Trader Horn

I don't think any film that managed to finish its shooting schedule and be released ever had as much problems as Trader Horn. So much so that for 20 years no American film company ever went back to Africa for location shooting until The African Queen and King Solomon's Mines. But so much footage survived that MGM was able to stock a series of Tarzan films and not put its players at risk the way Harry Carey, Duncan Renaldo and Edwina Booth were.

The plot is a skimpy one. Carey is your basic white hunter who is taking along a young friend Renaldo into some unexplored country in search of missionary Olive Carey's daughter. When they find her she's now the princess of a savage tribe. But one look at these two, especially Renaldo, makes her realize there are others who look like her. After that it's the three of them plus Carey's gunbearer on the run from the tribe and without weapons in the jungle.

While American companies avoided Africa, colonial powers like Great Britain shot films in Africa and did it because they knew what the hazards were and took precautions. The goring of a young native by a rhinoceros is real and captured on film and frightening. Director Woody Van Dyke kept his cast and crew loaded with gin and quinine. It still did not save Edwina Booth from a rare tropical disease which many thought killed her. I've always believed that was a deliberate publicity stunt by MGM because Ms. Booth was through with show business after this shoot. Who could blame her?

The first half of the film is a travelogue on safari. At the time this was great stuff for the American movie-going public. Still no studio wanted to face the expenses MGM had during Trader Horn's shooting.

...and you can see why this film caught the attention of the Academy at the time. For the same reasons that viewing live musical performances from 1970's TV don't excite in the age of the Ipod, anyone who views this from the perspective of someone who has 24/7 access to Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel won't get what the big deal is of seeing Africa's wildlife on film. From today's standards, the wildlife isn't even that clearly photographed. In 1931, though, most people had never seen such sights.

When I first saw the year this film was made and that it was a startling 123 minutes long for a film made in the early 30's, I somewhat suspected I was going to be subject to some preposterous maudlin melodrama in the MGM tradition that went on forever, but it is packed with action and has a very good story. The story involves seasoned African adventurer Aloysius "Trader" Horn (Harry Carey) taking Peru (Duncan Renaldo), 23 year-old son of an old friend, on his first big adventure into Africa. Along the way they run into a missionary, also a friend of Horn. She has been preaching among the natives and seeking the daughter that was stolen from her by the natives for twenty years. Soon thereafter, Horn and Peru are captured by a group of natives led by a young white woman - presumed to be the daughter of the missionary woman. Horn, Peru, and their native gun bearer are slated for a horrible execution by the natives unless the young white girl intercedes on their behalf. If she does will the other natives even listen? And if they do listen, how will our protagonists get back to the closest trading post without their guns, which have been confiscated by their captors? Some of the language tossed around, such as Trader Horn calling the African villagers "monkeys" will likely cause you to cringe, but - again - you must remember this dialog is a product of its time. The film did show a surprising and touching camaraderie between Horn and his native gun bearer, Rencharo.

Also note the precode element in this film. Native women are plainly shot unclothed from the waist up, which is probably very much based in reality. If this film had been made five years later that would not have happened. Of course, even in the precode era, this might be OK for the native "savages" but not for the grown white girl raised by them. She has a kind of make-shift fur top on that still shows a great deal, but not everything.

The film elements on this one are somewhat shaggy, the contrast is poor, and it cries out for restoration. In spite of all of this, I still recommend it to fans of this era of film-making as a unique cinematic experience.

The first full-length movie ever filmed on location, this African adventure features exceptional wildlife footage, and a nice acting job by Harry Carey. True, it's an antique -- but it's a wonderful, exciting, beautifully-photographed antique, with a wonderful use of the language.

I woke up in the middle of the night in my apartment in New York City, turned on Turner Classic Movies, and here is this amazing adventure in Africa captured on film that deserves a "10" for tremendous.

What an effort making this movie must have been for everyone involved. The sheer magnitude of the undertaking is something that would never get produced today. Only though the magic looking glass of film can we witness fiction and nonfiction brought together on such scale.

For kids who love "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" or the new crop of video-game movies, imagining what it was like for the cast and crew of "Trader Horn" to accomplish what they did is something entirely different. There's nothing digital here; it's all real. You can SMELL the animals on the plains of the old (and gone) Africa, a brutal and far more primordial place than it is today, all filmed without CGI or green-screen gimmickry.

The cast includes Harry Carey in the title role (who performed in more than 250 films) along with the arrestingly beautiful young actress, Edwina Booth, playing a bizarre White Goddess, and who, like many of the cast and crew, was so wiped out and sick from what must have been grindingly grueling conditions on location in Africa, in 1930, that it basically ended her acting career. Two of the crew died during filming; one consumed by crocodiles, and one native boy charged by a rhino in a scene captured and kept in the film. Duncan Renaldo (who played the Cisco Kid years later on television) adds another dimension to the ensemble of the four leading players, completed by Mutia Omoolu, a native African playing Trader Horn's gun bearer in the only role of his life, plus hundreds of extras and other African actors whose names are lost to history.

Fortunately, the remarkable effort of the people who created "Trader Horn" is not lost. Today, and for generations to come, we can experience this truly amazing adventure in Africa and "miracle of pictures."

This early 1930s talkie is a fine jungle adventure in spite of its dated, pedestrian look. A great white hunter takes his protégé in tow and leads a safari through the African wilds, braving wild animals and savage tribesmen in search of ivory. A major angle is a missionary's search for her long-lost daughter who is now a white goddess living among a savage native tribe. Conflicts arise between Horn and his protégé over the girl who has a wild, feral animal attraction. The film has a great deal of exciting, realistic footage of wild animals in search of prey and the attacks are recorded in detail. The hippos and crocodiles in the rivers make for some tense moments during the safari's canoe crossings as the party races for safety from pursuing natives. Harry Carey Sr., Duncan Renaldo and Edwina Booth star in this fine but unpolished feature which is introduced by a music score that is not heard again for the entire movie. The only other instruments of note being the foreboding, percussive native drums during a "ju-ju" when the tribes work themselves into a wild, killing frenzy.