King Kong (1933) vs. Godzilla (1954): Movie vs. Movie Issue #5

King Kong (1933) vs. Godzilla (1954): which is the better classic monster movie?

Any giant monster movie fan (A.K.A kaiju fan) will tell you without hesitation that the original Godzilla and original King Kong are two of the greatest in the genre. Some, like myself, will go further, saying they may be the two greatest of all, and are both crucial pieces of cinema.

Before I get into this match-up (which is, let me add a reminder, just for fun), I must establish that both of these movies are great and I recommend watching both, not just one or the other. But which one holds up the best? Which one is the better made movie? Who really has the best movie in the kaiju genre, Godzilla, or King Kong? It’s giant dinosaur vs. giant ape, as I break both down to find out!

Plot:

King Kong:

The story of King Kong has become almost a modern legend. It’s one that is so well-known, especially the later part set in New York, that people often know it even if they haven’t seen the movie. It begins with a filmmaker setting off to an uncharted island in the Pacific called Skull Island, which they discover is populated by natives who worship a giant ape called Kong that lives on the other side of a giant wall/giant gate in the island’s interior, along with prehistoric creatures.

The natives kidnap lead actress Anne Darrow and sacrifice her to Kong, who takes her into the heart of the jungle, and a rescue teams pursues them. Anne is saved by Jack Driscoll, much to Kong’s dismay, prompting him to break down the gate, kill a bunch of natives, and wreck their village, before the rescue team uses gas bombs to put him to sleep.

They capture Kong, bring him back to New York, and put him up for display on Broadway, but he soon escapes and wreaks havoc on the big apple, eventually finding Anne and carrying her to the top of the Empire State Building, where bi-planes shoot him and kill him, though as Carl Denham says, “It wasn’t the airplanes, it was beauty killed the beast.”

It’s an epic story with so many memorable parts, there’s no question as to why it’s lived on in the public consciousness for so long. But how does Godzilla’s story shape up in comparison?

Godzilla:

The plot of Godzilla is not nearly as classic as King Kong’s, but that doesn’t necessarily make it less important. The whole concept was a metaphor for the destructive force of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II, and was meant as a cautionary, horrific tale, unlike King Kong’s roots in adventure.

Godzilla is more of a slow burn, beginning with a strange incident

aboard a freighter, and an investigation into this and other occurrences, until a scientific team discovers a local island’s legend of a sea monster is true, only this monster is the product of atomic weapons testing. Godzilla’s major attack on Tokyo is a slow act of destruction, but this was intentional, meant to resemble the way an atomic bomb slowly decimates everything in its path, without anything stopping it. The aftermath of his attack is explored quite thoroughly, an element that makes the movie feel somewhat more realistic than King Kong, despite the fantastical premise. Godzilla is killed in the end with a more inconspicuous weapon than an A-bomb, but despite the successful conclusion, it still has a somber ending, with one of the main characters declaring Godzilla may rise again if nuclear testing continues.

It’s a more straight-forward story than Kong’s sprawling drama, and I don’t think Godzilla is a lesser movie because of it, but I have to give the point to King Kong because the story overall is just so incredibly imaginative, with every scene getting more and more ambitious. Godzilla has a great story and concepts, it just feels a bit one note compared to King Kong.

Point goes to: King Kong.

Characters:

King Kong:

In both of these movies, the human characters are not overshadowed by the monsters, unlike certain sequels/remakes that came later. Some of the acting might seem dated and flat by today’s standards, but I think it still holds up pretty well.

Kong’s love interest is played by Fay Wray, in what is surely her most famous role. She was the first scream queen before the term scream queen was even a thing, fitting the damsel in distress role perfectly. Robert Armstrong plays Carl Denham, the filmmaker who brings Anne and company to Skull Island. His character is based on Kong creator Merian C. Cooper, and goes to great lengths to make the best movie he can, which means putting himself and his crew in some hairy situations (no pun intended). First mate Jack Driscoll is played by Bruce Cabot, and he takes up the action hero role when he goes after Anne on his own about halfway through the movie. There are a few other minor roles, like those of Captain Englehorn and the leader of the native tribe, but Anne, Carl, and Jack are the principal players.

They have some good character moments in the first act, but the second and third acts become more about them responding to the awe-inspiring (and horrifying) sights of Skull Island and Kong’s rampage through New York, unlike the characters in Godzilla.

Godzilla:

An important difference between these movies is their country of origin. Godzilla is a Japanese production, and to clarify, I’m comparing 1954’s Gojira to King Kong, not the 1956 American re-edit Godzilla: King of the Monsters! with Raymond Burr inserted.

