The movie was originally called The Beast, then The Eighth Wonder. By the time it opened in New York on March 2, 1933, it was King Kong. A fantastic tale of a huge gorilla from Skull Island that runs amok in New York City, King Kong has come down the years as one of the world’s greatest movies and the precursor of today’s special-effects blockbusters. As The New York Times commented in 1933, it was “a remarkable example of the most up-to-date camera tricks … a series of multiple exposures, process shots, glass shots, miniatures and virtually everything that can be accomplished with a camera in a motionpicture studio.” Those “up-to-date camera tricks” may seem creaky in comparison to today’s digital work, but in its day King Kong set new standards for what could be done onscreen. And, for better or worse, it “pointed the way toward the current era of special effects, science fiction, cataclysmic destruction, and nonstop shocks,” in the words of the film critic Roger Ebert.

Not only did it launch a great tradition of special effects in the movies that has not yet ended, but even more than seven decades after its release, the movie still inspires filmmakers and audiences. “No film has captivated my imagination more than King Kong,” said Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings movies, when he announced that his next film would be a King Kong remake. His version opens in December 2005. “I’m making movies today because I saw this film when I was 9 years old,” he said. “It has been my sustained dream to reinterpret this classic story for a new age.” In June 2004 the British movie magazine Empire picked King Kong as the best movie monster ever. “Other pretenders try to dethrone him, but the lord of Skull Island tramples them all,” the magazine said.

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