All Hail the King

In the genre of Creature/Monster movies, perhaps none is more famous than the legendary King Kong.

Everyone knows the classic King Kong story of director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) hiring an unsuspected Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) to star in his latest exotic feature. Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), the handsome first mate of the ship Denham has hired suspects Denham is up to something, at the same time falling in love with the beautiful Darrow. When they come to the exotic island, Ann is used as bait to attract the monstrous Kong, and they bring the creature back to New York City. When Kong is put on display to be gaped at and entertain the wealthy citizens of New York, Kong breaks free, taking Darrow, and taking his climactic climb up to the top of the Chrysler Building, the tallest tree in the largest urban jungle of the world. When Kong is shot down, the audience starts to wonder who is more the monster: Kong or modern man. The last line of the film, "It was beauty killed the beast", speaks volumes as to its intent.

Perhaps the old claymation and inconsistency in Kong's size through the course of the film is very prevalent to modern audiences, but we must keep in mind that this is the movie from 1933, before the use of CGI and computer animation as in the recent version of the film by Peter Jackson. An article by AmericanHeritage.com details how King Kong is "the greatest special-effects movie was made with the simplest technology". If you want to know more about the amazing special effects used in this movie to create the monstrous Kong in the same frames as the actors, I would recommend reading this article which fully explores the filmography and effects used to make this movie one of the most memorable ever made.

In modern times, King Kong may not seem as relevant as it once did, especially considering the original audience had members running shrieking from the theatres in the fear that Kong would leap off the screen and abduct them too. Of course, any history of film is incomplete without exploring the effects King Kong had on film both in the time and its evolution to the medium it is today. Without the influence of the effects in King Kong, we would not have the techniques used in Star Wars or Jurrasic Park and creating the creature movie culture, enabling such films as The Blob and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

If you're a big King Kong fan, I recommend going to Kong is King.com, which bills itself as the ultimate Kong fansite, devoting itself to every aspect of the movie. If you're just a buff of creature movies and want to know more about Kong or any of his others monstrous companions, I would go to Silent Movie Monsters, which devotes itself to everything creature. Ultimately, everyone should see King Kong just to have the cultural experience of viewing the 1933 classic. Love it, hate it, or watching it again just for the laughs, Kong manages to remain culturally significant, even seventy years after it first was shown on the silver screen.

The Queens of Scream

Today I would like to do a tribute to those women who help make the horror film what it is with their terrifying high-pitched banshee screams, loud enough to split our ears in the theatre yet somehow not loud enough to actually reach the ears of people that can help them. I would like to pay tribute to the Hollywood Scream Queen. Without the high volume wails and sometimes overacted "damsel and distress" methods of these women, Hollywood movies would not be as terrifying.

The only place I can think to begin is with Hollywood's oldest and perhaps most famous Queen of Scream, the lady herself, Fay Wray. Most famous as the screaming blonde in the original King Kong, Fay Wray echoed in our ears with her shrill cries of terror and earned herself the title of "The Queen of Scream". Fay Wray created the Scream Queen stereotype and ever after, each woman in a horror film always seems to fall short of Fay's performance.

There are many other noted Scream Queens who came after Fay Wray as stars of some of the Golden Age's most celebrated horror films. Elsa Lanchester starred in the title role of the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein, perhaps her most famous part, and created the cult image of the monster's bride with long pointed, streaked white hair. The illustrious career of actress Gloria Stuart included a screamingly good role in the 1933 production of The Invisible Man. Any 50s B-movie fan appreciates the work of Allison Hayes, the star of such films as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Undead, The Disembodied, Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly, The Hypnotic Eye, and The Crawling Hand.

Hillary Brooke is the Scream Queen who appeared alongside comedic geniuses Abbot and Costello in such movies as Africa Screams and was a regular on their show, as well as one a few Sherlock Holmes movies and in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. A famous Hitchcock Blonde and one of the most famous Scream Queens is none other than Janet Leigh, who will forever be remembered for her paralyzing shower scene in Psycho. Of course, Hitchcock's slew of screaming starlets belong in a category all their own.

Love them or hate them, Scream Queens play an essential part in making a horror movie what it is. No matter if their screams echo your own or are just plain over the top, Scream Queens and horror films go hand in hand.