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King Kong (1933)
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Our DVD Price: £5.99 RRP: 
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Film Description
One of the all-time great monster movies - and also a poignant parable on 'civilized' man. An expedition to the jungle finds a giant ape (who takes a shine to Fay Wray); they knock it out and take it back to America to display. There's plenty to enjoy - Willis O'Brien's innovative animation work, Max Steiner's perfectly matched score, and there is also a genuinely tragic edge as it reveals all too clearly the depressingly familiar ways human beings deal with the unknown.
Film Information
| Director | Ernest B. Schoedsack / Merian C. Cooper | ||||
| Starring | Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Fay Wray
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| Genre | Classic Film
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| Country | USA | Language | English | Year | 1933 |
DVD Extras
Digitally remastered; King Kong 2005 trailer.
Technical Details
| Certificate | PG | Length | 96 mins | Label | UPV | ||
| Cat No | 8237617 | Format | DVD | Black & White | |||
| Region | 2 | Aspect | 1.33:1 | ||||
8 Stills
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Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review
Review by Dan Hunter on 21st October 2005
The set-up is from an era before cinematic cynicism took hold. Carl Denham - daring film director, has a ship sitting in the harbour, packed with gas grenades and rifles and manned by a tough crew. Unbeknown to them, their destination is Skull Island - a mysterious location rumoured to be where the legendary 'Kong' may live.
King Kong wouldn't be the film it is without Willis O' Brien's superb effects sequences. The beautifully constructed shots cleverly arrange the stop-motion monsters and humans in revealing wide-angle scenes. The results are great postcard-like compositions of huge beasts with little squirming people about to be eaten.
Kong himself is a burly wrestler, dumb yet caring, foreshadowing Lenny from Of Mice and Men. After an action-packed two-thirds, he's captured and taken to New York to be used in a money-spinning, Broadway fright show. Enraged by the flashing lights of the paparazzi, he escapes into the city. In a way that no modern monster film has managed, when Kong is at large the city changes - it becomes alien, a little play-set for the giant ape. We begin to see civilisation from his terms and recognise his frustrated rage, sending him up the tall buildings struggling to find an escape. With new empathy, we begin to cheer for him. But to no avail - in a truly heartbreaking sequence he struggles for his life and falls dead to the city streets.
King Kong is of pensionable age - it was made in 1933, but it's quick-witted, exhilarating, moving and visually beautiful. In other words, an absolute classic.
View more reviews by Dan Hunter
Review by Julian Upton on 12th September 2001
After a slow start, it's quite remarkable just how action-packed the second half of King Kong is. The stop-motion spectacle of the monster may look endearingly primitive now, but it is worth remembering that the special effects here were not really bettered for thirty years, and the film's influence is still apparent in modern fantasy blockbusters. In addition, the humanity and care behind Kong's model work holds considerably more charm than a lot of today's computer-generated imagery.
View more reviews by Julian Upton
Article - "The Hollywood Studio System in the 1930s"
by David Parkinson
Thursday 8th May 2008
The Americans didn't invent the studio system, but they certainly made the most effective use of it. Primarily headed by ‘moguls’ of European descent, the Hollywood studios were divided into five ‘majors’, three ‘minors’ and the various independents and B-hives on Po... View article in full
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