Perhaps nothing so fixed the image of the Empire State Building in the public consciousness as the 1933 movie classic King Kong. In the story, the giant ape had been captured on a jungle island and brought to New York as a tourist attraction. Frightened by photographer's flashbulbs, he breaks his bonds and escapes into the city. He climbs the building, where he is shot down by a squadron of planes. A remake of King Kong in the 1970s showed the ape climbing one of the towers of the newly completed World Trade Center.
Since that time the Empire State Building has been a featured player in perhaps 200 motion pictures. In one of the most famous: "An Affair to Remember", Cary Grant waits on the 86th floor observatory for his rendezvous with Deborah Kerr, unaware that she had just been hit by a car on the busy avenue below.
