Usually the first thing I do is look at the next film and see how long it is and the general plot - when I saw this one was 63 minutes I decided - "eh, fuck it" and just cranked it out
Probably me and about 200 million teenagers have read this story in Middle/High School - I remember reading it years ago. This was a film adaptation done about 8 years (?) after it was published?
Most of the names/directors/actors escape me but of course, Fay Wray as the damsel - (added for Hollywood's sake, not in the original book) - we all know from King Kong as well as the chap playing her brother, and there's a reason for that
When I first started watching this I was struck by how Fay Wray was once again running around in a jungle just like King Kong's - and I THOUGHT in my head there was some distance between these two films but in fact, they were shot at the same time - with one of the same directors, written by one of the same screenwriters, and used some of the same sets and three of the actors from King Kong - LOL
Designed originally to be a bigger production, cost cutting and issues at RKO took it down to this deeply condensed 63 minute time frame with some fast pacing and cost cutting measures. I listened to the Bruce Eder commentary - (I was curious and hey, it was only an extra hour - LOL) - and he stated the actual timelines for the two films shooting are kinda muddled - there's a good chance that a lot of Brian Armstrong and Fay Wray scenes, for instance, were shot during the long gap in special effects that were done after they shot some of their Kong scenes.
The film lapsed into the public domain, but you'll want to get the good copy from Criterion with the commentary if you watch it - not that colorized shit.
I thought of it initially as a suspense film but they're calling it a horror flick which I understand - some other interesting commentary in here about how some wardrobes/lines wouldn't have been allowed 18 months later after some movie censorship codes came in - but dat's life - I didn't walk away with the hots for Fay or anything - LOL
OK - now I gotta do some work - but then again...the next film is only 90 minutes too...hmmm
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