Lovers of cinema and in particular of the perfidious (apparently) monkey will remember him in black and white, images that have become iconic. Who can forget King Kong climbing the tallest skyscraper in the world? The film was born from a story by the crime writer Edgar Wallace and directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack whose premiere was held on March 2, 1933, a film that made use of special effects by Willis O'Brien very convincing for those years. Pioneering stop motion effects. The colossal gorilla was an animatronic about 45 centimeters tall, with a steel skeleton covered with latex and rabbit fur that had to be, constantly, brushed to hide the mechanisms, animated with the technique of step one on the model of the city of New York. The film was followed by 'Son of King Kong' directed by Shoedsack, released with little success eight months after the first, and by two remakes, that of '76 with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange and 2005 of Peter Jackson with Andy Serkins in the role of the giant gorilla. The film made use of special effects that for the thirties were very convincing.

Kong in the first and iconic film of 1933 is worshipped as a god by the natives who live together with the huge monkey in Skull Island. When a film company directed by Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) arrives on the island, Kong falls in love with Ann Darrow, a young blonde actress, whom the natives offer him as a sacrifice and takes her with him inside the island to try to make her his companion. At first she tries to escape, but during the escape she is attacked by prehistoric monsters from which the gorilla will save her. Later Kong is captured by the film crew to be shown in circuses as an attraction, brought to the United States and exposed just as a circus animal, the monkey manages to free himself and in an attempt to reunite with his beloved Ann sows panic in New York.

(GettyImages)

USA, 1933, King Kong and the White Woman

Over the skies of New York, the US Air Force sends its planes against Kong, which in 1933 were biplanes. The monkey rescues the girl by shielding the bullets of the planes with her body; He manages to shoot down a plane but is then killed and falls from the skyscraper.
In the final scene, in front of his now lifeless body, to the policeman who tells him that the airplanes managed to kill the monster, Carl Denham counters with this sentence: "No, it was not them ... It was beauty that defeated the Beast." What beauty, that of Ann or that of bullets?

King Kong 90 years ago in New York grossed a record $90,000 in its opening weekend: a success that saved RKO Pictures from bankruptcy.