King Kong - a Mother’s Day story

In 1933 Hollywood made an amazing King Kong movie. It was black and white and used stop motion with a puppet made of metal, rubber and fur to depict the mighty Ape. In the story, a band of explorers, including a single woman, venture to Skull Island. They find the most incredible creature on the planet, an enormous primate that battles dinosaurs, climbs mountains and rules all before him. He’s all about terrorising the adventurers. Except for Ann, the token woman/bait. He likes Ann. Ann is very unsure about this and screams a lot.


The humans trick, trap and transport the Kong to Broadway and expect to make their fortune. This is a disaster as the opening night audience freaks out, frightening the Ape with their screams and flash photography. King Kong breaks away in a panic and rampages through New York.


Eventually he climbs the Empire State Building, snags Ann from her bed through a window (she’s still not into this) and climbs to the top. The Kong stages an epic yet asymmetrical battle with machine gun wielding biplanes while hanging from the building.


Eventually he is shot so many times that he capitulates and falls to his doom, but not before he gently places Ann down on the roof to be “rescued” by some dude. It’s pretty tragic.


In 1976 they made another one, a remake with big stars. Jeff Bridges is in it. Same kind of deal really, humans pull the mighty creature from Skull Island and everything pretty much goes badly from there. Significantly the Ann in the 1970s becomes sympathetic for Kong and is shocked and sad as the falls to his death. So is Jeff Bridges.

Hang with me for the Mother’s Day message, I’m getting there.


There was another one in 2005 which looked amazing, had even bigger acting stars and achieved critical and commercial success. The Kong is digitally animated over an actor’s performance and it is quite believable at times. The 05 Kong and Ann seem to become pretty good mates by the end and even do some romantic ice skating type behaviour before he is shot to his death off the top of the Empire.


All in all it’s a bad look for the humans who for 90 years have been hoisting a majestic apex animal from its home and tormenting it into a life ending rampage. Still, as a 5 year old I was hooked. I have fairly clear memories, some of my first I suppose, of acting the story out in my lounge room while my mother narrated the sequence of events. One of the couch arms, the high couch, served as my Empire State Building and I climbed, swatted biplanes and bellowed with power. Then I fell to my doom and felt suitably downcast.


I believe it goes a long way to describe my mother that she was willing to tell the same tragic story often enough to the same imaginative boy that it is imbedded into my psyche. It goes further to describe her that she also developed the alternative ending which included a daring decent from the Empire and a safe, but still brave, repatriation back to Skull Island. Long live the Kong.


And long live mums. Happy Mother’s Day.