Trader Horn - Mercador das Selvas

I couldn't even watch more than a half hour of it because it glorifies killing magnificent and endangered species like leopards and elephants. Rod Taylor could play sophisticates, rough guys, idealists, military types, anything but a song and dance man really. He was fine in comedy opposite Doris Day in THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT for example. But here, he is a rugged, jaded antihero in a below average script (what I could stay long enough for anyway) with a dated theme or two: killing wild animals and profiting from selling to Germans in World War One. Danger in Africa it seemed would be the running motif....been done before and since. Rod Taylor should have stayed a movie star, movies like this may indeed explain why he later took smaller parts and often was seen on TV instead. Even after a half hour, I could tell this was not special.

It's 1916 British West Africa. Trader Horn (Rod Taylor) guides pathetic white hunters on their safari and a native guide is killed. The British authority forcefully recruits him to be a guide for the troupes. He escapes from them to join an expedition to find a platinum mine while trying to avoid both the Germans and the English.

There is an actual Trader Horn who wrote a book about his adventures. Of course, there is no expectation of reality in this movie and I'm surprised that it's not overtly bad. The British don't come off looking that good. It does use stock footage of real animal killings, most notably shooting the elephant, which would be very off-putting for modern audiences. The use of real killings is unethical but works cinematically. Let's be clear. This is strictly a B-movie with its reliance on stock footage and its obvious lower budget production. The acting led by Taylor is fair. The story is simple but effective. This is fine unless the stock footage really offends. I'm not going to deduct for that but you may.

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.

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.

As it turned out, 1973 was destined to be a transitional year for Rod Taylor. Somewhat deceptively, it began on a comparatively high note in February when he opened in "The Train Robbers" , a lightweight but pleasant Western for Warner Bros. Co-starring opposite John Wayne and Ann-Margaret, it was Taylor's last hurrah as far as box office success was concerned. With his next release, the golden apple which he had been carrying on his journey through Movie Land for two decades suddenly turned into a lemon.

The trouble began in June when he bobbed up in Metro's "Trader Horn", an ill-considered remake of the 1931 Harry Carey picture. As the famed explorer of darkest Africa, Taylor had to lead a safari of day workers from Central Casting through an obstacle course of every conceivable B- movie cliché. There were rampaging natives, tangled vines, quick- sand and assorted wildlife - all of which materialized via a disconcerting gaggle of all-too-obvious stock footage and back projection. It looked liked the former life saver from Sydney had accidentally walked in front of a home movie screen while his brother-in-law was running a bad 1940s travel documentary. All that was missing was a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. It was the beginning of the end for Taylor as far as his big career was concerned