"He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilisation merely a captive, a show to gratify your curiosity," the director says to the vaudeville house, before a curtain goes up and we see Kong suspended with his arms nailed out, as if on a cross.

Self-reflection and satire of Hollywood is everywhere, which came as a great shock to me. There is a great subtext: the story is about a filmmaker who travels to overseas locations, such as jungles, to film his movies - he cares nothing for the cultures he may be violating, all he cares is capturing the spectacle on film. If he is unable to capture it on film, he tells us early on in the picture, he'll destroy it without a second thought. This is a film about the emptiness and recklessness of Hollywood, yet the satire is not bitter, but tongue-in-cheek in a way that follows James Whale's advice for putting subtexts in genre films, ie, not spoiling it for those viewers who don't "get the joke." So Kong can be enjoyed as a pure genre picture. The performances have false moments, but as an adventure picture it develops well, taking us gradually further towards the mystery of the legend of Kong, then follows Kong as the whole drama of his attempted capture plays out. The music also, is great, and along with mist and good cinematography helps create a mysterious atmosphere. The beginning is fairly talky, but it picks up. And the lovely Fay Wray offers reason enough to watch this on her own. If I was Kong, i know i'd beat the hell out of any dinosaur there was in order to protect her!

Luckily, King Kong came in the period between 1930 and 1934 when there was no production code in Hollywood, so content was not censored. A couple years later we wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing Fay Wray clad in a torn to shreds jungle jane costume, and especially not then falling in the water wearing said outfit! And probably not the degree of violence we have here: in one particular fight Kong has with T-rex he breaks the dinosaur's head by pulling its jaws so far open!

The vintage special effects are great. They're so fun for quaintness value, but in places they're actually really good. The wrestling match with the T-rex, when Kong cracks a giant snake's back, and especially when he shakes the men off the log - all these sequences in particular were very well done. When I think about it, these effects aren't as quaint next to today's as you might initially think. How would we do a convincing giant ape onscreen (how will Peter Jackson do it in 2005)? By computer? Most of our completely computerised creatures at this writing are ridiculously fake looking. Try the ridiculous creature in Hulk? Everyone commented on how fake it looked. I'll go for the much more fun stop-motion Hickenlooper Kong over Hulk anyday.

And the famous climax in New York City, which ends on the Empire State Building with Kong swatting at planes, is marvellous.

I first saw this in a theatre in the early 80s when it rereleased.

Then again many times on vhs.

Revisited it recently with my 7 year old nephew since he is on monster verse marathon. Revisited the restored version which is basically 104 mins of which 4 mins is an overture.

Everything has already been said about this great film n there seems to be little left to say but lemme contribute a lil more by praising how good this film is.

Willis O'Brien's stop-motion effects are the best part about this film.

Its sad that the pit scene is lost forever.

Peter Jackson gave homage to O'Brien by creating the pit scene which is available on YouTube.

The fight between Kong n Tyrannosaurus is amazeballs. It looked as if two fellas are having a wrestling match. Even the way Kong checks his opponent's heads after defeating them to make sure they are dead is superbly done.

The film is action packed n filled with lottuva creatures.

Kong battles a Tyrannosaurus, an Elasmosaurus (which looked like a giant anaconda), a Pteranodon and lots of bullets and bombs.

We also have a Brontosaurus n a Stegosaurus wreaking havoc on humans.

My respect goes to Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack n O'Brien.

but the hard cold fact is that while the inevitable remakes have come and gone, this black and white, pre-CGI original remains one of the greatest films of its kind and even today has a better chance of mesmerizing an audience OF ANY AGE than any of the slam-bang thank-you-mam pyrotechnics that pass for quality entertainment in our era. THE SETUP IS ASTONISHING. Talk about your cinematic foreplay! Before any actor in this film ever sets foot on Skull Island, the audience is totally creeped out by the mists, the tall tales, the rumours, the strange goings-on shipboard... by the time we actually see Kong, it is almost anti-climactic. And this was the first film to fully develop the idea of transposing the "beauty and the beast" story to modern horror. What does that ape see in Fay Wray? What does she see in him? That 10,000 cartoonists have redone the final "skyscaper" sequence gives new meaning to "iconic." Un-equalled.