Merian C. Cooper Movies

One of the greatest adventure stories in Hollywood history gets a new interpretation in this action drama from Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson. In the early 1930's, Carl Denham (Jack Black) is a daring filmmaker and adventurer who has gained a reputation for his pictures documenting wildlife in remote and dangerous jungle lands; despite the objections of his backers, Denham plans to film his next project aboard an ocean vessel en route to Skull Island, an uncharted island he discovered on a rare map. Correctly assuming his cast and crew would be wary of such a journey, Denham has told them they're traveling to Singapore, but before they set sail, his leading lady drops out of the project. Needing a beautiful actress willing to take a risk, Denham finds Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), a beautiful but down-on-her-luck vaudeville performer and offers her the role; cautious but eager to work, Darrow takes the role, and onboard the ship she strikes up a romance with Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody), a respected playwright hired by Denham to write the script for his latest epic. When Denham and Company arrive on Skull Island, the natives react with savage violence, but they happen to be the least of their worries. Skull Island is a sanctuary for prehistoric life, and lording it over the dinosaurs and other giant beasts is Kong, a twenty-five-foot-tall gorilla who can outfight any creature on Earth. The natives kidnap Darrow, giving her to Kong as an offering to appease the giant beast; Denham and his men set out to find her, with Driscoll bravely determined to save the woman he loves. Eventually, Driscoll finds Darrow and Denham outwits Kong, intending to take the giant ape back to New York for display. But Kong has bonded with Darrow, and his attraction to her proves to be his undoing. Andy Sirkis, who provided the body movements for Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings pictures, performed similar duties on King Kong, studying gorillas so he could mimic their actions, which were then used as the basis for the special effects crew's digital animation of the great ape. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Famed producer Dino De Laurentiis tries to steal the thunder from Jaws, then the top-grossing film of all-time, in this big budget remake of King Kong. (De Laurentiis related his tactics to Tom Snyder: "When Jaws dies, nobody cries. When Kong dies, they all cry.") Updated to the 1970s, the original Robert Armstrong character is now Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), a big-shot oil magnate from Petrox Oil, looking for new petroleum deposits on a recently discovered Pacific island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) is a counter-culture paleontologist, stowing away on Wilson's ship, who warns that they are headed for "Skull Island," where prehistoric monsters still live and roam free. Also along for the ride is Dwan (Jessica Lange, in her film debut), a down-on-her-luck starlet, shipwrecked in the ocean after the sinking of a yacht. She really becomes down-on-her-luck when the group lands on the island and a giant ape, Kong, takes a shine to her. Kong kidnaps her and Dwan takes umbrage when the ape tries to remove her clothes by shouting, "You male chauvinist ape!" But Prescott comes to her aid and rescues her from the gorilla's big mits. Wilson, seeing money to be made on Kong, locks him in the cargo hold of his ship and transports him to New York City. Once there, Kong manages to escape and wreak havoc upon the beleaguered town, before being compelled to climb up the World Trade Center for sanctuary. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

If John Ford is the greatest Western director, The Searchers is arguably his greatest film, at once a grand outdoor spectacle like such Ford classics as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950) and a film about one man's troubling moral codes, a big-screen adventure of the 1950s that anticipated the complex themes and characters that would dominate the 1970s. John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate soldier who returns to his brother Aaron's frontier cabin three years after the end of the Civil War. Ethan still has his rebel uniform and weapons, a large stash of Yankee gold, and no explanations as to where he's been since Lee's surrender. A loner not comfortable in the bosom of his family, Ethan also harbors a bitter hatred of Indians (though he knows their lore and language well) and trusts no one but himself. Ethan and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), Aaron's adopted son, join a makeshift band of Texas Rangers