The riview film of King Kong

“King Kong”

An Edgar Wallace Film Fantasy

This film of Edgar Wallace’s, which comes to the Coliseum on Monday, has at least the courage of its spectacular convictions. It has made up its mind to pile a Pelion of sensation on an Ossa of the ridiculous and, in spite of its many bad moments, there is something impressive about its grim determination to be “a mighty screen fantasy.” We are invited to assume that in some unexplored island there lives a gigantic ape and that an expedition under the leadership of a director of jungle films sets out to photograph it. Because the public seems to be fond of romance, a girl is taken with them to act the part of the heroine—the crew should have remembered what Captain Hook had to say about the luck that attended a ship when a woman was aboard—and a pleasant time of it she has.

After being kidnapped by natives, she is offered up as a sacrifice to Kong, who turns out to be the ape, but instead of that being, as one might suppose, the end of her adventures, it is merely the beginning. No sooner does Kong carry her off than he is attacked by a multitude of creatures which belong to a more fantastic world than Tenniel ever conceived in Alice in Wonderland. The screen is full of bellowings, roarings, strivings and writhings; pythons, eagles, to say nothing of what a member of the expedition sagely points out are pre-historic beasts, take part in a kind of grand scale all-in wrestling match, the astounding upshot of which is that the girl is ultimately rescued and is able to announce, after one small drink from a very large flask, that she is “quite all right.”

“How happy and satisfactory an ending,” thinks the audience, gathering together its coats and hats, but the film is in actual fact only half over, for what does the enterprising photographer do but reduce the ape to unconsciousness with gas-bombs and convey his prize to New York? He ought to have known better, for although outsize apes can stand a good deal, they cannot stand the sight of the girl who has been sacrificed to them parading in evening dress in front of the stand where they are on exhibition. As any self-respecting, outsize ape would, he bursts his chains, and New York is in for a reign of terror compared with which revolutions or air-raids are child’s play. Skyscrapers are kicked down, trains torn in two, and altogether the ape thoroughly enjoys himself without forgetting that his principal concern is with the girl. He climbs to the top of the tallest building he can find with her and then is shot at and killed by most unsportsmanlike aeroplanes. Just before he dies, however, there is a sentimental look in his eye as he touches the girl’s hand which foreshadows an even greater shock than all the many shocks the audience has had to face. And so it happens. A chief of police, looking at the ape’s dead body, remarks in effect, “Well, the aeroplanes killed him alright,” to which the photographer replies “No, it wasn’t the aeroplanes—it was beauty”—a sentiment which sets the precise and perfect crown upon an astonishing film.

Some of the “trick” photography, and films of this kind are very dependent on trick photography, is bad, but some is definitely good, and the director has succeeded up to a point in stifling that laughter which comes from even the most unsophisticated when reason is knocked so violently and effectively unconscious. Miss Fay Wray and Mr. Robert Armstrong are in the cast, but the real hero is the ape, who rolls his eyes, roars, and gnashes his teeth with a violence and abandon which are delightfully in accord with the spirit of the whole film.

Source: The Times [http://www.the-times.co.uk/]