His name was Kong.
In 1933, America had finally come to understand that the stock market crash of 1929 was not something the world was to recover from in a hurry. Hollywood was churning out musical revues one after the other to show off the new magic of sound, and people went to the movies as often as they could to try to forget their troubles for a while.
Documentary-maker Merian C. Cooper became enthralled with gorillas while shooting some film and turned his enthusiasm into an idea. He approached veteran writer Edgar Wallace to develop a script about a giant ape, but Wallace died before putting ink to paper. The task fell to James Creelman and Ruth Rose, the wife of Cooper's co-producer Ernst B. Schoedsack. Willis O'Brien was hired to bring the creation to life and the result is one of the finest science-fiction adventure classics in history.
The Eighth Wonder of the World - King Kong
For those who have somehow managed to miss seeing this enduring piece of the genre, the year is 1932. Daring documentary-maker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) needs a girl. No, not for that - to add a little sex-appeal to a film he plans to make on a tiny island "west of Sumatra" that has somehow been missed in the long history of man at sea. He stumbles on Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), starving and as eager for adventure as she is for a paying job.
Six weeks later, they reach the uncharted shores of the island where an ancient massive wall of stone isolates a single peninsula from the interior. Ann is kidnapped by the natives, who want a special sacrifice to offer their master - Kong. As she hangs suspended from columns of stone, the great ape appears, carrying her away into the misty jungles beyond the wall just as her rescuers arrive. They follow, battling dinosaurs and the terrain, until First Mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) rescues the woman he loves singlehandedly.
But Denham isn't satisfied with that. He demands that they capture Kong and return with him to New York. There, the great creature is exhibited to high society, chained to a great framework. Enraged by the glare of camera flashbulbs, he tears free and rampages through New York, ending up at the Empire State Building. Discovering Ann in one of the rooms there, he carries her to the very top, where he is finally brought down by a quartet of Navy biplanes.
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