There isn’t a trio of principal characters quite like in King Kong. Here, there is a collection of characters, but the most important ones are Dr. Yamane, a paleontologist who thinks Godzilla should be studied not destroyed, his daughter Emiko, her love interest Ogata the sea captain, and Dr. Serizawa, who has the most important role of all: he’s the one who creates the oxygen destroyer, the weapon that they eventually use to kill Godzilla. Emiko is arranged to marry him, but wants to break it off because she’s in love with Ogata. Serizawa, a man burdened by his destructive scientific discovery, kills himself after the oxygen destroyer is used, thus keeping it from ever being used again.  

Not that a character has to be killed for a movie to be impactful, but the fact that Serizawa not only dies at the end but sacrifices himself, stuck with me more than any one character moment in Kong, while none of the main human characters in King Kong died. As classic as the characters in King Kong are, I actually have to go with the characters in Godzilla as being better. They’re less archetypal, a bit more fleshed out, and have interesting relationships to each other, and to the monster.

Point goes to: Godzilla.

Monster:

King Kong:

Kong is only hinted at in the first act of movie, and his eventual reveal as he crashes through the trees toward the tied-up Anne Darrow is more than worth the wait. He’s a terrifying presence, and every second he’s on screen is incredible. But, as he takes Anne into the jungle and the rescue team follows, more creatures are introduced, starting with a stampeding Stegosaurus, and from there each creature becomes bigger and scarier than the last. There’s the Brontosaurus that chases the group and eats a guy in a tree, the two-legged iguana that tries to eat Driscoll, and of course Kong himself shakes things up when he dumps a bunch of guys off a log into a chasm.

The centerpiece of the movie is Kong’s fight with a T-rex, which is still one of the best creature fights ever put on screen. After being shown all the other horrors of Skull Island and seeing that Kong really is the King of this world, he stops seeming quite as terrifying, and this leads to the real reason Kong is such an incredible movie monster: he’s capable of being scary and sympathetic. Early in the movie Anne is worried Kong is going to kill her, but it’s not long before she’s looking to Kong to save her from such hungry beasts as the cave-dwelling Elasmosaurus and flying Pteranodon.

By the time Kong gets back to New York, there’s been a shift. Kong is no longer a mindless monster trying to kill everyone in the eyes of the audience. He’s searching for the woman he’s fallen for, and gives his life to protect her. In Kong’s final moments atop the Empire State Building, you feel real sympathy for this beast.   

Godzilla:

Godzilla is a totally different kind of monster from Kong, despite being similarly large and destructive. Given he’s the embodiment of nuclear destruction, Godzilla’s one and only purpose is to terrify, not be sympathetic, and in this way, he delivers big time.

The build-up to his first big reveal is not as dramatic as Kong’s, but actually more shocking. Keep in mind, no one had seen Godzilla on-screen before this moment in 1954. The characters are told to go up the mountain because it’ll be safer, so there’s the sense that the monster is coming, but then as they’re going up the hill, without warning, a giant reptilian head rises up from behind it, making everyone scream. Godzilla leans over, roars, and then disappears as quickly as he appeared. It’s unexpected and pretty effective.

Godzilla gets less screen time than Kong, but this helps to make him scarier, and make his attack on Tokyo (the film’s central event) more impactful. While the victims in King Kong are casualties of the action and their deaths feel more shocking than scary, in Godzilla the Tokyo attack feels real and horrific. The camera zeroes in on a woman cowering with her kids as Godzilla heads their way, and she tells them they’ll be with their father soon, and they are mercilessly killed in the wake of the destruction. On that point, Godzilla doles out more destruction than Kong, and has more impressive abilities.

 

While Kong is simply a gorilla that’s really big, Godzilla is a much more original concept. He’s essentially a hybrid of a Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus, with dorsal spikes, a long tail, and classic carnosaur (meat-eating dinosaur) head. His skin is impenetrable, he breathes atomic breath (not fire, as it’s often mistakenly referred to) capable of melting steel and setting fire to just about anything, and he’s as good on land as in the water. 

What would later become a staple of Godzilla movies is having him fight an enemy, but many people forget this never occurred in the original. Godzilla is the only kaiju in the movie, and his only enemy is humanity, so looking beyond the main monster, King Kong gets the advantage by having a wider variety of secondary threats (not that Big G alone isn’t an intense threat).

This is a tough decision, so I’m going to award a point to each movie. Godzilla wins for having a better individual monster, based on the originality of his design, but King Kong wins monster ensemble for having more bang for your buck.

