Africa Speaks!

In order to bring this important early sound era documentary into proper cultural and natural historic focus, one must bethink of the prodigious changes that have altered the face of Africa as well as its humanity and fauna during the more than 70 years since the film's production. One can only imagine the reaction of a 1930 audience which viewed the extraordinary events presented and filmed by Colorado-based explorer Paul Hoefler, including the death and mealtaking by a family of lions of one of Hoefler's expeditionary native assistants, total decimation of the expedition's surrounding flora by a massive winged horde of locusts, and remarkable animals and people of many varieties. Narrator Lowell Thomas' somewhat casual comments of events that could not have been greeted in such cavalier fashion at the time they occurred can be offputting, and his attempts at whimsy consistently fall as flat as the veldt being traversed, but withal the narration provides a raft of historically fascinating data. Hoefler's book of the same title, published shortly after the release of the film, differs insofar as the expedition actually travelled from east to west, rather than the reverse, but for purposes of visual impact actual events were edited in order to produce dramatic action.

First of all, the guys who made this did fantastic arduous work in traveling to Africa with primitive hand-cranked movie cameras capturing footage of wildlife in their natural habitat and "primitive" tribes in their daily lives, which as so often shows them to be remarkably well adapted to their surroundings and no more primitive than most Americans (given recent events in 2021, probably less so). I suspect that in the 90 years since, the almost unimaginably huge animal herds, as well as the Masai and pygmy tribes visited, have fared less well.

It's also historical in showing the cavalier attitude toward documentaries then prevalent. Large chunks featuring the two white explorers were obviously shot in Los Angeles with equipment more sophisticated than was available on their trek, with local black men recruited to take their shirts off and play "native." The narration of the African scenes somehow manages to avoid any overt racism, just an air of condescension toward Africa, "the land of savagery and dangerous adventure where nature shows no mercy and deadly beasts of the jungle are supreme!" Yup, the whole continent had no cities or cars or schools, just naked people running around being chased by wild animals.

Speaking of racism, it does turn up in the phony scenes shot in L. A., one where the explorers give a "native" some salt, and he gobbles it up by the handful for some reason, and another with a lion supposedly killing a "native," which is then used as unnecessary justification for startling footage of Masai warriors actually hunting a lion with spears. There was probably a more interesting story behind the real hunt.

OK, so this is what the American public wanted back then. It was a big hit and the New York Times reviewer called it "the most thrilling of travel pictures that have come to the screen."

There seem to be only 50 minutes left of the film's original 75, at least on the copies readily available. If you don't think you'll be too offended by the narrator's lame jokes or by scenes of lions killing and eating their prey, 50 minutes will give you a lot to think about.

This film is striking for several reasons. The obvious footage of animals and insects was magnificent, and so was the scenes of the veldt, regardless of the animals. But, beyond that, the whole feeling of the daily hardship of life on the African continent 70 odd years ago was almost overwhelming. This film brought the living in fear of lions, locust, tsetse flies and other dangers into sharp relief for me. It was well worth watch if only to get the historical sense of life on the dark continent.

Africa Speaks! (1930)

*** (out of 4)

Famous explorer Paul Hoefler heads into the African Congo to trek across the land in order to see the wildlife as well as various tribes that are there.

AFRICA SPEAKS! was originally released as a documentary but over the past few decades it has been sold to fans of exploitation movies. The film offers up some nudity via the locals as well as some animal deaths so these taboo stuff was enough to make it an "exploitation" movie and it is sold as such. Obviously some people will want to avoid it since there are real animal deaths but as a documentary I thought the film worked.

The version I watched was 69-minutes, which is about six -minutes shy of the running time listed on various sites. I'm not sure if those running times are incorrect or if the print going around is actually missing some footage. It's certainly choppy at times so keep that in mind. As far as the footage, I personally thought it was great and it certainly made the picture worth viewing.

The footage of the various wildlife animals is the reason to watch this. There are some great shots of lions, giraffes, locusts, elephants and other animals and there's no question that this footage is quite raw and rather remarkable for the time. The film really lets you see what this wild lands were like back in the day and that alone makes this worth watching. We also get to see some tribes like the Ubangi and Wassara, which is another great bit of insight that we get.

As I said, there are many elements that would today be considered exploitation including the nudity as well as the animal violence. The most infamous moment in the film is when the camera crew comes under attack by some lions and apparently a man was actually killed. Some of this footage was left in the movie, which again explains why the film is sold as exploitation.

This makes Luis Bunuel's Land Without Bread look like a perfect historic document. It's like a 12 year old looks at Africa and just makes up opinions about things after being told he's the smartest kid in the world. It's very entertaining and it's very useful. When they are not staging people and the sound is off this is amazing footage. They capture a lot of scenery of the time. Apparently at the time, if you could afford a camera and were willing to point it at something interesting, you could consider yourself a documentarian.

I do realize he's telling bad jokes but it's the statements when he's being serious that make it so absurd.

He's making everything up as he narrates. He thinks a child's belly that indicates malnourishment is an indication of eating well. I fact checked a statement he made about a giraffe and it's completely incorrect. His statements about rhinos are also incorrect. Lions manes vary based on weather not because they get caught on bushes.

His knowledge of insects is the insects today do not act as well as insects in the Bible. Ungodly insects apparently. He provides an explanation for a practice of women in a tribe and it is wrong on every aspect. He states that nobody understands the behavior of impalas and then offers made-up information about the behavior of impalas.

These gentlemen are making a Borat style exposé about themselves. There's a scene where they obviously told two Africans to do something silly and then yell at them not to do it. This is a few white men discovering Africa by having dozens of black people do all their work. He points out that they use people from different tribes that can't talk to each other to make sure they don't all quit at the same time.

Like Land Without Bread, this is a period piece that demonstrates a time when documentaries lacked journalistic standards. I do recognize some of this continues today and hence Borat has a lot of work to do.