NEW York’s most famous tourist of all time is turning 75 on Sunday.
We’re talking about King Kong, the 50-foot ape from the South Seas who tore down a piece of the old Sixth Avenue elevated subway line and perished at the foot of the Empire State Building after being shot down by Army planes.
All for the love of a blond actress played by Fay Wray.
When “King Kong” opened on March 2, 1933, the city was mired in the depths of the Great Depression. Things were so dire – 25 percent of the population was out of work – that the governor closed all of New York’s besieged banks a day earlier.
The film had its world premiere at Radio City Music Hall, and – in an unprecedented move – the long-gone RKO Roxy, a block south on Sixth Avenue at 49th Street. The two huge theaters, with a combined seating capacity of 10,000 seats, both showed “King Kong” with elaborate stage shows that the ads claimed featured “500 singers, dancers, entertainers.”
Despite mixed reviews – a critic for The Post wrote that “as a wild-eyed and occasionally cock-eyed spectacle, ‘King Kong’ is not as effective as it should have been” – there were lines around the block for sold-out shows.
“No money . . . yet New York dug up $89,932 in four days . . . to see ‘King Kong,’ setting a new all-time word’s record for attendance of any indoor attraction,” RKO, which was rescued from bankruptcy, boasted in another newspaper ad a few days later.
The story was the same across Depression-scarred America, with “King Kong” becoming the year’s most successful film, taking in just under $2 million on a $672,000 investment. The film had several successful reissues, the last major one in 1956 – after its much-watched debut on TV.
“King Kong,” which received no Oscar nominations, remains a staple while the film that won Best Picture for that year (“Cavalcade”) has long been forgotten. It has been remade twice (in 1976, with the climax moved to the World Trade Center, and, more faithfully, by Peter Jackson in 2005), but it’s the 1933 original that lingers in our collective memory.
Fay Wray, whose career went back to the silents, was distressed to find herself typecast in horror movies – while her “King Kong” screams were recycled for the benefit of other actresses with less vigorous lungs.
“I feel so sorry for Kong,” she told The Post in 2000, four years before her death at age 96. “I thought he was so touching. Oh, my goodness, I didn’t want him to be shot down. He had never done anything to hurt me.”
Film Forum (filmforum.org) is celebrating the anniversary Sunday with two showings of the film. A “Fay Wray scream-alike contest” will follow the 1 p.m. screening.
More at
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