King Kong -- 1933 -- NR

This film was an array of clever special effects, especially in combining live action with maquette stop motion animals.

The story follows a filmmaker who has a map leading him to a secret island. Once there, his star is kidnapped and given to an overgrown ape. 

Kong, himself, is portrayed as a monster and is hardly playing the "beauty and the beast" storyline they tried to imply. Ann was constantly afraid of him throughout the film. There was really no connection between them as she screamed EVERY SINGLE TIME she saw him. There was a romantic subplot between Ann and Driscoll, but it seemed to move too fast to be very believable. I understand WHY it moved that fast, but it didn't help. 

Other things that were a bit of a bother: Jack Driscoll managed to climb down a vine and just the right time: right before everyone died, saving himself alone...and then Denham reveals he escaped too. How? So it seems the main characters are allowed miraculous, if a bit unfeasable, escapes. Jack and Ann take this leap off a high, high, high cliff and manage to survive their dunk into the river...about 6 inches from the cliff side -- sorry, folks, there'd be rocks there. And of course, Ann Darrow was cool with running through the jungle barefoot.

The final determiation of the film was that "beauty killed the beast." That is really hard to swallow in this version of the film. 

These are more or less nitpicky things in a film that delivers a horrific monster story with cutting edge special effects (for 1933), and it is likely the plot was crafted around delivering these effects. I will grant, however, that the film was fun to watch, easy to follow, and had its share of great moments. Kong on the Empire State Building is a legendary shot. For at least the sake of momumental films in history, I recommend.

Mystery of the Wax Museum -- 1933 -- NR

An early horror film that used a new color technique that looked really good for its time. This film had a decent plot, a good premise, and good acting. 

The lead female is a brash reporter and she's almost too direct for my taste, not so much acting as she is just spouting out the lines like a little robot. Her final decision in the picture came out of no where and made no sense. I all for twists, but this had absolutely no setup. Her roommate and friend is played by Fay Wray, who was Ann Darrow in King Kong from the same year. Her character, however, was very, very thin as was most of the characters in the film -- a testament to the sheer number we had to relate to to survive the picture. There are other characters, but really too many to try and keep track of, and the 77 minute run time of the film didn't allow us to get close to any of them. The 1953 version of the film made a wise move to combine many of the characters, thereby reducing the number we had to know. 

Other than that one rather large deficiency, everything else was fine. The plot worked pretty well in taking us on a journey through this horrific little idea. The characters did do their jobs in leading us, though some of their decisions seemed to serve the plot than themselves. 

At one point, the direction seemed to have a minor issue where a conversation was shot from one side of the pair talking and then the other, a directorial no-no. Odd, since this director had about 90 films under his belt, and he would go on to direct films like Casablanca and White Christmas. Maybe the editor stuck the film in backwards.

So, from a histroical perspective, it wasn't a bad film. The color and sets were wonderful and it had some good acting. We needed more the 77 minutes though due to the bulk of characters we needed to meet, and it just wasn't long enough.