Trader Horn

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.

W(oodbridge) S(trong) Van Dyke (1889-1943) directed the MGM motion picture TRADER HORN in 1930 and later wrote a book about the production titled HORNING INTO Africa (1931). This was the first major Hollywood picture to shoot on ___location in Africa, which in this case meant Kenya and the Belgian Congo. Van Dyke hired professional big game hunters Sydney Waller and Dicker Dickenson to provide both the action footage and the meat required for the film crew's daily rations.

HORN starred Harry Carey, Edwina Booth, Aubrey Smith, and Duncan Renaldo. Miss Booth, who bravely agreed to wear the horrendous makeup required for her character (ultra-realistic when you compare it to later "lost white princesses" like Sheena and the woman in JUNGLE GODDESS) nearly died from a severe case of malarial fever caught while in the Congo. Van Dyke produced so much stock footage of African crocodiles, wildlife, and scenery that it was recycled for years in Hollywood films about the Dark Continent, including the great MGM TARZAN movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and the incomparable Maureen O'Sullivan.

TRADER HORN has been re-mastered and is an amazing document of Old Africa, providing footage of local cultural life and a long-lost wildlife paradise. Much of the natural history information given in the film (the lead character gives his protégé sort of a guided tour of the Serengeti) is more accurate than that contained in most hunting books of the time. There are also some authentic hunting sequences, as well as numerous "staged" battles like that between a pair of leopards and some hyenas.

Incidentally, the crew of TRADER HORN was widely blamed for disrupting the local economy, at least by the colonials and at least as far as visiting photographers and film-makers were concerned. The story goes that the production unit wanted footage of a particularly impressive East African tribal chief, and offered him the sum of £40 pounds for the privilege. That amount was many, many times the going rate, and the local people immediately realized that they had been getting ripped off for years. MGM set the new price; even twenty years later Masai and Samburu warriors were often demanding as much as £1 for a still photo, and the colonials were still complaining about it.

A remake of TRADER HORN was made in 1973. Starring Rod Taylor and Anne Heywood, it was so bad that the studio almost canceled its release. It is particularly remarkable for Taylor's performance as an Englishman; judging from his accent he was born in a quaint English cottage on the South Side of Chicago.

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.