Freebie Film Tip #9: Wild Men of the Kalahari (1930), aka, 'Idiots on Safari'

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Freebie Film Tip #9: Wild Men of the Kalahari (1930), aka, 'Idiots on Safari'

A river meandering through a valley

This is how the Discovery Channel got started.

Hysteria on part of Elektra.

This adventure film contains great zoological and anthropological insights:

  • 'Whenever you see a rhinoceros in the water, it's always a hippopotamus.'
  • 'We are the first Americans to see this wonderful waterfall.' I'm sure the waterfall felt honoured.
  • The wart hog is 'the prehistoric progenitor of our domestic pig, and of innumerable ham sandwiches.' Who WRITES this stuff?
  • Note: 'The Hottentots say that baboons could talk, but they don't want to, because they know that the minute they begin to talk, the white men will come and put them to work.' There's not much to say about this.

On anthropology: This guy admires the Zulu, because they make war a lot and keep the women working in the fields. He likes Shaka, who was 'the Napoleon of Africa'. High praise, indeed.

This imperialist knothead is patronising about the Obambu, because they don't wear fancy enough clothes to suit him. But he's downright contemptuous about the Bushmen. He's libelous, too – we don't believe they were that dangerous.

Notice the explanation they made up for the phonograph: Instead of eating their enemies, they – that is, the white people – stuck them inside these little boxes that played music. That's obviously what somebody did with this filmmaker – he must have ticked National Geographic off, so they stuck him in a film. I certainly would have.

The film kind of falls apart at the end (it's old), but I recommend you persevere in watching this, racist remarks and all. Although this man is obviously unaware of the offensiveness of a lot of the drivel he's spouting, underneath, you can detect a certain amount of sympathy and even admiration for the Bushmen. As he's at pains to point out, all our ancestors were like that once – hunting with bows and arrows and dogs, being sexist, refusing to institute health care for the elderly. . . Besides, you get to see the ostrich hunt. Watching two guys stalking a herd of ostriches while wearing a pantomime ostrich outfit. . . priceless.

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