Trader Horn

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.

As sheer entertainment, the movie more than succeeds. Sure, the storyline seems familiar— intrepid white men leading safari to rescue white girl amid wilds of untamed Africa. But check out all the great vistas and teeming wildlife, even if the beasts-in-combat was filmed later in Mexico-- evidently the Africa end of the production was as much an ordeal as the storyline itself (IMDB).

Carey is convincing as the chief trader. He's got a way of tossing off dialog as though he's just thought of it, and his Trader Horn remains a commanding figure throughout. Booth is almost scary as the tribal white girl, twisting her angular features into grotesque shapes that few Hollywood glamour girls would dare risk. However, the make-up man feminizes Renaldo with enough eyeliner to embarrass Estee Lauder. I realize he needs to be attractive enough to turn the white goddess around, but in the process he's been made pretty rather than safari handsome.

One thing to note is the centrality of sound to the drama. The roar of that spectacular waterfall impresses, as do the native drums and tribal hubbub. Perhaps the sound track is heightened because of the newness of the technology (1927), but it does add a lot.

As a Third World document, however, the movie's very much a creature of its time—the casual slurs, the butt-kicking, the girl's sudden preference for the white world. Such racial assumptions shouldn't be surprising given the time period; at the same time, the rich spectacle remains, including that inspired final shot. All in all and despite the drawbacks, this influential antique remains worth catching up with.

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" is a very good film, but it's also a monstrous film--a very strange combination. I noticed that I my wife and I watched it, she was terrified and even angered several times--mostly because the filmmakers were so darned irresponsible in the way they treated the animals (and even cast members!).

The film begins with Horn (Harry Carey) and Peru (Duncan Renaldo) trekking through Africa with their porters and Horn's assistant, Rencharo (Mutia Omoolu). They are looking to trade salt and trinkets to the locals for ivory and furs. But, instead of taking advantage of the naiveté of these tribesmen, the tables end up getting turned on them. Despite Horn's experience on the Continent, he's finally out of his league--among incredibly hostile natives who seem bent on killing them all. In an odd twist, they meet up with a savage white woman living among these locals and they take 'Nina' with them on a cross-country run from these hostile warriors. This portion of the film is highly reminiscent of the later film "The Naked Prey" (with Cornel Wilde).

While the film is exciting and has a lot of great action location sequences, the film also is very tough to watch. Because the film was made in the Pre-Code era (where rules about film content were rarely enforced), the film is amazingly violent. In fact, MGM didn't like the final product, so they took a bunch of animals (probably from circuses or zoos) to Mexico and had them kill each other or killed them outright and stuck this into the movie!! There was no PETA or American Humane Association to oversee the project and it is tough watching animals actually die. In particular, there is a scene where a lion is impaled on a spear and it appears that they really did this for the entertainment of the audiences! Uggh. Additionally, being a Pre-Code piece, Nina spends much of the movie wearing very little--and all the native women are topless--which was not a problem in 1931. However, with the toughened Production Code of 1934, this film would have been heavily edited to be shown in the States or not at all. Because of all this, it's a film you definitely cannot ignore!! Exciting location shots, lots of action and a bit of trash--all make for a very exciting but unsavory film.

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.