A 1933 Review of KING KONG–with a Twist

March 2, 2023 being the 90th anniversary of the New York City premiere of KING KONG (1933), I thought I’d honor the occasion by sharing a delightful and witty critique of the movie, highlighting Fay Wray’s performance, by Cecelia Ager, writing for Variety. I scanned it directly from Alistair Cooke’s collection of 1930s film reviews, Garbo and the Night Watchmen.

Fay Wray as Ann Darrow, doing test footage for the film-within-the-film, wearing the costume of “Beauty” as described in Ager’s review.

I love the way Wray is eying Kong in this shot, as if she’s pondering Ager’s words:

In later remakes of KONG, the character of Ann Darrow, played by Jessica Lange in 1976 and Naomi Watts in 2005 (below), does indeed develop more of an affection for Kong.

Fay Wray in one of her other “scream queen” roles, the two-color Technicolor horror film, MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933):

Cecelia Ager (1902-1981) is described in Cooke’s preface to the 1971 edition of his book as “an early feminist and later aficionado of popular songs, Democratic politics, women’s fashions and bonsai cultivation.” She had been recruited by Variety, the show business trade paper, in 1933 to review Hollywood movies from the “woman’s angle,” with a keen eye toward fashion. Her reviews are among some of the funniest I’ve ever read. There was no one else reviewing films quite like her. I plan to devote a full entry to her in the future.

Here’s the book the review appears in and it includes selected reviews of hers dating from 1933 to 1937: