The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie took six months on site(s) in Africa. That was about three times the usual for the time. Upon return to the States some of the film was deemed unusable. So a crew went to Mexico and re-shot some scenes. Edwina Booth plays Nina, lost daughter of white missionaries. She is queen of an African tribe when she is found. To me she looked scared the whole time she played the queen but I think she was suppose to be looking savage and mean. While she runs around almost nude the entire time she is on screen there is nothing that shows. This was a ground breaking role for her and it also was basically the end of her career. She contracted malaria and it took her six years to recover. By then she had been all but forgotten. Harry Carey is the experienced, older white hunter who is chaperoning the son of an old friend around. Captured by Nina's tribe, all the bearers are tortured, killed and I guess eaten. When it becomes their turn Nina saves the two whites and their gun bearer. They escape with the girl and lead all on a merry chase. Then Carey separates from the pair to lead the trackers away. The end of the movie has Carey starting out on an expedition to find the two but just as he is leaving they show up. Filmed in 1931 when animals were shot or otherwise miss treated for movie scenes there are several times when this appears to happen here. The rhinos that shot and killed, the lions and leopards that attack the other animals were reportedly starved so they would attack. I don't think a lion who was not starving would go after a warthog, they are very formidable opponents. While did not care for the needless killings and such this is not a bad movie for 1931.

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.

TRADER HORN is somewhat of an endurance test to watch. The first hour is a compilation of animal wildlife footage filmed entirely on "The Dark Continent", which looks even darker in the murky B&W cinematography on display here.The plot doesn't pick up until the first hour is over, thanks to the entry of EDWINA BOOTH, a white woman who seems like a threat to both Trader Horn (HARRY CAREY) and his young hunter friend (DUNCAN RENALDO), a naive young fellow who is constantly being tutored and lectured by the grizzly older man who knows all about the jungle. But once the threat is over, she becomes a safari mate and the two men fight over protecting her as they make their way through some dangerous turf.Most of the wildlife footage is seen at a distance and is the sort of footage that would later adorn the Johnny Weissmuller films at MGM whenever a Tarzan film needed some extra background shots. It's definitely not up to the standards that "Wild Kingdom" achieved in color film much later on.Booth, a very beautiful woman, makes an interesting impression once she settles down to give a performance, and the men do the best they can with the material on hand. Carey seems not an ideal choice for the leading role and his character never has much warmth, but Duncan Renaldo does nicely as his sidekick, boyishly enthusiastic about every sort of adventure awaiting them.It's an uneven film, hurt by its excessive length and the fact that there is very little plot development until the film is past the midway point--and even then, it ambles slowly toward a sluggish conclusion.The crew deserves praise for putting up with six months of the shooting schedule in darkest Africa, but it's doubtful that today's viewers will be satisfied with the slow moving tale burdened by dark, murky looking photography.As is often the case with movies from this era, there is no background music at all on the soundtrack except for the opening title credits.

This early 1930s talkie is a fine jungle adventure in spite of its dated, pedestrian look. A great white hunter takes his protégé in tow and leads a safari through the African wilds, braving wild animals and savage tribesmen in search of ivory. A major angle is a missionary's search for her long-lost daughter who is now a white goddess living among a savage native tribe. Conflicts arise between Horn and his protégé over the girl who has a wild, feral animal attraction. The film has a great deal of exciting, realistic footage of wild animals in search of prey and the attacks are recorded in detail. The hippos and crocodiles in the rivers make for some tense moments during the safari's canoe crossings as the party races for safety from pursuing natives. Harry Carey Sr., Duncan Renaldo and Edwina Booth star in this fine but unpolished feature which is introduced by a music score that is not heard again for the entire movie. The only other instruments of note being the foreboding, percussive native drums during a "ju-ju" when the tribes work themselves into a wild, killing frenzy.