Eighty years ago, on 7 April 1933, RKO's KING KONG premiered in New York and, for a lot of people who went to see it, the world was never the same. One example is a young Ray Harryhausen, who was literally transformed after seeing the film and devoted the rest of his life to stop-motion animation and making fantasy adventure films. Two others whose lives were influenced to a great degree were Ray Bradbury and Forrest J Ackerman. Ackerman even proclaimed in a later issue of his FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine that he had seen it 100 times!
In issue #25 of FM began a three-part Filmbook, The Kong of Kongs. FM ran many of Filmbooks, and this one was one of the better ones. In honor of KING KONG's 80th anniversary, MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD will post the entire KING KONG Filmbook over the next three days.
The tale unfolds in today's installment. Besides reliving the great movie in narrative form, the text was accompanied by many photos that were considered rare in the day. Forry brought to bear his vast collection of Kong memorabilia for this series, making it one of the best Filmbooks ever seen in the pages of FM.
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