"Aaaaahhhhhh!"

The “Queen of Scream” is a fitting moniker for Fay Wray, founded through previous roles in B-grade horror films such as “Dr. X” (1932) and solidified in her portrayal of Ann Darrow in “King Kong” (1933). In re-reading my notes to address this blog I am amused to find I’ve written “All it is, is screaming. Forever.” The film, particularly the last half, is saturated by the sound of feminine screams of terror. Initially, as with a child’s cry, this sound evokes a visceral and instinctive empathetic response, however, it quickly becomes tiresome.

I laughed at the time, thinking of the transcript shared between Kong’s roars and Ann’s screams. This central relationship, unarticulated yet intensely emotional, finds impetus in base human emotions. Kong, the terrifying monster, loves Ann. He loves her with the same dangerous, careless love of a child clutching in its hands a Barbie doll. These images are not hard to reconcile in one’s mind. Kong's desire manifests in possessiveness; Ann's picturesque terror, in submission. I intend this image to remain firmly in your mind, in considering the allure of terror to an audience and in the extrapolation of this dynamic to explore the heavily masculinised geography of this film.


The narrative contains three distinct spaces, each fraught with different dangers for women, particularly beautiful women. The ship presents the least threat, simply the promise of its destination. The foreign island is overtly threatening – consider the ominous “Skull Mountain” – in which women are bartered and sacrificed to the mighty Kong. The danger of the unknown plays little role in the audience's experience; well-aware of what lurks on Skull Mountain they are waiting for the gratification deriving from the appearance of the monster they paid for when purchasing their ticket.

In my reading of the spaces of this film, it is the city which poses the greatest threat – it spawns Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong). Denham is a man of the city, manipulative, self-interested and predator to the vulnerable. The introduction to Ann’s character highlights this, her naivety made clear by the demure concealing of her face in shadow, before a typical Hollywood-glamour reveal into the light. Denham ‘saves’ her from the fruit vendor and she falls gratefully into his arms, a precursor to her later position in the clutches of another, literal, monster.

It is important to digress here to the heavy-handed thematic use of the Beauty and the Beast tale. The ‘Old Arabian Proverb’ frames the male-female relationships in terms of this well-known dynamic. A Westernised Beauty and the Beast tale witnesses the reformation of the Beast and the winning of Beauty’s love, analogous to the suggested future harmony of Jack (Bruce Cabot) and Ann at the close of the film.

The clearly demarcated Beast, Kong, suffers the predicted downfall subsequent and inevitable to love for Beauty, unable to reform as the racialised ‘Other’ in the cityscape, his defeat comes at the hands of modern society, manifest in the technology of airplanes.


To return to Denham, who has no love for Beauty and suffers no pain at her hand, I argue is the most beastly of all; with a callous disregard for Ann’s welfare and self-interest as paramount over the dignity of another living creature. The excitement of the unknown, coupled with a financial incentive, drives Denham to propel the plot forward to mayhem, destruction and death.

“King Kong” represents monumental progress for modern cinema in terms of special effects, such as layering of sound effects and score, use of miniatures and back-projection, to create a fairly believable landscape populated with horrific creatures. This achievement alone does not explain why there have been so many subsequent Kong-related films, a small selection includes -

Son of Kong (1933)

Konga (1961)

King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962)

King Kong Escapes (1967)

King of Kong Island (1968)

King Kong (1976)

Queen Kong (1976)

King Kong Lives (1986)

The Mighty Kong (1998)

King Kong (2005)


This anatomically-incompatible love, a relationship based upon monstrous, male possessiveness and feminine submission, is repeated over and over again for the viewing pleasure of “the public, bless them.” I ask of you, what is it in human beings that so desires to see an oversized gorilla, inherently a manifestation of the savage in man, carrying about a scantily-clad, terrified woman?