Congo

It won't be shown during "family" hours, so stay up or set your VCR. This pre-Code tale of revenge, sex, brutality, and, ultimately, redemption was one of Walter Huston's best performances (not that he was capable of a bad one). It's like a train wreck--you don't want to watch, but you can't turn away. Virginia Bruce is excellent as the innocent convent-educated girl who becomes a pawn in Huston's diabolical revenge scheme. Drug addiction and abuse of women run rampant, along with racism and superstition. Sweaty, dirty, and disheveled characters, sex, violence, drugs, and great performances. It doesn't get any better than this. Even though you'll guess the ending early on, you'll still want to watch it, and you'll want to see more of Walter Huston's films.

Walter Huston plays Flint, a paraplegic living in a self-made ivory empire in deepest, darkest Africa. Flint is cruel, brutal, and autocratic. Using simple stage magic and sleight of hand to make the superstitious natives believe he is semi-divine, he also employs a handful of Europeans to help him run his trade. He is a vengeful man and his vengeance when it comes to an old rival and his daughter is horrifying. Some of the implications are far darker and more grim than would be permitted to be openly portrayed in a film of the 1930s.

Until it aired recently on a cable television movie channel, I was totally unaware of this film. It is impressive. It is set in the tropics and just watching it makes you want to sweat. Walter Huston's chilling performance as Flint is excellent. The supporting cast is solid and the romance that blossoms between two characters seems far more genuine than many such relationships that are portrayed in other films of the early 1930s. This is a film that is not to be missed by anyone who enjoys classic suspense or adventure.

Walter Huston steps into Lon Chaney's wheelchair to play the evil crippled magician commanding a "juju" cult of natives who burn women alive. Lupe Velez is on hand [and narrowly escapes getting her tongue twisted out with a wire]. Enter blonde Virginia Bruce, a convent girl forced into prostitution in Zanzibar, but now a hopeless alcoholic. Enter Conrad Nagel, a doctor who is now a hopeless drug addict [his cure involves being covered with leeches and buried up to his neck in a swamp]. Don't worry: there's still MORE plot! Everyone sweats a lot, on leftover sets from RED DUST, but the direction is rudimentary and lacks the courage of the plot's kinkiness. Still, it's some kind of must-see since they sure don't make them like this anymore!

A beautiful, young woman is mentally and physically tortured by a rival of her father. Bizarre, to say the least. VERY very brutal even by today's standards. The film opens with a decapitation! There's also rape, whippings, drug abuse, torture, incest...basically the works. It's very surprising that MGM let this film be made let alone released! It's a really good movie but very tough. For strong stomaches only.

This is a talkie remake of WEST OF ZANZIBAR (1928) which, alas, is one of the few of the legendary Tod Browning/Lon Chaney collaborations which has eluded me thus far. To begin with, I was shocked to learn that William Cowen (who only directed 6 films during his brief career, this being his most substantial effort) made the lackluster OLIVER TWIST (1933; which I watched only a few weeks ago) soon after! Anyway, KONGO is not really a horror film – but, with the accent being on sadism and degradation, it certainly makes the most of the liberal Pre-Code attitude of the time. Besides, you can almost feel the humid jungle atmosphere: actually, apart from a few of the Chaney films and this one, MGM did several other African-set adventures during this time including TRADER HORN (1931), RED DUST (1932) and the Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen O'Sullivan "Tarzan" films (1932-42). Walter Huston is as commanding as ever in Chaney's old role (though he had originated it himself on stage!) – even if he wasn't quite his equal, I think, particularly where pathos is concerned. Interestingly, the film's plot is also quite similar to that of THE SHANGHAI GESTURE (1941) – which also stars Huston but where his role is more or less reversed! The entire cast is excellent (C. Henry Gordon' role, replacing Lionel Barrymore from the original, is brief but pivotal) including, surprisingly, the 'romantic' leads (Virginia Bruce and Conrad Nagel) – though that's because their roles are complex rather than insipid, as was the norm during this time. As for Lupe Velez – who had been Chaney's daughter in WHERE EAST IS EAST (1929) – the passage of just 3 years has seen her relegated to 'other woman' types and, despite receiving second billing, her role is basically a supporting one (especially since Velez practically disappears during the latter stages of the film).

The film drags in spots and is perhaps overlong for its purpose; however, there's an abrupt passage of time – in which we never get to see Bruce's descent to the skids at Huston's hands – which confused me at first into thinking that she was actually her own mother! Huston exerts his grip on the fearsome, gullible natives by the use of magic tricks (including, ironically, the decapitation routine I had seen only a couple of days earlier in Browning's THE SHOW [1927]!; could this have been used in WEST OF ZANZIBAR, too?) and a lot of rather silly chanting of mumbo-jumbo. While I knew of the plot revelation, it's still very effectively handled; indeed, given Cowen's non-reputation, I have to wonder how this film compares scene by scene with the original, i.e. whether the director here consciously copied Browning and that's why KONGO is so powerful! Curiously, Huston's comeuppance at the hands of the natives he had exploited for so long is strikingly similar to that of ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1933) – though it's considerably less graphic (also because here we're not told what really happened to him {is it the same with WEST OF ZANZIBAR?}, whereas we know what Dr. Moreau's fate is going to be without having to actually witness it).

I doubt that the film's reputation is solid enough to justify a stand-alone (and most probably bare-bones) DVD release from Warners – and, despite the obvious connection, I would think it'd be out of place on an eventual second set of Lon Chaney vehicles; still, I would very much like to have an official DVD edition of this one, also because my copy froze for an instant during a crucial scene