White Witch Doctor

Susan Hayward plays a missionary nurse sent to Africa to help a female doctor with a jungle hospital. Robert Mitchum is a wild game trapper and partner of Walter Slezak in seeking gold in the pre-World War I Belgian Congo. They escort her to the hospital as a pretext to search for gold rumored to be with a not very friendly tribe.

Politics is touched upon ever so briefly in this film. If it were made today the film would be a lot more explicit about the holocaust that was the Belgian Congo. Slezak makes a remark to Mitchum during the beginning of the film saying that they have to move fast since the Belgian government was taking over the running of the Congo. Just before World War I that is what happened. Up to that point the Congo colony was PRIVATELY run for King Leopold with no responsibility to anyone, but the king. Slezak's concern was that law and order was coming to the Congo.

The King had died around that time and reports about atrocities committed in the Congo by Leopold's hired help were shocking the civilized world. As well it should have been shocked. Torture, murder, maimings were routine occurrences. The report was put together by Roger Casement who later was executed for treason for his support of Irish freedom. The Bakuba tribe where this gold was allegedly from had real good reason to fear white folks at that time.

The American cinema had grown up post World War II as far as it's treatment of Africa. We Americans were a pathetically ignorant group about Africa and in many respects we still are. Our ideas about Africa came from Tarzan movies. But MGM gave us King Solomon's Mines and UA gave us The African Queen and we finally saw the real Africa.

The female missionary role was old hat by now. But Hayward is a nurse, not a psalm singer like Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen. Africa and the Belgian Congo in particular needed more of her kind and less of Hepburn's.

Mitchum is good as the cynical hero who is won over by the love of a good woman. Walter Slezak plays another of his patent brand of shrewd villains. Slezak was always good, and when he was a villain he was never a stupid one.

It's not as good as African Queen or Kings Solomon's Mines. Rates right up there with Mogambo though. Susan Hayward would return to Africa in Untamed and Mitchum would explore the jungle again in Mister Moses.

I wish the film could be done today with the politics more fully examined, but for the Fifties this was a step in the right direction.

"White Witch Doctor," which premiered on July 1, 1953, is the type of movie that I can enjoy greatly while watching it, all the while knowing that I am not watching anything great or extraordinary. And the main reason for that enjoyment, in this case, is the presence of Miss Susan Hayward in the title role. Has there ever been an actress who combined such drop-dead good looks with extraordinary acting ability? Not for me, anyway! Hayward's sheer presence in a movie makes it hard for me to be objective in a critique; I can enjoy anything she appears in, just by looking at that marvelous face. Anyway, you know where I'm coming from. In this picture, Hayward plays a nurse who ventures into the Congo in 1907 to help out at a remote mission. Her guide is Robert Mitchum (her costar in 1952's "The Lusty Men"), who takes her into this Bakuba territory with an ulterior motive: the finding of the gold deposits that supposedly reside there. Along the way, the two encounter just about every safari-movie cliche in the book: the mad gorilla (actually, a man in a gorilla suit), a charging lion, totem fetishes warning journeyers to "STAY OUT," angry witch doctors, a rope bridge, wildly dancing natives and the like. (Sorry, no quicksand.) At one point, Hayward awakens in her tent to find a tarantula crawling on her (a "gift" from a jealous witch doctor), almost a full decade before James Bond, in "Dr. No," faced the same dilemma. I wish I could say that Susan's nurse character faces the predicament with Gems' cool, but in a situation like that, how many people could? Neither Hayward nor Mitchum travelled to Africa to make this picture (this is NOT "The African Queen"!), but there is a lot of location photography of a very beautiful order. The studio sets and actual locales are very well integrated, so the picture never really looks phony. Mitchum here plays a very likeable character, with little of the sluggish moroseness so characteristic of many of his other roles. And Hayward, "the Brooklyn Bombshell," is simply wonderful as Ellen Burton, the American nurse on her first trip into the wilds of Africa. She manages to impress the viewer and the natives alike with her medical abilities and her courage, despite an understandable scream or two when faced with the odd spider, snake, or spear-wielding native. Hayward, 35 when she made this picture, is given many close-ups that reveal what a remarkable beauty she was. In that tarantula scene, for example, director Henry Hathaway shows her lying asleep in bed, her long titian tresses framing her face in close-up, and she really does look stunning in beautiful color. Though the picture doesn't enable either of the two leads an opportunity for any great thespian displays, both manage to make the best of things, pros that they are. The picture really is a rather pedestrian affair, albeit one with great photography and yet another moody Bernard Herrmann score, but it is totally redeemed for me by the presences of the two leads...especially Hayward's. "White Witch Doctor" would make a wonderful double feature with Hayward's other African picture, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," or perhaps with a picture that came out the following year, "The Naked Jungle," featuring another redheaded beauty, Eleanor Parker, stuck in the jungles of South America. I'm not sure that "White Witch Doctor" is in the same league as those other two, but it still makes for a marvelous entertainment, and is eminently suitable for the kiddies, as well. I thoroughly enjoyed it...but, like I said, you know where I'm coming from!

