b&w) is now eighty years old and its visual effects and stop-motion animation may be a bit too creaky and dated for the jaded viewer of today, this classic Fantasy/Adventure film is, by far, still about ten times more thrilling and entertaining than its two remakes put together. In this unforgettable "Beauty and the Beast" story, Kong, of course, gets plenty of opportunity to pulverize any man, woman, or prehistoric beast who might happen to get in his way, causing him to be separated, for even a minute, from his new-found love, Ann Darrow. As far as being entertainment from the early 1930s, King Kong was, surprisingly enough, actually very graphic in the overall presentation of its violence and destruction. There were a number of scenes, shot in close-up, where Kong purposely stepped down on one, or two, of Skull Island's natives and, with them screaming out in pain, literally, ground them into the mud with his gigantic foot. Needless to say, King Kong's final sequence filmed on top of NYC's Empire State Building, with the Chrysler Building seen not far off in the background, is an image that has managed to firmly cement itself into that fantastic, awe-inspiring realm that we all call "cinema folklore".