fending off an assault by renegade Comanches. Before they can run off the Indians, several homes are attacked, and Ethan returns to discover his brother and sister-in-law dead and their two daughters kidnapped. While they soon learn that one of the girls is dead, the other, Debbie, is still alive, and with obsessive determination, Ethan and Martin spend the next five years in a relentless search for Debbie -- and for Scar (Henry Brandon), the fearsome Comanche chief who abducted her. But while Martin wants to save his sister and bring her home, Ethan seems primarily motivated by his hatred of the Comanches; it's hard to say if he wants to rescue Debbie or murder the girl who has lived with Indians too long to be considered "white." John Wayne gives perhaps his finest performance in a role that predated screen antiheroes of the 1970s; by the film's conclusion, his single-minded obsession seems less like heroism and more like madness. Wayne bravely refuses to soft-pedal Ethan's ugly side, and the result is a remarkable portrait of a man incapable of answering to anyone but himself, who ultimately has more in common with his despised Indians than with his more "civilized" brethren. Natalie Wood is striking in her brief role as the 16-year-old Debbie, lost between two worlds, and Winton C. Hoch's Technicolor photography captures Monument Valley's savage beauty with subtle grace. The Searchers paved the way for such revisionist Westerns as The Wild Bunch (1969) and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and its influence on movies from Taxi Driver (1976) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Star Wars (1977) testifies to its lasting importance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Returning to the Ireland of his birth, director John Ford fashions a irresistable valentine to the "Auld Sod" in The Quiet Man. Irish-American boxer John Wayne, recovering from the trauma of having accidentally killed a man in the ring, arrives in the Irish village where he was born. Hoping to bury his past and settle down to a life of tranquility, Wayne has purchased the home of his birth from wealthy local widow Mildred Natwick, a transaction that has incurred the wrath of pugnacious squire Victor McLaglen, who coveted the property for himself. By and by, Wayne falls in love with McLaglen's beautiful, high-spirited sister Maureen O'Hara. Her insistence that Wayne conduct his courtship in a proper Irish manner-with puckish matchmaker Barry Fitzgerald along for the ride as "chaperone"--is but one obstacle to their future happiness: the other is McLaglen, who spitefully refuses to give his consent to his sister's marriage, or to honor the tradition of paying a dowry to Wayne. Wayne could care less about dowries, but the tradition-bound Maureen refuses to consummate her marriage until McLaglen pays up. Under any other circumstances, Wayne would have punched out the bullying McLaglen long ago, but ever since his tragedy in the ring he has been reluctant to fight. Local priest Ward Bond conspires with several locals to trick McLaglen into paying his due. They intimate that widow Natwick, for whom McLaglen carries a torch, will marry the old brute if he'll give his consent to the marriage and fork over the dowry. But McLaglen finds he's been tricked and the situation remains at a standoff, with the frustrated Wayne locked out of his wife's bedroom. When Maureen accuses him of being a coward and walks out on him, our hero can stand no more. He marches Maureen to McLaglen's home, indicating that he plans to whale the tar out of both brother and sister. As a huge and appreciative crowd gathers the cornered McLaglen truculently tosses the money in Wayne's direction. Big John hands the bills to Maureen, just as she knew he would, and she ceremoniously destroys the money, just as he knew je would. Having proven their love for each other, there is nothing left for Wayne and Maureen to do but head home and perform their nuptual duties. But first there's the matter of giving McLaglen the thrashing he deserves....and it is this spectacular donnybrook, which covers several acres of land and at least two "pit stops" so that the combatants can quench their thirst, which convinces Natwick that the defeated McLaglen is truly worthy of her love (her logic is on a par with everyone else's in the film!) Though it tends to perpetuate the myth that all true Irishmen live only to fight, drink and make love, The Quiet Man is grand and glorious fun, enacted with gusto by a largely Hibernian cast and directed with loving care by a master of his craft. Written by Frank Nugent and graced with a lilting musical score by Victor Young, the film won Oscars for Archie Stout's Technicolor photography and for John Ford's direction-a real coup for "poverty row" Republic Pictures. If you haven't already luxuriated in this wonderful film, be sure to catch in on the tube next St. Patrick's Day. