King Kong 1933

This is the original 1933 version of King Kong directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. "a beauty and the beast tale with an adventure-fantasy-horror angle." ( M. Enois Duarte, http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1842/kingkong1933.html). This film loosely potrays the same themes of Beauty and Beast, as the monstrous ape Kong falls in love with the beautiful Ann and protects her from any threat that occurs throughout. However Kong's love is seen as pocessive and that Ann belongs to him, therefore he does whatever it takes to break through all the restrictions of imprisonment and people trying to keep them apart to have her by his side.

The film also had a lot of constrasting themes such as the culture of the primitive tribe and prehistoric creatures compared to the busy and advancements of modern technology in Manhatten city.  "In the world of man, a mythical beast like Kong has no place. " (James Berardinelli, http://www.reelviews.net/movies/k/kong_33.html). This evidence indicates that on Skull Island, Kong was king of his surroundings and striked fear into the creatures and civillization that lived there but when he was taken to Manhatten, the situation changed because of Man's technology and advancements, Kong was merely a captive in a world he didn't understand. This also supports the theme of Man's technology dominating and killing nature.

The scenes of Skull Island showed a hidden prehistoric world and included forests, waterfalls, caves and primitive architecture that is similar of primitive tribes today that rely on the natural resources and refuse to evole with the advancements of technology that are believed to be killing our planet. The use of mist was effective to make the secnes appear ghostly and mysterious and helped to introduce a new dinosaur character and shock the characters and audience. The primitive tribe in the film see Kong as the god of the island and offer sacrifaces for protection, Carl also mentions the myth that 'Kong is a living god in the form of an animal', which again relates to relates to primitive cultures through history that believe in a  powerful symbol to help with their food, shelter and protection.  

There was a lot of sex references within the film depicted through the imagery of Kong as a big black man continously stroking and smelling the hair of Ann. "He is more human than human. Our history is filled with stories and parables about human-animal relationships. The animal is either posited as other or as brother. But King Kong was the first film to really show us the animal as a combination of both - ..." (Keith Breese, http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/1933/king-kong/). The evidence supports that the character of Kong is both a raging beast but also has the characteristics of a man which makes the audience see Kong's compassion and gentleness and they feel sorry for this character because he is seen as the terrifying monster. Another sex reference is the Empire State Building as a phalic object, which is more imagery of Kong's lust and his animal sexual attraction towards Ann. The film was the influence of big disaster movies such as Godzilla and Jurrasic Park but it was also one of the first films to give human characteristics to the monster so that it was familiar to the audience.