In the annals of popular culture, few characters are as indoctrinated to classic cinematic storytelling as King Kong. The film of the same name, produced 70 years ago by RKO Pictures and remade once in 1976, with a new remake due from Peter Jackson in 2005, is still one of the great adventure stories put onto celluloid. Moreover, James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose's script, from a story by producer/director Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, was a timeless masterpiece of screenwriting.

Essentially, Kong is the story of a film producer, Carl Denham, who goes to the furthest reaches of the globe in search of a story the likes of which nobody has before seen. In this way, one could say that Kong is a case of art imitating life, as Merian C. Cooper was just such a producer, always in search of new adventures for audiences. Teamed with co-producer/director Ernest B. Schoedsack, Cooper set out to tell a story of the ultimate man vs. nature confrontation, laid out in the grandest of styles.

Alas, Denham's producer finds his treasure on a lost island in the South Pacific where primitive natives worship a godlike being behind a wall so great, it takes dozens to open its gates. But Kong becomes much more than a standard filmmaking adventure when its Ann Darrow character is introduced. A blond beauty full of equal parts awe and innocence, Darrow is the perfect counterpoint to King Kong's immense stature as both god and beast.

Following Darrow's capture by the natives, sensing a sacrificial offer to their ape-lord the likes of which he hasn't set eyes on before, Denham's men are forced on a chase through the island's jungles. There, they encounter magnificent dinosaurs, treacherous foliage, and King Kong himself, a king, no doubt, in his native land.

With romantic hero Jack Driscoll in hot pursuit, Darrow is rescued and returned safely to Denham's group, but Denham has bigger plans. He gas bombs King Kong, and transports him back to his native New York where he unveils the beast for the dumfounded public. In a sense, wanting to return to New York with a film, Denham returns instead with the subject of the film itself!

Of course, the climactic sequence in Kong has passed into legend, with King Kong breaking free of his steel chains, repossessing Darrow, and climbing to supposed safety atop the Empire State Building (which, in 1933, was newly christened as the tallest man-made structure in the world). His final battle with machine-gun loaded airplanes atop the Empire State Building is an iconic moment in cinema history. It also says much about the emerging conflicts between nature and technology, which in 2003 is perhaps more relevant than it was in 1933.

We oddly find ourselves guiltily gleeful when King Kong manages to grab one of the threatening planes and destroy it. Previously the antagonist, killing Denham’s men and abducting Darrow, the audience has no compunctions about rooting for King Kong in his helpless fight against the warlike planes. Still, when he has taken too many bullets, sending him crashing down to the pavement some 100 stories below, Denham is astute to comment that the airplanes did not cause King Kong’s ultimate demise – it was beauty killed the beast, Denham observes.

Taken together with its man vs. nature context, its Beauty and the Beast references, and its statement on the artistic process, Kong is truly one of Hollywood’s masterworks. One can only hope that Jackson, unlike Dino De Laurentiis in 1976 before him, will push these themes further in his own take on the tale.

Scott Essman is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer who has produced a DVD about the life of Jack Pierce. He can be reached at scottessman@yahoo.com.