Savannah Doldrums

The Naked Prey (1966)
directed by Cornel Wilde
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Why is stock footage of animals in the outback always twenty years older than the movie that incorporates it? Why do movies from the fifties and sixties with lots of stock footage (like Journey to the Center of the Earth) slow to a narrative crawl when that footage is featured? Were cheetahs still such a novelty in 1966 that editors stopped doing their jobs just to watch them?

Anyway, I don't think the switch from a real-life story about escape from the Blackfoot Indians to a tax-break tale of a British safari hunter running from anonymous naked Africans did Wilde's promotion of cultural understanding too many favors. The ineptitude and irrationalism of the African hunters definitely qualifies for racism in my book, and I really don't see the point beyond “Africa man is savage,” and maybe the novelty of long passages of un-subtitled conversation.

Maybe The Naked Prey is best as a comedy, when Wilde unsuccessfully tries to kill lizards, slugs, or gazelles; passes out face down in the dust waiting for a snake; or finds a pool of water and tries to make out with it. Even better, a silent comedy!