If this movie is known for anything it's for the climatic sequence of a massive Gorilla climbing ontop of the Empire State Building to fight off swarms of fighter planes while trying to protect a beautiful young woman who the fighter planes think it's trying to kill. This movie established the trope of "Monster" movies whereby a group of humans unleash a big unknown, scary monster against the industrial world and the two worlds, one primitive and still mysterious and the other industrious and logical and modern, come clashing together. This is a truly escapist film of the 1930s, in the same vein as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the gangster movies, it’s pure, raw, unadulterated escapism. American audiences want adventure, they want the eighth wonder of the world: Kong.
The film thrived off the development of film as a medium of a museum or zoo, something that would bring you to the jungles or savannahs of africa, south america, islands, etc… Film is becoming a vehicle for international travel and spectacle like a circus or world fair, it's purpose is being reoriented back to its origins to shock and entertain an audience and bring a totally unknown culture to them. This was fine in the era of escapsim and flourished during this time period as well but it definitely had the side-effect of numbing audiences to movies that were realistic and tried to show them something about their own lives at home. Once audiences tasted the great stimulation and fantasy elements of these monster-horror films it's almost like they never wanted to see another movie about true human suffering again.
This film is also highly notable for its special effects, a field that is developing in this time to allow for these sort of grandiose Monster adventure films. Many technicians and special effects designers had to work to create the effect of Kong walking through the city and climbing the Empire State Building as well as create the vast array of other monsters on the island that the initial expedition goes to to capture him. These creatures are actually very scary and succeed in making you suspend disbelief and wonder if any of those creepy spider like monsters could make their way into your bed at home just like Kong made his way to the top of the Empire State Building.