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Wayne stars as Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke, whose devotion to duty has cost him his marriage to his beloved Kathleen (Maureen O'Hara). Yorke gets word that his son, Jeff (Claude Jarman Jr.) -- whom he hasn't seen in 15 years -- has been dropped as a cadet from West Point, and that he lied about his age to enlist in the cavalry, in an effort to redeem himself. By chance, the boy is then assigned to his father's post. Once more, as a function of his duty as a cavalry officer, Yorke must sacrifice his love of family -- he cannot show any preferential treatment to the boy, or exhibit any sign of love and affection. But Jeff is too strong to be injured by his father's actions, and already enough of a man that he is befriended by two older recruits, troopers Tyree (Ben Johnson) and Boone (Harry Carey Jr.), who watch out for him while taking him in as a virtual equal. Yorke's resolve is further tested when his estranged wife, Kathleen, arrives at the post, the better to look after her son -- and possibly to buy back the boy's enlistment, which Yorke, as commanding officer in a remote post with a critical shortage of men, can't and won't permit. After an attack by the Apaches, Yorke orders the post's women and children to be moved to safety, and Jeff is assigned as part of the troop conducting the caravan, despite his wish to participate in the planned action against the Apaches. The caravan is attacked, and the wagon with the children is taken by the Apaches to their encampment in a deserted village across the Rio Grande in Mexico. Yorke has been given permission by General Sheridan (J. Carrol Naish) to take his men into Mexico in pursuit of the Apaches, but the punitive expedition is now a rescue mission, as the Indians' night-time vengeance dance is the prelude to certain slaughter of the children at daybreak. As part of the mission, it's up to Tyree, the slyest man in the troop, to infiltrate the enemy camp, and he chooses Jeff and Boone as the two men he wants with him on this dangerous mission. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Hoping to make the magic of King Kong happen again, the production team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack came up with the 1949 special-effects smorgasbord Mighty Joe Young. Robert Armstrong reprises his Kong portrayal of Carl Denham as hot-shot showbiz entrepreneur Max O'Hara. While in Africa looking for authentic decorations for his new night club, O'Hara makes the acquaintance of Mr. Joseph Young, a ten-foot-tall ape. Unlike King Kong, Joe Young has a heart of gold, thanks in great part to his owner, a lovely lass named Jill Young (Terry Moore). Against her better judgment, Jill allows O'Hara to bring Joe back to the States as a nightclub attraction. Joe proves to be a smash as he participates in Jill's musical act (he lifts her grand piano while she plays "Beautiful Dreamer") and performs a tug-of-war routine with an imposing lineup of professional wrestlers (including Tor Johnson, Man Mountain Dean and Primo Carnera). But when the patrons go home each night, Joe is unhappily relegated to his cage. When a group of obnoxious drunks begin teasing Joe, the disgruntled ape breaks loose and goes on a rampage. Slated to be put to death, Joe redeems himself by rescuing a group of screaming children from an orphanage fire. Featured in the cast are Ben Johnson as the nominal romantic lead, Frank McHugh as Robert Armstrong's assistant, and an uncredited Irene Ryan as a cocktail-lounge patron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Fugitive was shot on location in Mexico by that country's premiere cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa. Henry Fonda plays a Christ-like priest in an unnamed Latin-American country where religion has been outlawed. Though incognito in a backwater village, Fonda cannot help but seem more spiritual and mystical than those around him. Meanwhile, another fugitive, homicidal-bandit Ward Bond, stumbles into the village. Bond and the beautiful Dolores del Rio, whose illegitimate child has been secretly baptized by Fonda, conspire to help the priest escape. Once Fonda is on safe ground, he is implored by police spy J. Carroll Naish to return to the village, ostensibly because Bond is dying and wishes to have last rites. Fonda is captured and sentenced to death, but is willing to forgive the repentant Naish for betraying him. The priest dies a martyr, and the outpouring of public grief proves to the authorities that simply outlawing religion will never subjugate the hearts and minds of the people. