PreambleAs I've mentioned before, I love checking out older movies that have been remastered on my 4k projector - often the movies are revelatory. Sometimes they are .... surprising. King Kong from 1933 definitely fits in the latter category for me.
HaikuWe start off with a director looking to make his next big splash by going to film on an unexplored island, Skull Island to be exact:
![](https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/kingkong/images/7/7a/Carl_Denham_1933.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150617032946&path-prefix=en)
He finds his leading lady literally on the street and somehow manages to convince a beautiful woman to jump on a ship with a strange dude promising her fame and fortune (were people that naive back in the day? Apparently so). She falls in love with a seaman almost immediately:
![](http://images.static-bluray.com/reviews/3318_4.jpg)
They get to Skull Island and we see our first set of black people - wow, what a savage people (at this point I'm like, 'seriously, are they really presenting all the white people as civilized and all the black people as savages?' Why yes, yes they are):
![](http://www.alleycatscratch.com/movie/kong/1933/Natives/KK33_096.jpg)
What do they do? The black savages immediately kidnap the white woman:
![](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b3/57/78/b3577807aeb1f14ff268ed3cd331f895--king-kong--fay-wray.jpg)
Now, if you've seen Birth of a Nation, you might be like 'wow, those natives look shockingly close to the blackface makeup used in that film'. Well you ain't seen nothin' yet - here's Kong, who is clearly a variation of traditional black face:
![](http://horrornews.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/King-Kong-1933-photo-5-400x300.jpg)
Of course the big black brute immediately steals the white woman! And she's terrified of this big black brute:
![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/41/e6/ce/41e6cebda80d9218951f1284169a6eab.jpg)
There are some cool fights that take place:
![](https://horrorpediadotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/dino.jpg)
Soon, Kong is subdued and is transported to America in chains. In chains! Like a slave. Good lord things can't get much more on-the-nose:
![](http://dailygrindhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/kong-on-stage.jpg)
Then Kong escapes and re-captures Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) from where? From her bedroom. Not just that, but the big black brute literally invades her bed. Seriously, you can't make this sh!t up:
![](http://www.rouge.com.au/images/8/kong/2.jpg)
Then there's the final fight, which I have to admit is pretty damn cool:
![](http://i.cdn.turner.com/v5cache/TCM/Images/Dynamic/i344/kingkong1933.2690_091720141007.jpg)
And of course at the end the nice white couple is finally reunited:
ConclusionWow, this was a really shocking movie for me. I went in expecting something along the lines of The Mummy or Dracula or The Wolfman, etc.... What I got in fact was one of the most racist movies I've seen outside of Birth of a Nation. Shameful.