Stanley et Livingstone

If any of you have read some of my reviews of other films, you'll note that I've said that Jim Bowie of all the colorful frontier characters in American history gets the biggest whitewash in films. The man was a notorious scoundrel and half of this film is devoted to another scoundrel.

Henry M. Stanley was just such a scoundrel. The film does not go at all into his later life as a paid shill of King Leopold of Belgium and his brutally administered regime in the Belgian Congo. Nor does it mention when he came to America, he enlisted and deserted from both sides of the Civil War.

Stanley found his calling as a reporter for the New York Herald where on the strength of his reporting on the American Indian wars, editor James Gordon Bennett decided he was the guy to send to Africa and scoop the English papers in a search for famed missionary Dr. David Livingstone.

Whatever else he was, Stanley was a brave man and his explorations into Africa added considerable knowledge for the Caucasian world about that continent.

As for Livingstone, by all indications he was a Christian who did walk the walk in his beliefs in life and probably would have been aghast at Stanley's later activities with the Belgian Congo.

Spencer Tracy plays Stanley as if he was doing one of his roughneck characters who finds the piety of a Father Flanagan in the African jungle. Cedric Hardwicke is a very proper and pious David Livingstone. Hardwicke's portrayal is the truth and Tracy does put his characterization of Stanley across, false though it is in real life.

This was Spencer Tracy's only film away from MGM for the time he was under contract to them. It was for his former studio 20th Century Fox and he certainly never got as big a budget on his previous films with them except possibly Dante's Inferno.

Though the film takes incredible liberties with the facts, fans of Spencer Tracy might like this story of a scoundrel in search of a saint in the jungle.

Hollywood brings us Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika as it will never be seen again. The scenery is electrifyingly beautiful. But this is no story for the sake of a travelog...It is a beautiful account of the true historic struggles of newspaperman, Henry Stanley to find "lost" missionary, Dr. David Livingston.

Spencer Tracy, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Coburn, Nancy Kelly and Walter Brennan bring us wonderful performances full of humanity and depth.

One fine scene in the movie when Stanley encounters extremely hostile adversaries on his way to find Livingston is just about one of the most exciting sequences I have seen on the screen and should there be only one reason to see this movie, then this is it. It is electrifying to see what certainly must have been true African citizens partake in such a very authentic looking ambush. No disrespectful depiction of Africans as seen so often in Tarzan movies will you see here.

Rarely does Hollywood brings us such respectful detail in its depiction of the African citizen as he was when they encountered outsiders. Also, the citizens do not have that awful spurious look that most depictions of Africans are so prone to have from Hollywood in its racism of the past. But then 1939 was a landmark year, wasn't it?

There is so much history that we are inclined to forget too easily and relegate to the dust of the shelves of history.

This is one story that must be heard - if not for anything else than for its sheer humanity.

Exhilarating, Tender, Human, Awe-Inspiring, Wonderful, See It!

Stanley and Livingstone is an elaborate 1939 American adventure film directed by Henry King and Otto Brower. It is loosely based on the true story of determinated Welsh reporter Sir Henry M. Stanley's (Spencer Tracy) quest to find Dr. David Livingstone (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) , a Scottish missionary presumed lost in Africa, who finally met on November 10, 1871. This is the entertaining , attractive and legendary true-story of detailing the obsessive search for find a missionary by a savage land American . As journalist Tracy sets out into darkest Africa to locate a long lost British explorer . As Stanley carries out a tumultuous expedition that gains new life in this handsomely produced account . All the world no show like this! He succeeded in the maddest quest in History...because one girl believed in him! A woman he never could have . Inspired him to complete the greatest adventure the world has ever kown ! "Find Livingstone" The command that sent Stanley on the most stirring adventure ever known! The most heroic exploit the world has known !. Into the perilous wilderness of unknown Africa...one white man ventured to seek another! Heat...fever...cannibals...jungle...nothing could stop him!

This is a spectacular film set at turn of century with beautifully understated interpretations , containing adventure , action , romance , thrills and historical events .The classic Hollywood kistch version of the Victorian legend-based-on-fact . Being a lavish and dramatically solid fictionalized history . The interesting story of two strangers who made good friends and being competently performed . Spencer Tracy plays Stanley , while Cedric Hardwicke portrays Livingstone. Other cast members include Nancy Kelly, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Charles Coburn , Henry Travers and Henry Hull. Special mention for starring Spencer Tracy who's magnificent , as usual and low-key . The motion picture was competently directed by Henry Koster .

