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WD_075/ 2004
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Drawings | | Medium: | crayon on paper | | Size (inches): | 11.5 x 8.2 | | Size (mm): | 297 x 210 | | Catalog #: | WD_075 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse.
Fay Wray, Beauty to Kong's Beast, Dies at 96
By THE NEW YORK TIMES 1:17 PM ET
The actress appeared in about 100 movies but her fame is inextricably tied to the hours she spent screaming in King Kong's hand.
-www.nytimes.com - UPDATED MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2004 8:32 PM ET.
Police Officer Lieutenant: Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.
Denham: Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.
-From "King Kong" (1933).
King Kong (1933):
The greatest and most famous classic adventure-fantasy (and part-horror) film of all time is King Kong (1933). Co-producers and directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (both real-life adventurers and film documentarians) conceived of the low-budget story of a beautiful, plucky blonde woman (Fay Wray) and a frightening, gigantic, 50 foot ape-monster as a metaphoric re-telling of the archetypal Beauty and the Beast fable. [Fay Wray mistakenly believed that her RKO film co-star, 'the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood,' would be Cary Grant rather than the beast. Later in her life, she titled her autobiography "On the Other Hand" in memory of her squirming in Kong's grip.]
~
The film begins with the title card from an Old Arabian Proverb:
And the Prophet said, 'And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.'
From the start of the picture, its clever screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose (based on a story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace) suggested the coming terror. The film was shot during the spring and summer of 1932 in the confines of the studio. Due to their limited budget for sets, Cooper and Schoedsack used the jungle locale from the latter's previous film The Most Dangerous Game (1932) - an adventure film that also starred Fay Wray. When released, it broke all previous box-office records. Its massive, money-making success helped to save RKO Studios from bankruptcy.
The following scenes for the 1938 re-release, that were excised by censors after the Production Code took effect in 1934, were restored in recent editions of the film:
* the Brontosaurus' killing of three victims (instead of five in the original)
* Kong's stripping/peeling of Fay Wray's clothing while holding her unconscious in his palm
* Kong's chewing of a New York victim and his drop of a woman from the Empire State Building
* the giant spider scene
~
Denham: Oh, you have gone soft on her, eh? I've got enough troubles without a love affair to complicate things. Better cut it out, Jack.
Driscoll: Love affair! You think I'm gonna fall for any dame?
Denham: I've never known it to fail: some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy.
Driscoll: Now who's goin' sappy? Listen, I haven't run out on ya, have I?
Denham: No, you're a pretty tough guy, but if Beauty gets you, ya...(He breaks his train of thought and turns away with a self-deprecating smile.) Huh, I'm going right into a theme song here.
Driscoll: Say, what are you talkin' about?
Denham: It's the idea of my picture. The Beast was a tough guy too. He could lick the world. But when he saw Beauty, she got him. He went soft. He forgot his wisdom and the little fellas licked him. Think it over, Jack.
~
Denham: A wall...built so long ago that the people who live there have slipped back, forgotten the higher civilization that built it. That wall is as strong today as it was centuries ago. The natives keep that wall in repair. They need it.
Driscoll: Why?
Denham: There's something on the other side of it, something they fear.
Captain: A hostile tribe.
Denham: Did you ever hear of...Kong?
Captain: Why, yes. Some native superstition isn't it? A god or a spirit or something?
Denham: Well anyway, neither Beast nor man. Something monstrous. All powerful. Still living. Still holding that island in a grip of deadly fear. Well, every legend has a basis of truth. I tell you, there's something on that island that no white man has ever seen.
Captain: And you expect to photograph it?
Denham: If it's there, you bet I'll photograph it.
Driscoll: Suppose it doesn't like having its picture taken?
Denham: Well, now you know why I brought along those cases of gas bombs.
~
Denham: Wait a minute. What about Kong?
Driscoll: Well, what about him?
Denham: We came here to get a moving picture, and we've found something worth more than all the movies in the world.
Captain: What!
Denham: We've got those gas bombs. If we can capture him alive.
Driscoll: Why you're crazy! Besides that, he's on a cliff where a whole army couldn't get at him.
Denham: Yeah, if he stays there. But we've got something he wants (looking at Ann.)
Driscoll: Yep, something he won't get again.
~
Denham: Well, the whole world will pay to see this.
Captain: No chains will ever hold that.
Denham: We'll give him more than chains. He's always been King of his world. But we'll teach him fear! We're millionaires, boys, I'll share it with all of you. Why, in a few months, it'll be up in lights on Broadway: 'Kong - the Eighth Wonder of the World!'
~
Denham: That licks us.
Driscoll: There's one thing we haven't thought of.
Police Officer: What?
Driscoll: Airplanes. If he should put Ann down, and they could fly close enough to pick him off without hitting her...
Police Officer: You're right, planes...
~
In the final scene on the street's pavement below, next to Kong's lifeless body that is sprawled there with blood trickling from his mouth, Denham pushes his way through the police cordon to examine the massive, crushed body of the fallen monster: "Let me through, officer, my name's Denham...Lieutenant, I'm Carl Denham." He corrects the police officer lieutenant who claims he knows what killed Kong. Rather than the 'airplanes' - a symbol of civilization, Denham states what finally 'killed the Beast.' He shakes his head and replies with relish, in a classic line, the final line of the film:
Police Officer Lieutenant: Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.
Denham: Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.
-www.filmsite.org
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