“If it isn’t true that Dino De Laurentiis, John Guillermin, and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (the producer, director, and screenwriter of the 1976 King Kong, respectively) actively never liked the 1933 film, it’s pretty clear that they thought it was broken and needed to be fixed. And the “solutions” they have provided for the “problems” of King Kong ’33 are almost all the most grievous no-scare-quotes problems with the film: the depiction of Ann Darrow, now Dwan, and gender and race politics by extension; the repurposing of the voyage to oil exploration and repositioning of the Carl Denham character to professional mustache twirling; and that guy in that ape suit.
“I was going to write about all three, but the first issue is so monstrous that it ate the other two. What has been done to the heroine in this film makes me prone to hyperbole and paroxysms of rage. The bottom line problem, that which I think all other problems regarding Lange and her Dwan flow from, is a directorial decision that the idea of this giant ape running off with this woman, her kicking and screaming in fear, is hot. They think it’s sooooo sexy. And oh man, do they want you to think it’s sexy too. And the worse part is, I think they think it’s smart to think it’s sexy.” [Read more]
Read this and more in our first month at ThePotemkin.com. We look at King Kong, 20th Century, and all things March 1933.
We’re just getting started, so we’d be grateful if you’d check us out, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.
Next month, Shane, Glen or Glenda, Fear and Desire, Casino Royale (book), and all things April 1953. And we’ll try making a muleskinner, see how that goes. Maybe some johnnycakes.
















