Trader Horn

With a background spanning over twenty years in the African bush during the 60's, 70's and 80's I am amazed at the locations used for filming. In 1930 (film released in '31) the areas used were very remote and still are over eighty years later.

Part of the film was shot on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika along with another in the interior of Uganda. The Pygmy (Efe) segment is from the Ituri Forest in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and besides being very remote and hazardous was, and still is, an unhealthy area. As recent as 2003, marauding rebels were seizing Pygmy hunters and eating them according to the U.N.

Uganda, Tanganyika (Tanzania) and the southern Sudan were rampant with Malaria and a number of production crew fell ill with it. The Tse Fly was the bearer of Sleeping Sickness and prevalent in these areas as well as the Kenya Colony where some filming took place.

Although the plot is lacking by today's standards, the commitment to film in these areas was a major attempt to show the real Africa of its time along with footage of it's indigenous Flora and Fauna. Due to this diligence, today we have a timed photographic encapsulation of these areas available to the general public which is not readily accessible elsewhere.

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.

TRADER HORN, the Great White Hunter, treks into Darkest Africa in search of the long-missing daughter of a lady Missionary.

MGM produced one of the seminal adventure classics with this film, a benchmark against which all others would be measured for years to come. Although beset with production difficulties & traumas, including the near death of the leading actress, the film was an eventual triumph. Rarely seen today, it still packs a punch, if for no other reason than its splendid performances and the undeniable impact of its on-location filming.

Harry Carey, giving one of the first great performances of the sound era, is perfect in the title role. So well does he inhabit the character like a second skin that it is nearly impossible to imagine anyone else playing the part. Having already starred in innumerable silent Westerns, he brings enormous physicality to a movie which made great demands on its actors. Carey looks & sounds like someone who's spent years in the veldt. The slouch of his hat, the grim set of his eyes, the rough growl of his voice are all just right.

Handsome Duncan Renaldo, as Horn's earnest young Spanish companion, and exquisite Edwina Booth, as a white tribal queen, are both admirably suited to their roles. The sparks of their budding, hesitant romance lightens the end of the film.

Olive Golden Carey, the star's wife, is radiant in her very small role as a tough, determined but saintly missionary; the image of her seated in a sedan chair, being carried through the jungle on her endless quest, remains in the mind. Special mention should also be made of Mutia Omoolu, as Horn's gun bearer & friend, adding dignity and strength to his role; he was rewarded with rare recognition alongside the other performers during the opening credits.

Movie mavens will recognize wonderful old Sir C. Aubrey Smith, appearing uncredited for a few moments at the end of the film, in the role of an Irish trader.

Director Woody Van Dyke liked working on location, if possible, and so MGM went to the greatly added expense of sending the entire company to Africa. (Filming would take place in the Territory of Tanganyika, the Protectorate of Uganda, the Colony of Kenya, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan & the Belgian Congo.) This proved a great boon to the picture, giving it an authenticity not replicable in any studio back lot. The scenes of the actors beside a tremendous waterfall, floating down a swollen river infested with hippos, or interacting with native Africans are still sensational today.

However, the cast and crew were forced to live and work under appalling conditions for many weeks. Miss Booth, one of the most beautiful actresses of the day, caught a ‘jungle fever' which left her deathly ill for years and effectively ended her film career.

The attempts of the Studio to shut down the film after the company returned from Africa, and lawsuits & demands for more money on the part of ill-used performers, only added to the acrimony at the time. However, from a vantage point of more than seventy years distance, TRADER HORN has emerged as one of the great adventure movies and a prime example of the sort of film ‘they just don't make anymore.'

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.

'Trader Horn' is screen history. It influenced the evolution of the adventure epic immensely and was a direct inspiration for director W.S. Van Dyke's own effort from the year after, the first Tarzan movie with Johnny Weissmuller. 'Tarzan the Ape Man' is not among the best of the Weissmuller Tarzans, nor can I say of 'Trader Horn' that in itself it is a great movie by any standards.

Trader Horn is an experienced trader on the African savannas, and takes his young sidekick Peru on an extended journey to show him the wildlife and the fauna of his home in the wild. After being caught by a hostile tribe they escape with a white young girl who was abducted when she was a baby, and both Trader Horn and Peru fall in love with her.

Yes, it is very simplistic, no more than a pitch for a cartoon really. Trader's education of his young protegé is much too didactic to bring any kind of life into any work of fiction, but we do get to see a lot of exotic animals, which in 1931 would have been more than enough point. The film overall is brought down by Harry Carey's strangely unsympathetic portrayal of Trader. It is not so much his racism, that was a given in Western movies at the time, no escaping it, but Carey's Trader is sullen and mean-spirited and condescending to each and everybody, you tire of him quickly. And I got very severely fed up with his way of always addressing Peru as 'lad' or 'boy' in this fake Irish accent. Peru, played by dazzling young Spanish actor Duncan Renaldo, is nothing if not sweet, transcending matiné-idol cuteness, and you forgive him his delighted outburst, "They are not savages, they are just happy, ignorant children!" So watch it and appreciate its historical impact. Just don't expect a serious contender to any of the later and infinitely better adventure yarns.

6/10