One point to Godzilla and one point to King Kong.

Other Factors:

Music:

Both scores are incredible and compliment the tones of each movie. Akira Ifukube’s is haunting and somber, the main theme is memorable and was re-used for many future Godzilla movies, and it fluctuates between fast-paced and exciting (like when depth charges are being dropped in an attempt to kill Godzilla) to slow and melancholy (like when Godzilla is destroying Tokyo). Max Steiner’s is an all-time classic soundtrack, with the kind of boisterous score that inspired countless others. It hits all kinds of beats, and the main theme is a thrilling piece of music all on its own.

Ifukube’s score has more memorable pieces for me than Steiner’s, but I have to hand it to Steiner, because there had never been a film score like his in the history of movies up to that point, and it communicates a wider range of emotion, with pieces that sound fun, scary, sad, or a bit of all three, whereas Godzilla’s score is primarily somber. I realize that’s simply because of the two different tones here, but I’m going with personal taste on this one.  

Point goes to King Kong.

Special Effects:

James Rolfe once said, “There’s a difference between something that’s old school and something that’s outdated.” You could argue the effects for both of these movies are outdated, and comparing them with today’s visual effects, sure, I can understand that. But I don’t think they are, I just think of them as classic effects that still hold up. Sure, you know Kong is a stop motion model and Godzilla is a guy in a rubber suit, but that’s no different than knowing the new Godzilla and Kong are cgi models created and animated in a computer. One day that will be a classic effect, but those effects, like the originals, are so good for their time, they’ll hold up, despite being old school.

But getting down to the nitty gritty of it, Godzilla’s effects were viewed even back in 1954 as inferior to King Kong’s. King Kong features incredible stop motion animation with creatures battling and eating people and climbing things, but that’s the nature of the movie’s premise. Godzilla is just one monster stomping through a city. The miniature’s and the suit hold up pretty well, but both movies have elements that simply don’t hold up. King Kong’s robotic head looks silly, with a vastly different aesthetic than the stop motion model’s head, and its movements are pretty limited. The Godzilla suit becomes extremely obvious in one shot when he turns and the jiggly rubber bounces loosely on the legs. It’s a toss-up, but I’m giving it to King Kong, just because the effects were so ambitious for their time, and hold up so well. Godzilla being played by a guy in a suit may have become tradition (one that I love, may I add), but the suits got better over time, whereas the stop motion Kong never was bested or duplicated via stop motion ever again.

Point for King Kong

Legacy/Sequels:

King Kong had one sequel, Son of Kong, which was actually made and released in the same year as the first King Kong, and had Robert Armstrong return as Carl Denham. I’ve still never seen this sequel, but have heard it’s pretty underrated, though not as classic as the original of course. No other direct sequels were ever made, but King Kong has stood the test of time anyway.

Godzilla is the longest-running movie franchise ever, but if not for those sequels, I think the character of Big G may have fallen into more obscurity. Godzilla hasn’t been around as long as Kong, and the actual elements of his premiere movie aren’t as recognized as Kong’s. I’m pretty sure more of the general public is aware of how Kong met his demise than Big G’s. But, by having more sequels, Godzilla was more talked about in the decades following the first movie’s release than King Kong.   

Regardless of sequels, ultimately both characters have transcended their original films and become staples of pop culture. Kids know about Godzilla and King Kong before they even see any of their movies—at least, that’s how it was for me—so I’d say they’re on an even playing field in terms of legacy, even if King Kong has been around over twenty years longer.

No points awarded.

Conclusion:

What it comes down to, for me, is what impact these movies have had on cinema, and so for that reason, I’m declaring King Kong the winner. Just to think, a few years before it came out, sound hadn’t even been incorporated to movies, then here comes along this movie full of epic music and roaring creatures and full-scale action the likes of which had never been seen before. And then, to have lasted so long and held up so well (as of writing this, 83 years old!), when so many movies since then have faded into obscurity, is just as incredible of a feat.

 

Godzilla is an excellent giant monster movie, no question, with strong political roots and frightening imagery, but King Kong is even more epic in its scope and imagination. When you think of Godzilla, you think of the character, but when you think of King Kong, you think of the character plus the mythology (Skull Island, Empire State Building, etc.).

King Kong wins.

But it doesn’t end here. Watch for my next royal rumble, as I compare the 1976 remake of King Kong to the 1998 American remake of Godzilla, coming soon! 

Godzilla vs. King Kong image from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d58GiWI1Lco