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first of John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", Fort Apache stars John Wayne as captain Kirby York and Henry Fonda as Custer clone Lt. Col. Owen Thursday. Resentful of his loss in rank and transfer to the West after serving gallantly in the Civil War, the vainglorious Thursday insists upon imposing rigid authority on rough-and-tumble Fort Apache. He is particularly anxious to do battle with the local Indians, despite York's admonitions that the trouble around the fort is being fomented not by the so-called savages but by corrupt white Indian agents. Thursday nonetheless ends up in a climactic set-to with Indian chief Cochise. He and his men are needlessly slaughtered, but the Eastern press builds "Thursday's Charge" into an incident of conspicuous valor--and York, ever loyal to the cavalry, is not about to tell the whole truth. The bare bones of Fort Apache's plotline are fleshed out with several subplots, including the romance between Thursday's daughter Philadelphia (Shirley Temple) and Lt. Mickey O'Rourke (John Agar), the son of Fort Apache veteran Sgt. Michael O'Rourke (Ward Bond). There's also plenty of time for the expected drunken-brawl humor of Victor McLaglen. Not in the least politically correct, Fort Apache is a classic of its kind, and together with Rio Grande (1950) the best of the John Ford/John Wayne Cavalry films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by Richard Thorpe, this costume drama stars Luise Rainer as 16-year-old southern belle Gilberta, who, upon her return to Louisiana after a brief stay in France, discovers her sister Louise Barbara O'Neil) has recently gotten engaged. Gilberta (Rainer) quickly finds herself attracted to her sister's fiance George (Melvyn Douglas), and eventually steals him for herself. Though they marry and have a son together, Gilberta is unable to to cope with the stress and responsibility involved in running a plantation and raising a child at the same time. At Gilberta's request, Louise (O'Neill) agrees to take over the duties of the plantation. Meanwhile, Gilberta begins an affair with a former suitor of hers, Andre Vallane (Robert Young), and agrees to go to New York with him. Upon their return, George (ouglas and Andre (oung) have a duel, which proves fatal for Andre. Shortly after, Gilberta catches a fatal disease. Though much strife had been created due to her sordid affairs, Gilberta comes to terms with her behavior and makes peace with her family shortly before she died. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

RKO Radio's spectacular production The Last Days of Pompeii utilizes the title but precious little else of the famous Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton historical novel (at least the film admits as much in the opening credits). Preston S. Foster stars as Marcus, a happy-go-lucky Ancient Roman blacksmith who is plunged into the depths of despair when his wife and child are killed by a hit-and-run chariot. Undergoing a radical personality change, Marcus becomes obsessed with money and prestige, and to achieve these he becomes a mighty gladiator. While on a visit to Judea, Marcus takes orphaned boy Flavius (David Holt) under his wing and also spends some time with governor Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone), who is presently preoccupied with the execution of a subversive young rabbi named Jesus Christ. Witnessing Christ's march to Calvary, Marcus is moved by His plight, but does nothing to help the man and indeed dismisses the whole notion of Christianity as superstitious nonsense. Years later, an ageing Marcus takes up residence in a lavish villa in the resort town of Pompeii, while his grown-up foster son, Flavius (now played by John Wood), gets involved in the burgeoning Christian movement. Arrested by the authorities, Flavius and his fellow Christians are sentenced to death in the arena, much to the dismay of Marcus. Still, it takes the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii for Marcus to undergo his long-overdue religious awakening, and in the moments before he himself is engulfed by lava he arranges the escape of Flavius and the young man's sweetheart, Clodia (Dorothy Wilson). The climactic volcanic holocaust is a triumph of special effects, but that was to be expected from the production team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, the same folks responsible for King Kong. Though Preston S. Foster delivers one of his finest performances in The Last Days of Pompeii, the film's acting honors go to Basil Rathbone as Pilate, who transforms from a swaggering young skeptic to a conscience-stricken old man. On its original release, the film lost 237,000 dollars, but in the long run made a profit via periodic reissues. