Ryan Dalsemer's AP English Blog

TOW #1 - Article: “King Kong (1933) A Fantastic Film in Which a Monstrous Ape Uses Automobiles for Missiles and Climbs a Skyscraper”

By MORDAUNT HALL.

Published: March 3, 1933

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F03E3DC173BEF3ABC4B53DFB5668388629EDE

In 1933, Mordaunt Hall wrote a movie review on the very famous movie, King Kong, entitled, “A Fantastic Film in Which a Monstrous Ape Uses Automobiles for Missiles and Climbs a Skyscraper.” This article is Hall’s interpretation of the movie. Hall describes the movie as a fantastic tale, and “it essays to give the spectator a vivid conception of the terrifying experiences of a producer of jungle pictures and his colleagues, who capture a gigantic ape, something like fifty feet tall, and bring it to New York.” The article starts with a summary of the movie, (and possibly reveals too much) and ends with an overall description of the work. Hall’s purpose of the article was to shed a light on the movie, and to intrigue readers to go out and see the film.  Interestingly enough, Mordaunt Hall was actually the first hired movie critic for the New York Times, and work with the newspaper for over a decade, which makes her a pretty credible source.

            Mordaunt Hall accomplishes her purpose by using rhetoric devices. For example she uses simile to describe a scene in the movie, Hall writes, “Her body is like a doll in the claw of the gigantic beast, who in the course of his wanderings through Manhattan tears down a section of the elevated railroad and tosses a car filled with passengers to the street.” By using the simile she is able to connect to her readers. Not everyone has scene the scene in the movie, but by describing what the scene was like, Hall was able to make the reader understand, without having to see the movie first hand. Using rhetoric devices the author accomplished her goal of intriguing readers to go and see the film, because with the description she put out using rhetoric, people can determine if that is the kind of movie they want to see.