Issue 1, Summer 2006
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Movies in the ESB Building
From suspense mysteries to romance, the Empire State Building has become a real icon

"Attention all stations. King Kong is going west. He is making for the Empire State Building. Stand by for further reports." In 1933 the Empire State Building was one of the stars of "King Kong." A huge ape, named Kong, climbs to the top, fighting off airplanes and holding a screaming woman in his hand. This movie is just one of a string of movies that are associated with the Empire State Building. From suspense mysteries to romance, the Empire State Building has become a real icon in the movie world.

In 1983, for the 50th anniversary of the film, an inflatable King Kong was placed on the real Empire State Building. However, a mouse chewed through it, partially deflating the ape. He also needed a constant supply of air, and was never fully inflated. In 2005, Peter Jackson released a new version of "King Kong" set in a recreation of 1930's New York City, including a final showdown between Kong and the bi-planes atop a greatly detailed Empire State Building.

In 1957 the Empire State Building appeared in the love story "An Affair to Remember." Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr played a man and a woman who meet and fall in love on a ship. They are looking at the New York City skyline from the ship when they plan a future meeting. "I don't knowÉI can't thinkÉHow about the top of the Empire State Building?" As one watches this movie the tears begin to fall as we watch him make his way to the building and wait, while unbeknownst to him, she has had an accident that prevents her from meeting him. He waits and wonders what has happened to her. Grab the tissues.

More recently, in "Sleepless in Seattle," two people meet in Seattle and agree to meet for the first time at the observation deck on Valentine's Day. Both do arrive, but one is a little late and they almost miss each other-thank goodness for a backpack. The makers of that film made a small mistake, they should have lit the tower in red, the color for Valentine's Day.

The aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and destroy-when fighting superior technology, Man's best weapon is the will to survive. In the movie "Independence Day" the Empire State Building is destroyed by creatures from space.

But there is one motion picture in which the main character is the Empire State Building-the pop artist Andy Warhol's 1964 movie "Empire." He and a crew set up a camera in an office high up in another tall building. They filmed the Empire State Building through an evening into night. The camera never moved. The result is a silent film eight hours long in black-and-white, from a single perspective, punctuated only by intermittent flashes of light.

The film "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" opens with a zeppelin docking at the building's mooring mast.
"Terror in New York City", an episode of the "Supermarionation" science fiction series "Thunderbirds" involves an attempt to move the Empire State Building to a new location on tracks. Ground subsidence beneath the tracks results in the building's collapse, with people trapped underneath that must be rescued.

In the 300th issue of "Superman" magazine, the Empire State building is refurbished during the early 1980s to reclaim the title of world's tallest building, rising 1,000 stories.

The building has a cameo role in the 1946 cartoon "Baseball Bugs." Fitting the cartoon's theme, the skyscraper is labeled the "Umpire State Building."

In "Godzilla: Final Wars" the pterosaur Rodan perches atop the skyscraper and howls at the moon before continuing his rampage on New York City, eventually destroying the Statue of Liberty.

In "Unbuilding" by David Macaulay, the building is bought and disassembled, then reassembled halfway across the world as a corporate headquarters.

In the 2003 Christmas-themed film "Elf," Will Ferrell's father, played by James Caan, works at a publishing company in the building.

In the video game "Spider-Man 2", you can explore, wing from and climb the Manhattan skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building. The player can climb to the top antennae and dive off, seeing how close they can get to the ground before catching yourself with a webline.

Movies that The Empire State Building appeared in:
An Affair to Remember
Annie Hall
Any Wednesday
April Fools
Ask Any Girl
Auntie Mame
Bachelor Apartment
Ball of Fire
Bell Book and Candle
Best of Everything
Big City
Big City Blues
Blackboard Jungle
Bon Voyage
Broadway Melody
Butcher's Wife
Champion
Charlie Chan of Broadway
Come to the Stable
Coogan's Bluff
Daddy Long Legs
Detective Story
Easter Parade
Edge of the City
Fail-Safe
FBI Story
Fine Madness
Finian's Rainbow
Footlight Serenade
Fitzwilly
French Connection I
For Pete's Sake
Funny Face
French Line
Garment Jungle
Guys & Dolls
Hatful of Rain
How to Succeed in Business
I Take this Woman
Independence Day
Its Always Fair Weather
Ivory Ape
King of the Gypsies
King Kong
Klute
Kramer vs. Kramer
Last Action Hero
Law & Disorder
Love With a Proper Stranger
Lullaby of Broadway
Madigan
Man in Gray Flannel Suit
Manhattan
Manhattan Melodrama
Moon is Blue
My Man Godfrey (Remake)
My Sister Eileen
New York Confidential
New York, New York
New York Town
New York Stories
North By Northwest
Nothing Sacred
On the Town
On the Waterfront
Pawnbroker
President's Analyst
Prisoner of Second Avenue
Rock Around the Clock
Saboteur
Safety First
Saint in New York
Serpico
Seven Ups
Shaft
Sky's the Limit
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
Sleepless in Seattle
So This is New York
Stand Up and Cheer
Street Scene
Sunday in New York
Superman II
Sweet Charity
Taxi Driver
When Harry Met Sally
Who Done It
World of Henry Orient
World Flesh & Devil
You Gotta Stay Happy