If I were to tell you that one of my favorite cine-screamers is in the original
KING KONG (1933) you'd go, "Fay Wray, oh
yeah," and I'd give you a moment to savor your own memories -- and I certainly wouldn't disagree with you, as Fay may be the Queen of them all -- but I'm talking about Sandra Shaw. Shaw, you might remember, plays the sleeping New Yorker whom Kong grabs from her bed as he tears across town looking for Ann Darrow.
I loves me my Kong but I hate him in this moment. A lot of people laugh at this scene but it really
bothers me. For one thing, I've spent an inordinate amount of time imagining a backstory for this non-character, based on what little information there is. She's sleeping alone - is she a lesbian? A spinster? A widower? Did her husband go to see the Kong show and she, disgusted by the media hype and/or cruelty to animals angle, elect to stay at home and go to bed early? Well anyway, it's all academic as Kong reaches into her bedroom window and plucks her from sleep, only to give her the most cursory inspection (as she screams pitiably) and then...
... discard her.
It's
awful! I hate this scene. Shaw's horrified reaction to this unimaginable, incomprehensible tragedy is well played and honestly rendered without an ounce of camp but what's haunting to me is the way her scream fades as she falls...
... and falls...
... and falls for what seems like forever until she connects with cold concrete and the screams stop. Shaw fared better in real life. Born into affluence in 1913, as Veronica Balfe, and raised in Paris by her mother after her parents' separation (her mother's second marriage puts her in the same family tree as Brooke Shields), "Rocky" was a tomboy who grew up to be a socialite and competitive athlete. Her uncle, art designer Cedric Gibbons (
THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE), showed her around town and through him she met Gary Cooper, whom she married the year of
KONG KONG's release. The marriage was, well, rocky -- Shaw was an alpha dog who bossed her husband and resented his fame -- but endured until Cooper's death from cancer in 1961. Like Cooper, Shaw had been a heavy smoker but she enjoyed a long life, weathering another lengthy marriage (to Cooper's plastic surgeon) and dying only in 2000.
If I were to tell you that one of my favorite cine-screamers is in the original KING KONG (1933) you'd go, "Fay Wray, oh yeah," and I'd give you a moment to savor your own memories -- and I certainly wouldn't disagree with you, as Fay may be the Queen of them all -- but I'm talking about Sandra Shaw. Shaw, you might remember, plays the sleeping New Yorker whom Kong grabs from her bed as he tears across town looking for Ann Darrow.
I loves me my Kong but I hate him in this moment. A lot of people laugh at this scene but it really bothers me. For one thing, I've spent an inordinate amount of time imagining a backstory for this non-character, based on what little information there is. She's sleeping alone - is she a lesbian? A spinster? A widower? Did her husband go to see the Kong show and she, disgusted by the media hype and/or cruelty to animals angle, elect to stay at home and go to bed early? Well anyway, it's all academic as Kong reaches into her bedroom window and plucks her from sleep, only to give her the most cursory inspection (as she screams pitiably) and then...
... discard her.
It's awful! I hate this scene. Shaw's horrified reaction to this unimaginable, incomprehensible tragedy is well played and honestly rendered without an ounce of camp but what's haunting to me is the way her scream fades as she falls...
... and falls...
... and falls for what seems like forever until she connects with cold concrete and the screams stop. Shaw fared better in real life. Born into affluence in 1913, as Veronica Balfe, and raised in Paris by her mother after her parents' separation (her mother's second marriage puts her in the same family tree as Brooke Shields), "Rocky" was a tomboy who grew up to be a socialite and competitive athlete. Her uncle, art designer Cedric Gibbons (THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE), showed her around town and through him she met Gary Cooper, whom she married the year of KONG KONG's release. The marriage was, well, rocky -- Shaw was an alpha dog who bossed her husband and resented his fame -- but endured until Cooper's death from cancer in 1961. Like Cooper, Shaw had been a heavy smoker but she enjoyed a long life, weathering another lengthy marriage (to Cooper's plastic surgeon) and dying only in 2000.
