Now Playing: MAY 9, 1933

What could possibly compete against King Kong in Milwaukee? One theater tries fighting fire with fire, sort of -- programming Fay Wray against Fay Wray.

I've seen this one: a crisp Columbia programmer with a few special effects of its own and Ralph Bellamy as a gruff, tough hero before he became "Ralph Bellamy," an archetype for a sort of loser male.

Here's one more people today may have seen.

From here, it gets more obscure, but Universal clearly felt they had something.

Who or what is "Kiepura?" I wasn't sure if it was male or female from the advertising, but Jan Kiepura was a Polish tenor who'd become an international star. He filmed German and French language versions of this English production picked up by Universal in the U.S. The copy makes big claims that the picture couldn't back up, or else more of us would know about it now.

And the also-rans...