Entertainment

Kong leads the league of monsters who love too much

11:23 AM CST on Friday, December 16, 2005

By PHILIP WUNTCH / The Dallas Morning News

Marilyn Monroe summed it all up.

In The Seven Year Itch, she emerges almost in tears from a movie theater showing Creature From the Black Lagoon.

It seems that she felt sorry for the prehistoric Gill-Man who terrorized the population in search of the beautiful scientist who unearthed him.

Universal Studios

King Kong squares off against a dinosaur that menaces damsel in distress Naomi Watts.

Marilyn whispers that she doesn't think the creature was really mean. The poor thing just looked different.

In her innocence, MM spoke an eternal truth: A successful movie creature must pull at the heartstrings.

Psychologists may find it intriguing that in this holiday season's most touching male-female love story, the male is a giant ape. But the current King Kong gives us a hairy, carnivorous beast that some viewers might want to hug.

The big lug's trembling lips and piercing eyes definitely get to Naomi Watts. In one scene, her fleeting facial expression suggests she prefers Kong to human hero Adrien Brody.

New York Times critic A.O. Scott raved that Kong and Ms. Watts "form one of the most unlikely and affecting screen couples since Anthony Quinn and Giuletta Masina did their beast and beauty act in La Strada." A monster movie bearing comparison with a Fellini art film? Somehow it makes sense.

Kong and Ms. Watts reach those romantic heights realistically. At first Ms. Watts' Ann Darrow is understandably terrified. But when the ape saves her from hungry, drooling prehistoric beasts, she warms up to him. Having been a vaudevillian, Ann entertains Kong with a few comedy routines, and the big ape becomes putty in her hands.

In New York, they even get to enjoy one of the city's seasonal joys. On a cold winter night, they slip and slide across frozen Central Park.

Variations of the beauty-and-beast legend can be treacherous. One of several reasons why John Guillermin's 1976 remake of King Kong floundered is that the relationship between Jessica Lange and the furry beastie never took flight. It was campy and overdone, turning the misconceived movie into a spoof.

The new King Kong's director, the wizard Peter Jackson, realizes that the greatest movie monsters all have hearts, sometimes made of gold. But the heart has to be on display in the right time and place. Roland Emmerich's squishy 1998 remake of Godzilla descended into quicksand when wimpy Matthew Broderick stood in the giant lizard's footprints and tried to commune with the beast. Audiences hooted.

But some movie monsters have noble intentions. The giant moth Mothra, who would battle Godzilla later in its career, started out as a sweet-natured giant caterpillar that wanted to rescue twin girls. Terrified residents of Tokyo just didn't understand.

Dr. Frankenstein's creation, arguably the most famous movie monster, just wanted a friend. In the spoof Young Frankenstein, he thought he found one in the little girl who unluckily decides to ride the seesaw with him. In the series highpoint, Bride of Frankenstein, he vainly hopes the hermit will become a crony. Later, when his intended bride rejects him, his rage is caused by that most human of emotions, a broken heart.

But King Kong writes the book on broken hearts. Every viewer who has ever felt misunderstood can relate.

E-mail pwuntch@dallasnews.com