Trader Horn

The film opens with scenes of an elephant herd agitated by human presence. One of the adult elephants moves towards the perceived threat. What follows is actual footage of an elephant being shot and the subsequent stress it causes the family pod. This could have been implied or done without having to witness such a senseless and vile act. I stopped watching at that point. I just did not need to see that.

Trader Horn was first made in 1931. I haven't seen the original, but the critics and audiences seemed to like it, perhaps because it was one of the earliest talkies. This remake is an embarrassment, a 1970s production which feels like it was made before 1931, so simple and idiotic is its storyline. The back projection shots are pitifully obvious and make it all too clear that this production never got anywhere near Africa. There are plenty of cliches that you would associate with jungle adventures (a steamy love triangle, natural hazards, villainous colonial Germans, stampedes, quicksand, etc), but none of them count for very much since the performances are so indifferent and the script just ambles by in search of a moment of interest. I kept expecting Tarazan to leap out from behind a bush at any moment but he didn't..... he was the only thing missing from this jungle fiasco.

Other than the title, there is absolutely no resemblance between the 1930 film MGM had so much trouble bringing in and this one which is your basic pulp adventure film. Rod Taylor costumed for the part is your basic great white hunter who with wartime has suddenly had a demand for his services.

The British want him as a guide to go into German colonies in West Africa, but Taylor gets a much better offer from Jean Sorel and Anne Heywood who want to find a platinum mine. So off they go.

They do encounter Germans and they are typical villainous Germans. They also encounter all kinds of hazards you find in any jungle picture. And of course there is the inevitable love triangle.

Elements of both The African Queen and King Solomon's Mines are found in this Trader Horn. But not a smidgen of the original.

I spotted Stewart Granger and Co, from "King Solomon Mines numerous times during this "movie".It was so obvious .I notice grasslands and rolling Los Angeles hills in background of this show.They the actors never went within 12 ,000 miles of Africa. A travesty of the original movie from 1931.MGM should hang its head in shame.Start of Rod Taylor's downfall in movies.

When a film credits the novel and its writer but then gives a totally different writer a "Story by" credit (in this case co-scripter Edward Harper) you know the original source has been junked. Indeed, there is almost no correlation between this film and the 1931 original or the novel. In fact, the filmmakers have simply taken the title and its main character and grafted him onto the H. Rider Haggard story of 'King Solomon's Mines.' As for the film itself, it boasts in its end credits that plenty of African locations were used... but that's mostly, if not all, Second Unit material. The actors seem to have been filmed on stage sets or at Southern California locations (wild animal park/nearby desert dunes). Lots of process screen work and indoor settings, although the African footage is good. And Rod Taylor is perfect casting as Trader Horn. You can believe him as a rough-hewn, know-it-all, wheeler-dealer and reluctant guide. Less believable is his romance with Heywood. And Don Knight, as the British commander ceaselessly hunting for Horn, whom he's branded a "traitor to England in a time of war" (it's 1916), is almost buffoonish, as if channeling Malcolm McDowell through a 'Carry On' film. The African natives are a mix of obvious Hollywood actor types and real natives (many just stock footage or Second Unit). Much of the scenic stuff doesn't match up with the actors, and the plodding story never catches fire. Why MGM felt this would be a success at the box office is hard to fathom.