I hate to disillusion all you commentators who think that SUSAN HAYWARD and ROBERT MITCHUM really went to Africa to film WHITE WITCH DOCTOR. A lot of the stock footage was filmed in Africa and used throughout, but the stars and the supporting players were all photographed on Fox's studio lot, never setting a foot outside the studio except for location scenes filmed elsewhere in California.

And the story, watchable enough as it is, is not exactly worthy of comparison to either THE African QUEEN or MOGAMBO. In fact, in barren outline, it sounds more like material for a B-picture, a typical '40s jungle film that might have starred Johnny Weissmuller as the big white hunter and fake studio sets to shown tribal natives going into their frenzied dances.

However, the African footage is blended so well into the studio shots that it's easy to see why some think that this was a film entirely shot on location in Africa. It wasn't.

SUSAN HAYWARD and ROBERT MITCHUM do competent enough work as the dedicated nurse and the would-be treasure hunter, who uses the pretext of being Hayward's guide into Bakuba territory in order to do a hasty search for hidden treasure so that he can inform his companion, WALTER SLEZANK, of its whereabouts. Slezak plays his usual smarmy standard villain role with relish.

Nothing spectacular happens and the fake gorilla is laughably obvious--but it has its moments of danger and suspense that make it passable enough as moderately interesting entertainment.

I think bkoganbing has written the most perceptive and accurate review of this film, of all the postings here. Bkoganbing's detailing of the history of the Belgian Congo, from its inception as a private fiefdom of King Leopold, to its transformation into an official "colony," in 1907, is exactly right. And the placing of this film in a 1950s context is also important to point out, as that reviewer has done. When this film was made, the later Zaire/Congo was still a Belgian colony, with independence still a few years away. The makers of the film were no doubt influenced by the prevailing attitudes of the time, and, considering some of those attitudes, the movie is fairly progressive, I think.

I lived in the Congo in the late 1970s, when it was called Zaire. That was 70 years after the time period of this story, but some of the elements in this film were still in existence when I was there. Most villages had chiefs, of some form or other, and many had what we used to call "witch doctors." A fair number of people believed that these doctors had special powers, and acted accordingly. Drums were/are still used as a form of communication- what used to be called the "bush telegraph." People dressed as most modern people do- T-shirts and sneakers being quite common- but some of the traditional beliefs still held sway. I'm not an expert in Congolese traditional customs and ceremonies, but I was able to observe a number of interesting things while I was there. Experts in the subject could critique this film's depiction of these things far better than I could. But the scenes in the film seemed fairly accurate, to me, especially for the 1907 time period. Though I would stand corrected, if need be.