The film is based on actual events from these two great explorers : Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871, later claiming that he outfitted an expedition with 192 porters and many of his porters deserted, and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases. Stanley found David Livingstone on 10 November 1871 in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania. He later claimed to have greeted him with the now-famous line, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" However, this line does not appear in his journal from the time-the two pages directly following the recording of his initial spotting of Livingstone were torn out of the journal at some point-and it is likely that Stanley simply embellished the pithy line sometime afterwards. Neither man mentioned it in any of the letters they wrote at this time, and Livingstone tended to instead recount the reaction of his servant, Susi, who cried out: "An Englishman coming! I see him! . Stanley joined Livingstone in exploring the region, finding that there was no connection between Lake Tanganyika and the Nile. On his return, he wrote a book about his experiences . In 1874, the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph financed Stanley on another expedition to Africa. His ambitious objective was to complete the exploration and mapping of the Central African Great Lakes and rivers, in the process circumnavigating Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika and locating the source of the Nile. Between 1875 and 1876 Stanley succeeded in the first part of his objective, establishing that Lake Victoria had only a single outlet - the one discovered by John Hanning Speke on 21 July 1862 and named Ripon Falls. If this was not the Nile's source, then the separate massive northward flowing river called by Livingstone, the Lualaba, and mapped by him in its upper reaches, might flow on north to connect with the Nile via Lake Albert and thus be the primary source. Between November 1876 and August 1877, Stanley and his men navigated the Lualaba up to and beyond the point where it turned sharply westward, away from the Nile, identifying itself as the Congo River. Stanley and his men reached the Portuguese outpost of Boma, around 100 kilometres from the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic Ocean, after 999 days on 9 August 1877. Stanley's diary show that he started with 228 people and reached Boma with 114 survivors, with he being the only European left alive out of four. Stanley was approached by King Leopold II of the Belgians, the monarch who had already established the International African Association (a front organization for the later International Association of the Congo) at the Brussels Geographic Conference of 1876. Stanley first hoped to continue his pioneering work in Africa under the British flag. But neither the Foreign Office nor Edward, the Prince of Wales, felt called to receive Stanley after the many rumors of his looting and killing in the interior of the African continent. Leopold II eagerly received a disenchanted Stanley at his palace in June 1878, and signed a contract with him.

Spencer Tracy is on top form in this story of the British-born American journalist Henry Stanley who is despatched by his editor into the uncharted reaches of the African interior to track down the famed explorer David Livingstone, rumours of whose death having been reported by reputable British newspapers. Armed with plenty of money and his reliable sidekick "Slocum" (Walter Brennan) they set off and with some help from the rather fever-ridden British consul in Zanzibar find themselves crossing Africa staring the most beautiful and dangerous travails head on. The screenplay is based in fact, as we all know, so there is little jeopardy in regard to the results of their trekking, but the film takes it's time to develop a bit more of a look into what motivates both men, and how these motivations evolve as their exposure to the dark content and it's peoples moulds and changes opinions and priorities. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is convincing as the missionary explorer who has an innate, if middle-class, decency about him, as is Charles Coburn (Lord Tyce), the publisher of a rival newspaper all too eager for Stanley to fall flat. Though one could never describe him as versatile, the usually charismatic Brennan delivers consistently too. The on-location filming gives us a grand scale vista of their escapades and Tracy and Hardwicke's thoughtful and considered delivery makes this well worth a watch.

A 1939 film that was directed by Henry King and stars Spencer Tracy, Walter Brennan and Cedric Hardwicke. Tracy stars as Stanley, a newspaper man who at first is seen talking to the chief of a bunch of hostile Indians and Walter Brennan is his guide. Tracy is then asked by his editor to go into Africa to find Livingstone, but they don't even know if he's alive. The next half hour is basically spent Tracy and Brennan spending over a year just trying to find Livingstone. When they finally do, they're surprised to see that Livingstone doesn't want to leave and Livingstone thought they were coming to help him. I love black and white movies but i thought that this movie would of been better if it had been done in color like Northwest Passage or Jesse James. Both Tracy and Brennan do a good job and Hardwicke also does a good job as Livingstone.