'King Kong's' Timeless Tale

Who could ever forget this: King Kong atop the Empire State Building, dying for his love, a swooning Fay Wray?

Ray Morton certainly couldn't forget. He first saw "King Kong" when he was 8. He was frightened and inspired, inspired to become a screenwriter, to collect every bit of Kong memorabilia he could get his hands on, and inspired to write the definitive book, "King Kong: The History Of A Movie Icon."

"I think that moment is so iconic and so, so powerful. It just seared itself into people's imaginations. It's what people remember," Morton tells CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.

If by some off chance you were on another planet and missed the 1933 original hold onto your seats. "King Kong" is roaring back into theaters this week in a big budget, eye-popping, computer-generated remake by the Academy Award winning director of "The Lord Of The Rings" trilogy. Peter Jackson was inspired by the old "King Kong," too.

"I love the escapism, I love the adventure and then at the end of the movie, I cried when Kong fell off the Empire State Building," Jackson says.

So what is it about the big ape that captivates us so? After all, even his most ardent fans, like documentary filmmaker Kevin Brownlow, say it's only monkey business.

"And I mean, the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous, if you think about it," Brownlow says. "The whole premise of "King Kong" is impossible. And the great achievement is every frame is so convincing."

Morton adds that "It's one of the few cultural icons in American culture anyway that is purely of the cinema as well. You have Frankenstein, you have Dracula, all those creatures came from literature. Kong is an original."

And a terrifying, crowd-pleaser from the start. At the depths of the depression, the tale of the intrepid band of filmmakers, the island primeval, the beast out of place in civilization played to sold out theaters. It all sprang from the imagination of Merian C. Cooper, an adventurer/aviator/filmmaker. Kevin Brownlow made a documentary about Cooper, "I Am King Kong," running this week on Turner Classic Movies.

"The only man you can compare Merian C. Cooper to is Indiana Jones. He is the real Indiana Jones.

Asked where the name King Kong originated, Morton explains that "Cooper told a bunch of different stories. He said it was the name of a tribe in the Congo. The truth is, he made it up."

It may look primitive today, but in 1933 and for years after, "King Kong" was a technical marvel. Turning an 18-inch puppet into a believable 20-foot monster through stop-motion animation was so tedious, so difficult.

"At the end, Cooper turns to his partner, Ernest B. Shoedsack and says, 'Let's kill the son of a bitch ourselves.' So they became the pilot and the gunner that shoot King Kong off the top of the Empire State Building," Brownlow says.

But that wasn't the end of Kong, it was just the beginning. You might remember the flashy, 1976 remake that put Jessica Lange in the Fay Wray role and Kong on top of the World Trade Center.

In fact, over the years Kong has survived numerous reincarnations and permutations and for better or worse, Morton has seen them all.

Kong had a son and spawned a clone, Mighty Joe Young. Kong fought Godzilla, had a heart transplant, went ape over his prime mate. He did battle with the evil robot, MechaniKong.

He was even a she.

And even in movies that didn't involve actors wearing gorilla suits, we have "King Kong" to thank for every "huge monster terrorizes city" movie that followed.

Yet in all the "Kong" movies, some things are constant: the screams of terror. And Kong always climbs something. But not even schlock has knocked him off his cultural perch. Why? Pick your theory. But it all goes back to the original.

Morton says, "In the 1960s and '70s a lot of very serious intellectuals wrote very seriously about it. There's definitely a Freudian interpretation of the film. I'm sure it's there if you want it to be there.

"Cooper, who created it, insisted it was just a good adventure story and that there was nothing else in it and I believe him," Morton says.

Whether we see the monster or the tragic, lovesick outsider; fear him, or revere him, the image of King Kong remains as powerful today as when he was created 72 years ago.

Morton says of King Kong, "he's transcended film at this point."

"He's part of our mythology," Morton adds, "so yeah, he is forever."