Post by NoShear on Aug 4, 2023 20:07:06 GMT
Four weeks ago, TCM took a safari. Here's what I brought back alive...
Since it predated the epic KING KONG by a year, TARZAN THE APE MAN presumably yielded some shock value for audiences in its 1932 time: sadistic pygmies seen dangling members of the hunting party to a not entirely silly-looking simian for their entertainment!
Director W. S. Van Dyke tapped stock footage shot for his previous Trader Horn, but the deepest and darkest San Fernando Valley also offered scenery for the adventure film.
As with TARZAN THE APE MAN, MOGAMBO (1953) is rif(l)e with safari tropes. The '53 movie also offers now politically incorrect lamentation over England's struggle to maintain the exoticism of colonial Africa as their perception of it, a topical comment that was possibly borne of the real-life presence of the MAU MAU whose insurrection had begun the same year filming got under way.
But the movie, despite the anti-messages stance of its director John Ford, also seems to go deeper than superficial Technicolor requisites: One scene seems to offer reflective sympathy for the captured baby gorilla as seen on the faces of the black escorts.