If you’re not familiar with the story of King Kong then you probably need to get out more because it has been made three times on a major motion picture level. The first came in 1933, the second in 1976 and the last in 2005. Out of all three of these the 1933 still rings true as the best of the bunch. What’s even cooler is that the other two couldn’t have looked so good without the 1933 version introducing stop motion inside of a feature film for the first time.
The story was epic as a film crew goes to explore exotic lands only to find trouble in a very mysterious island (Skull Island). While there they find a tribe that captures and offers up the leading lady (Fay Wray) to a large gorilla named Kong. Anxious to make money, the crew captures Kong and brings him back to New York to show him off to the good people of America. Regretfully, caged animals tend to fight their way out of trapped situations and Kong soon lays down a path of destruction to the good city of New York. In the end, the beast climbs the Empire State Building, with the leading lady in hand, and finds that he is no match for man’s armed airplanes.
What’s great about this film is that it creates such wonderful locales in soundstages and features very exotic animals (such as dinosaurs and spiders) in stop motion. For 1933, an ailing time in America’s budget, this was an amazing feat. It also features potentially one of the saddest endings and greatest lines in a film, “…it wasn’t the airplanes that killed him, it was beauty that killed the beast.”This is the definitive example of a classic film in regards to how it was made, what came out of it and what it meant for films today.
Regardless how you feel about this film, you have to appreciate the methods in which it was made and how well the stop motion was incorporated into live-action; that was something completely unheard of at that particular time and it had a tremendous impact on movie goers. This alone makes it stand out in film history and certainly defines the very moment where special effects were born on a major feature film (though, I do know that special effects were incorporated in other films prior, it was still a gamble for RKO to put such faith in an untested method such as stop motion).
The Blu-ray portion of this film stands out more than any classic film that I’ve seen on Blu-ray from Warner Home Video. Folks, it’s a 1933 film that has been shown over and over again across decades. The film was scratched to death and had to pass through God knows how many people’s hands. Still, Warner has taken the footage and cleaned it up and upscaled it to HD successfully. You won’t see artifacts, scratches or anything other than the stop motion, acting and black and white picture that gives away how old this film truly is. This Blu-ray in comparison to other classics that Warner has released is probably the best one so far. Considering how much it had going against it in terms of a clean-up job and age the end result was above and beyond what we’ve seen before in a film to Blu-ray transfer. It’s absolutely stunning how pretty it looks after all these years.
Now, with all of that said don’t go into King Kong thinking it’s going to look better than Seven on Blu-ray; it simply can’t live up to that level of quality. It’s too old, it was shot differently and on different film stock, so it’s unfair to have such high expectations. In the overall scheme of things it’s gorgeous though and much like if you were comparing the financial success of a film in the 50s versus a film in the 90s, you have to calculate and understand how pretty a 1933 film is on Blu-ray compared to more recent releases. Again, just simply stunning when you see it in 1080p.
Appreciation for the visuals aside, the special features are something to crow about as well. For any film teacher wanting to talk about the birth of stop motion, or special effects for that matter, you need only turn to the special features included with this film. While the commentary certainly won’t win any awards for ‘most interesting’, the real beef to this set is the seven-part documentary on the birth and finish of the entire RKO production. You even get a history of how the film was made and what it went through during the financial hardships of the time. You also get some great interviews with John Landis, Peter Jackson, Ray Harryhausen and Fay Wray. Each person offers some intelligent insight and history into the production of not only King Kong, but other films heading in that direction as well. Just a fantastic documentary as a whole and something that film teachers (and students) will appreciate.
Here’s a complete list of features:
– Commentary by Ray Harryhausen, Ken Ralston, w/ interview excerpts of Merian C. Cooper and Fay Wray
– I’m King Kong! The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper Profiles the Original King Kong’s Guiding Hand
– 7-Part Documentary
– Creation test footage with Ray Harryhausen commentary (HD)
– The Lost Spider Pit sequence (HD)
– Theatrical Trailer
While certainly a short list, the beef you get with one of these features is impressive. You’ll probably find the spider pit sequence pretty cool. It’s actually kind of a creepy sequence.
On top of all this you get a great information booklet that you’ve seen before in other Warner Home Video releases. It’s like having a book inside of a Blu-ray disc set. The pages are high quality and just as informative as the documentary set.