I was impressed that they seemed to get the language right. Mitchum says that they are speaking Chiluba, which is in fact one of the major languages of the Congo. There are four major trade languages there- Chiluba, Lingala, Kikongo, and Swahili. These trade languages are used as large regional languages, in different parts of the country, so that people can communicate with one another. Swahili in eastern Congo (and neighboring countries), Lingala in the north, and along some rivers, Kikongo in central areas, and Chiluba in the south-- roughly speaking (and if memory serves correct). There are hundreds of smaller regional and tribal languages, and, while many people can speak five or ten of these languages, they often use one of the four trade languages when in another area. The old colonial Belgian French is still one of the government languages, and many people speak that as well. I spoke French and Kikongo when I was there, in my capacity as a volunteer aid worker. Many of my Congolese/Zairean friends spoke multiple languages (to my shame, as I struggled with just these two). Anyway, I think Mitchum and the others are really speaking Chiluba. I didn't speak that language, but all these languages have some overlapping vocabulary, and I think it was Chiluba, or something like it. Again, another poster may be more knowledgeable than I. It seems that Fox must have done some homework for this picture. Mitchum, too, as he handles himself impressively well with the language. I'd love to read comments by Mitchum on his memorizing that dialogue! Mitchum, one of my favorites, was always a trouper, I think.

As many have pointed out, he and Hayward never actually went to the Congo. The studio did a pretty good job, I think, of blending studio sets with location shots. Though, as is usually the case, you can spot which are which. Though at least the studio sets aren't as obvious as in many films. The location shots sure brought back memories to me. The river steamers, dugout canoes, riverfront towns, etc.- all looking the same in the '70s, when I was there. The most obvious studio intrusion, to me, was the gorilla you see at the beginning of the film. Though it isn't as bad as many Hollywood "gorillas" you often see- Charlie Gemora in an ape suit, etc., it still detracts from the story. But this IS a 60 year-old film, so it's best not to be too critical, I guess. For its time period, they got some things pretty right. Especially considering that this was not made as a documentary, but as a Mitchum-Hayward entertainment picture, with fictional elements. As one poster pointed out, the source material was a serious book detailing the experiences of two nuns, who tried to bring western medicine to the Congo. Quite a morph there. But still not as outrageous as one might expect from the sensationalistic title. And better and more authentic than lots of other films Hollywood made about Africa, in those days. In my humble opinion, anyway.

This is one of several adventure films produced by Hollywood and set in the African jungle made in the wake of KING SOLOMON’S MINES (1950). The narrative offers no surprises whatsoever – but the end result is nonetheless watchable thanks to the soft color, the star combo of Susan Hayward and Robert Mitchum (with Walter Slezak in support), and a notable score from the ever-reliable Bernard Herrmann.

Hayward was married to a doctor who died before embarking on a mission in Africa; so, being a qualified nurse in her own right, she determines to make his wish come true by going over there herself. When she arrives, the woman discovers that the current (female) medic had succumbed to an epidemic and, so, has to take over all by herself. An American guide/hunter (Mitchum) who also operates there as procurer of animals for international zoos - paving the way for the film's most exciting sequence when a gorilla springs out of its cage - is skeptical about whether she’ll be able to cope…but, naturally, Hayward’s a lot tougher than she at first appears – soon enough, ‘converting’ even the natives when her medicine proves more effective than the potions concocted by the local witch doctors (hence the title)! At one point, she’s called in to treat a chieftain’s son (after he’s attacked by a lion during his rite of passage) whose tribe had been the sworn enemy of the white people!

The latter emerges to be true once again when Slezak – for years involved in an undercover search for a lost treasure, which partner Mitchum is also aware of – and his men kill members of the tribe who try to oppose their path to the gold; Mitchum, no longer interested in the booty, faces off with Slezak while Hayward is held hostage by the tribe. It goes without saying that the happy ending sees the couple re-united and the chief’s son cured – with the tribe showing their gratitude at this by putting on an impromptu dance. Incidentally, there’s an excess of local color and native chatter – with which interpreter Mitchum seems uncomfortable – throughout the film…but, I guess, both these elements go with the territory!