Original 'King Kong' coming to Pittsburgh area theaters on Sunday

Paul Guggenheimer
Tuesday, March 10, 2020 6:14 p.m. | Tuesday, March 10, 2020 6:14 p.m.

Courtesy of Fathom Events/TCM Big Screen Classics

A scene from the original “King Kong” (1933). Here, the not-so-gentle giant is being presented in a Broadway theater as “Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World.”

That big film star “King Kong” is coming to a big screen near you.

The original movie version of the story of the giant monster premiered this week in 1933. To celebrate the occasion, Turner Classic Movies is presenting “King Kong” on Sunday in theaters around the country — including three in the Pittsburgh area, as part of TCM’s Big Screen Classics series.

“King Kong” will be shown at 1 p.m. at SouthSide Works Cinema, and 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. at Cinemark Monroeville Mall and Cinemark Robinson. It’s a one-day event.

Most monster-movie fans can remember the first time they saw the original black-and-white version of “King Kong,” but most likely it was on TV on a show like “Chiller Theatre.” This will be the first opportunity for many, even baby boomers, to see the film the way its producers intended.

Full-color remakes of the movie were produced for release in 1976, 2005 and 2017, and that’s not including the Japanese versions. But most critics still consider the 1933 original the best, even with the technological limitations of the time.

The “King Kong” character was the brainchild of filmmaker Merian C. Cooper, who produced the original film version. In the book “Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong,” author Mark Cotta Vaz states that Cooper became fascinated by gorillas at the age of 6.

As an adult he was making a film in Africa and came in contact with a family of baboons. The encounter inspired him to make a movie about primates. In the process of creating “King Kong,” Cooper described a “gigantic semi-humanoid gorilla.”

In reality, Kong was an 18-inch puppet. A special-effects team built a giant head, arms, hands and feet for close-up shots. The effects featured the pioneering use of stop-motion animation. That, and the extremely effective sound effects, brought the monster to life.

There were even fight scenes in which Kong battled dinosaur-sized reptiles. The climax includes Kong, on a rampage in New York, climbing to the top of the Empire State Building with his love interest Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) for a thrilling climax. Reportedly, Cooper conceived this scene first.

Nearly 90 years ago, when the film made its debut, there had never been anything like it and audiences were blown away.

Since then “King Kong” has become an indelible movie monster and the inspiration for generations of celluloid creatures.