King Kong

“The Most Amazing Show On Any Screen ! Adventure to make you wonder if it’s TRUE . . . while your very eyes convince you that it IS!”~King Kong (1933)

IMDB Summary: A petroleum exploration expedition comes to an isolated island and encounters a colossal giant gorilla. (I like the redundancy.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%

Why I love it: It was the first scary movie I ever saw.

When I was super young I was lucky enough to have a father who loved classic horror movies. As lucky as having the same parents who let me Ding Dongs and drink Coke. Slasher flix and sugar—my two favorite things. I was probably four years old when we watched King Kong together. The 1933 King Kong. Best love story ever told.

At one point I had the email itwasbeautykilledthebeast@hotmail but it was too damn long and I let it go. So I just thought of some other hotmail addresses, all based on King Kong quotes:

[email protected] (not taken)

[email protected] (taken)

[email protected] (not taken)

[email protected] (taken)

[email protected] (taken)

There’s got to be a legitimate business opportunity here where a person can snatch up emails like .com addresses and sell them to interested parties. Like the guy who registered “donaldtrumpforpresident.com” like five years ago. Genius.

It always tickled my dad when he talked about the fact that the Skull Island natives built a wall to keep King Kong safely away from them in the jungle, but that wall had a Kong-sized door. I found a few possible explainations:

“Despite not making literal sense, the reason why the gates are in place is to strike awe into the audience and make the question and anticipate just what could pass through such gates and want to see Kong all the more. Sure, it doesn’t make sense as the natives fear Kong and wouldn’t want to let him in their homes but that’s beside the point. We could make up a number of explanations in that Kong’s ancestors had a mutually beneficial and friendly relationship with the natives and something went bad and now they fear Kong. It doesn’t matter as long as the spectacle is there.” ~rottentomatoes.com forum

And this: “My Hand Wavey, Pseudo Logical explanation: Before the wall, Kong wandered all over the island squashing islanders at random. The islanders built the wall to keep Kong trapped in one section, but construction took a long time and while that was happening the islanders had no way of knowing which side of wall Kong would be on they completed it, nor did they want him smashing the partially completed wall. Therefore, they built wall with an open gate that would allow Kong free to go back and forth. They only closed the gate after the rest of the wall was completed and King ahd been tricked into the side the islanders wanted him to be in.” ~rottentomatoes.com forum

Ann Darrow is my absolute favorite cinema character that shares my name. In a 1969 interview in The New York Times, Fay Wray said, “when I’m in New York, I look at the Empire State Building and feel as though it belongs to me, or is it vice-versa?” Two days after she died in her sleep of natural causes in 2004, the lights of the Empire State Building were extinguished for 15 minutes in her memory.

Next: Invasion of the Body Snatchers