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Being on the run from natives - which has become something of a routine
for them -, the famous trader Horn (Wallace Beery) and his young sidekick
Peru (Duncan Renaldo) stumble upon Edith Trent (Olive Golden), who's on
the lookout for her daughter she has lost 20 years ago. Horn warns her to
not proceed any further to not fall into native hands, but she ignores his
warnings - and the next day, Horn and Peru find her dead body and decide
to take over from her to search for her daughter. It isn't long before
Horn and Peru fall into the hands of natives and are prepared to be killed
violently, but enter the natives' Goddess - who happens to be a white
girl, possibly Edith Trent's daughter Nina (Edwina Booth). Nina has never
seen white men before, but she feels immediately drawn to them, especially
Peru. She frees them, and the three of them plus Horn's gunbearer Rencharo
(Mutia Omoolu) make a daring getaway. During their extended getaway, Horn
and Peru repeatedly fight it out over Nina, with none of the two ready to
step down, but then the natives launch an all-out attack and Horn agrees
to risk everything to divert the natives to allow the others to escape. He
almost fails but Rencharo saves his life catching a spear (and dying in
the process) meant for him. Back at the trading post, Horn almost dies
of worry, waiting for Peru and Nina to arrive, and when they do (they were
picked up and escorted back to civilisation by pygmies), he sits them on
the next boat to get them out of Africa to properly forget the woman he
has loved and lost ... If nothing else, Trader Horn was
an amazingly ambitious project, it was the first US-American
non-documentary film to be shot on location in Africa, and back in the
day, this was nothing short of an amazing logistical challenge. Largely,
the effort pays off, too, since seeing the characters on actual location
and not some cheap jungle sets does make a difference, as does seeing the
jungle animals in their actual habitat and not just some safari park, but
the whole project also took its toll on cast and crew: Not only did quite
a few crewmembers die in animal attacks, on-location filming also gave the
film's main actress Edwina Booth a fever (possibly malaria) that would
before long effectively end her career. This though is saying nothing
about the actual film in hand, and I have to admit I'm of two finds about
it. On the plus side, the movie is perfectly cast, Harry Carey as the
tough-as-nails trader and Duncan Renaldo as his sidekick develop just the
right chemistry, and Edwina Booth, wearing rather little, looks pretty
sexy without overdoing it. Also, the film benefits from its extensive
location shooting, as mentioned above - but all that said, the extensive
location shooting is also a bit of a curse, because at times, especially
in the first half, the film seems a bit like a wildlife documentary, and
the actual story kicks in only very gradually. In all though, even if Trader
Horn is not a perfect film, it's an interesting watch. Oh, and you
might experience some kind of dejà vu while watching this one, because
its wildlife footage popped up again in quite a few jungle films after
this one, most notably Tarzan,
the Ape Man.
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