The Movie
A movie about the discovery of--and battles against--a giant ape can't help but speak to the child in all of us. I fondly remember watching King Kong every Thanksgiving on the old WOR Channel 9, but surely such an elaborate production wasn't just for the kids. Kong was in fact a phenomenon, treating 1933 audiences young and old to marvels like they had never seen, and going on to inspire generation upon generation of filmmakers.
It's the story of a maverick producer who takes his latest project on location all the way to the remote Skull Island, where a fabled beast is said to make its home. He and his game leading lady, Ann (the incomparable Fay Wray), find the monstrous yet curiously sympathetic "Kong," but must trek through a treacherous jungle if they hope to survive. Eventually, a defeated Kong is brought back to New York City and put on display, where his affections for Ann, and an ill-advised visit to the top of The Empire State Building, are ultimately his undoing.
This is the 104-minute cut of the film from 1933, including a four-minute musical overture.
The Picture
Much time and effort was invested just a few years ago in restoring the 4:3, black-and-white original film to its former glory, for the DVD release. For high-def, the movie is presented with an extremely high bitrate, well into the 30s and occasionally topping 40 megabits-per-second. The image is soft however, and noisy and grainy, with an unfortunate twitch in several shots. It doesn't fare well in scenes of fog, either, which take on the appearance of swarms of mosquitoes across the frame. Some of the special effects still hold up quite well, some not, and blacks are often quite good, inky and detailed, while some peculiarities in the original focus are maintained. But this is allegedly a brand-new high-definition master, so I must admit my disappointment.
The Sound
King Kong is given a true representation of its original mono soundtrack, remastered for DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0. The quality is okay, the dialogue clear enough, the various sound effects easily discernible. As we should expect I suppose, the dynamic range and frequency response are quite limited: Don't listen for any high highs or low lows, because we won't find any.
The Extras
All of the supplements have been ported over from the 2005 special edition DVD. Audio commentary is supplied by legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen and modern special effects maven Ken Ralston, recorded together, both tremendous fans. Edited in are archival interviews with star Fay Wray and producer/director Merian C. Cooper.
The seven-part "RKO Production 601: The Making of King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World (159 minutes) assembles a who's-who of Hollywood talent to celebrate every aspect of the movie, and beyond. The Lost Spider Pit Sequence shows the meticulously reconstructed footage, recreated by some big-name filmmakers, edited back into the film, since the original deletions have never been found (six minutes total).
Five minutes of Creation Test Footage reveals some early animation from an uncompleted film by Kong's effects genius Willis O'Brien, narrated here by Harryhausen. And the documentary "I'm King Kong! The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper" (57 minutes) introduces viewers to this genuinely fascinating character. Video for all of the bonuses is a modest bitrate VC-1, somewhere between SD and HD quality.
Final Thoughts
I don't say this a lot, but short of the cute little book that King Kong comes packaged in (some of the contents of which has been previously seen), there's really not a compelling reason to pick up this new edition. There's nothing truly new, and it doesn't do much to exploit current Blu-ray technology.
Product Details
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