Go Ape For the New Version of the Old Mighty Beast

King Kong: It’s a classic according to everyone, but what exactly makes it such? Find out for yourself this Sunday when, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the film, Film Forum will play a new 35mm cut of the beauty and the beast story. And despite its venerable age, King Kong still manages to impress as one of the highlights of classic genre filmmaking.

For those who haven’t seen the Peter Jackson-helmed remake (a good remake, though simply that), the story is quite simple: A filmmaker (Robert Armstrong) is determined to shoot his next film on a mysterious island he has found. He assembles a cast, led by the naïve Ann Darrow (a role made legendary by actress Fay Wray). When they reach the island, though, they find savage natives, dinosaurs, and of course, a giant beast. The beast is captured, brought back to New York, wrecks havoc, and has his final downfall from the Empire State Building.

To today’s overexposed mind, it sometimes may be hard to appreciate the special effects of King Kong. After all, to call them cheesy would be an understatement. But while watching the film yet again, the question suddenly occurred to me: How the hell did they put that together without computers? Working with 35mm film and creating effects is not an easy task, but somehow directors Merican C. Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack made flawless animatronics combine with real life people, almost 40 years before people even used the word computer.

The underlying sexual politics make the film even more curious. While Jackson’s remake makes the beast a sympathetic character, the original leaves everything to the interpretation of the audience. In the original, you might feel some sympathy for the giant beast, but certainly not in the way Jackson manipulates you to. Rather, Kong is a fascinating character because, no matter how much he tries to have Darrow, (whether fighting dinosaurs and planes), she will never come to love him. He is a much more tragic character, then, because his love is unreturned in the end. It’s ideas like this that make the original Kong (and other genre films) so classic: everything is in their subtext, and re-readings of these classics can always find something new (One interesting reading of Kong argued that it represents fears of interracial rape).

King Kong is a flick that originally created many classic moments that have been copied over and over, and does so in a classic genre format. Despite modern technology, this film continues to stand tall over other movies that borrow from its inimitable style. So even at 75 years old, King Kong is still the king of monster films.