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Colby (Ann Harding) is the unmarried older daughter in a once-wealthy family. She's always been the mature, level-headed one among the two sisters, but she is feeling the pressure to find a husband especially strongly these days, as her much more flighty and impetuous younger sister Valerie (Lucille Brown) is about to marry. Joan has been lately seen in the company of John Fletcher (William Powell), the wastral heir to a once-great shipping company -- he doesn't care a bit about the family business, but still has enough money to live an upper-class lifestyle without worry, and is a well-known playboy, and enjoys Joan's company. With her sister's help and the unwitting participation of her well-meaning father (Henry Stephenson), Joan manages to set up a situation in which John is forced to do what they used to call "the decent thing" and marry her. Joan is secretly torn by guilt about how she got his name, however, and tries to be a truly good wife for John over the months that follow -- she gets him to clean up his life a bit, and to take himself more seriously and look past the next game of polo, and even starts to convince him to take more of a role in his family's moribund shipping line, which is about to pass into outside control as a result of his neglect. But when Valerie, in a fit of anger, blurts out the truth about how their marriage came about, John loses all interest in Joan, returning to the company of his ex-girlfriend (Lillian Bond) and turning the matter over to his lawyers. Now Joan has to fight on two fronts, to help save her husband's business, and also to save their marriage before it's too late. Given this plot, it may seem odd that Double Harness was presented as a comedy, but it is, and a good one, too. The humor lies in the way the upper-class are shown "coping" with the Great Depression, and the witty presentation of the romantic flirtations in the lives of Joan, Valerie, and John (and their friends), as well as the tone of John and Joan's marriage -- Joan, in particular, has a wryly detached side that comes out even at her most unhappy moments. It's all very sophisticated, a comedy by adults, about adults, for adults, and it holds up amazingly well as a piece of entertainment across 75 years. In some ways, Double Harness is also a bit reminiscent of the 1930 version of Holiday, which is perhaps not entirely accidental or surprising, as the latter also starred Ann Harding, although Cromwell's 1933 film is a far more skillful and accomplished cinematic work by modern standards. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The melodrama If I Were Free was adapted from the play Behold, We Live by John Van Druten. War veteran lawyer Gordon Evers (Clive Brook) is trapped in a loveless marriage to Catherine (Lorraine MacLean). Sarah Cazenove (Irene Dunne) is trapped in a loveless marriage to Tono (Nils Asther). The couple meet each other in Paris and fall in love. Tono runs off with another woman and Sarah returns to her antiques shop in London. The lovers want to marry, but Catherine won't give Gordon a divorce and Tono shows up unexpectedly at Sarah's shop. After a scare from the doctor about Gordon's health, the couple is united with the help of Gordon's mother (Laura Hope Crews) and their friends, Hector (Henry Stephenson) and Jewel Stribling (Vivian Tobin). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

The scandalous doings behind the high-toned exterior of a private school for rich young women provides the framework for this interesting but turgid drama. Much of the story centers on an unhappy socialite and her smart-alecky, world-wise roomy who has no morals at all when it comes to getting what she wants. This of course, puts her at odds with the school's overly class-conscious administration, who live in mortal fear of scandal. As a result, the staff is encouraged to remain cool and aloof, something that causes the lonely socialite, who longs for her parents love, to become deeply depressed. Unfortunately, her father doesn't seem to care and her mother is too busy climbing the social ladder to notice. The socialite becomes increasingly despondent and thinks of suicide. Still she is not immune to the girlish pranks and gaiety of her peers. Her life also improves when she falls in love with the handsome med student who works at the school as a waiter. Unfortunately, things get bad again when he accidentally impregnates her. Fortunately, it all works out for her in the end. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide