Arctic Roundup

RKO-Pathe presents Wildlife Album. An expedition goes into the Canadian Arctic to roundup musk-ox for breeding. They first arrive in Yellowknife. Using floatplanes and canoes, the group tracks down a small herd. Using no weapons, the group builds an enclosure. They manage to capture an adult male which they don't need. So they let him go. They finally locate a large herd and hope to rope a few calves.

I don't like narrator John Teal Jr. He has a flat speaking voice. He's understandable, but his voice is not engaging enough. The group does have some good real-life adventure thrills and action photography.

This is very near the end of short subject production at RKO, still shown as RKO-Pathe. It concerns itself with Canadian muskox, with many telephoto shots of the subject taken near the Great Slave Lake. By the time I was able to notice these things, they showed up on TV as "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" in which we watched commercials while Jim Fowler wrestled the python, alligator or cougar every week.

There's some lovely photography involved, particularly a herd of about fifty muskox running across the ruddy, flat landscape, sized against the wing of a Piper Cub. Even so, all the hues except the stronger blues have faded towards red -- a problem with the chemical dyes that succeeded Technicolor. The narration of the effort by expedition leader John Teal Jr. Is monotonous and he sounds as if he has a bit of a head cold. Still, it's worth at least one look at the evolutionary end of the short subject.