Simba (1927)
Simba astonishes with some of the most spectacular images of
Africa's people and wildlife. Filmed from 1924 to 1927, Simba
creates a remarkable portrait and an invaluable record of lost
cultures through encounters with the people of Kenya and Tanzania.
The DVD soundtrack features live music performed at the Kansas
Silent Film Festival showing of Simba in 2004.
Congorilla (1932)
The first sound movie made entirely in Africa, congorilla
premiered in 1932 and permitted audiences to hear what they had only
been able to see during previous safari films. Martin and Osa
Johnson began in Kenya and Tanzania before moving on to the Uganda
and the Congo basin. Along the way, they filmed zebra in the
Serengeti, charging rhino in the Northern Frontier District, and
recorded exciting encounters with crocodiles and hippos as they went
down the Nile. The latter part of the film is devoted to the
seven months the filmmakers spent in the Ituri Forest with the Mbuti
people as they captured village life despite the high humidity which
caused batteries to deteriorate, wires and connections to corrode,
and mildew to form on camera cases.
Baboona (1935)
The 1935 Morro films, shot by Martin and Osa Johnson, recount the
60,000 mile "flying safari" undertaken by the filmmakers
as they flew their two amphibian airplanes ( the zebra-striped Osa's
Ark and the giraffe-spotted Spirit of Africa) from Capetown, South
Africa to Cairo, Egypt. Famous shots from the movie include
the first ever aerial pictures of the tops of Africa's tallest
peaks, Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya along the journey, Martin
filmed Osa surrounded by a pride of lions and together they captured
amazing scenes of a baboon colony, an event striking enough to give
the movie its name.
I Married Adventure (1940)
A 1940 Columbia Picture feature film, I Married Adventure stars
Osa Johnson and closely follows her 1940 best-selling book of the
same name. Osa portrays herself in studio-produced scenes
which bridge the transition between actual documentary footage
segments as the film recounts the Johnson's nine world expeditions
to Africa, Borneo, and the South Seas. Jim Bannon, a Hollywood
stuntman who lent his voice to many westerns including Red Ryder,
Don Clark, and Albert Duffy narrate this adventure classic that
compiles the very best images from the Johnsons' original feature
films.
Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
Ernest Hemingway could never come to terms with the stereotypical
happy ending and although Snows of Kilimanjaro is his story, he
could never bring himself to see the movie version. In Snows
of Kilimanjaro, Gregory Peck plays F. Scott Fitzgerald who is on
safari in the African mountains with his lady friend played by Susan
Hayward. Fitzgerald is seriously wounded while hunting and in
the few hours he has left, he reflects upon his life and believes it
has been wasted in pursuit of money, instead of spent contributing
to the greater good. The movie's producer dictated that the
end of the movie differ from the Hemingway's short story - the happy
ending has the author Fitzgerald surviving his injuries and
determined to write something of lasting value. Snows of
Kilimanjaro features a wonderful musical score and on-location
photography.
King Solomon's Mine (1937)
The plot of this classic film gets under way when Anna Lee
organizes an expedition to locate her father, legendary explorer
Quartermaine, who has disappeared in the wilds of Africa while
searching for King Solomon's Mines, a fabled diamond repository.
Umbopa, a native guide played by Paul Robeson (a singing star of the
day) has a secret motivation for guiding the expedition: to reclaim
the tribal throne wrested from him by the treacherous Dr. Gagool
(played by Sydney Fairbrother). At first treated as gods by
the natives, the explorers soon find their lives imperiled.
Thanks to Umbopa's know-how, the explorers are saved from horrible
death and the evil tribesmen are overthrown. As for king
Solomon's Mines, Quartermaine and his party finally locate the
fabled diamond cache-and then fate deals an ironic hand...
