It's King Kong!

Mar 2, 2026

11:32

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King Kong roared onto the silver screen on March 2nd, 1933, in an extraordinary simultaneous screening at Radio City and the Roxy, New York - attracting 10,000 viewers in one hit.

The buzz around the film was no accident — RKO Pictures had blitzed the public with an aggressive marketing campaign, including publishing a novelization before the film’s release and producing a radio serial that aired twice a week.

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how animation genius Willis O’Brien brought Kong to life through a mixture of stop-motion and scale-models; reveal how Fay Wray was pitched her iconic role; and discover that contemporary critics weren’t as awed by the film’s lauded SFX as you might imagine…