Simba: the King of the Beasts (Martin & Osa Johnson, 1928)

 

Martin and Osa Johnson’s silent 1928 African-made Simba: the King of the Beasts remains fascinating viewing, at times poignant in the abundance of life before the camera (will anyone ever photograph rhinos in such quantities again?), amusingly quaint in such shots as the vintage cars struggling to stay upright on rocky terrain or to make it across a river; it’s at its best in simply observing elephants or lions in their naturally sustainable (if eternally parched and brutal) ecosystem. Martin Johnson is a largely reticent figure, certainly in contrast to his often gun-brandishing wife: she brings down several magnificent animals in the course of the film (the deaths are all presented here as them-or-her necessities, but who knows…), while also finding time in the final moments to bake a celebratory apple pie. The film sadly comes with much attitudinal baggage, ranging from a reductively anthropomorphic approach to the animals (variously described as among the happiest on earth, as being inveterate trouble-makers, as declaring “Wait for me,” etc. etc.- and of course the Johnsons are hardly cinema’s only offenders in this respect) to a relentlessly belittling attitude toward indigenous Africans (the very first shot of Osa shows her seeming to needlessly chide an over-burdened servant for dropping an item), labeled among other things as “half-savage,” or “half-civilized” (interesting notions, if they were at all interrogated); the film tells us there are more lions in a particular area “than any Black man” can count to, opines that an aging Queen is “no beauty,” and stupidly compares the local dress to that of the then fashionable flapper girls, just to give a few examples. Still, despite those not insignificant caveats, and notwithstanding the overly repetitive insistence on the mortal danger in which the Johnsons willingly placed themselves, the film easily earns one’s overall admiration.

Paradise Calling (Arielle Dombasle, 1988)

 

A cinematic oddity for sure, Arielle Dombasle’s Les pyramides bleues features half the principal cast of Eric Rohmer’s Pauline at the Beach (herself, Pascal Greggory, Rosette), but could hardly be more tonally and narratively distant. She plays Elise, the partner of the wealthy Alex (Omar Sharif), increasingly uneasy at their decadent life (the breaking point comes when he randomly fires a gun into the jungle and kills a pet dog) and eventually fleeing to a convent in France; Alex and his main lieutenant (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) evolve a convoluted plan to get her back, involving a new-age religious cult that’s all too ready to compromise its supposed principles for financial gain. The film contains several gratuitous-seeming scenes of female nudity, a few times involving Dombasle herself; if there’s any attempt here to resist the objectification of male-dominated commercial cinema, it’s sadly hard to detect. But then, almost everything about the film is either disappointing or mystifying or both (it doesn’t help that one is most likely to come across the English version, titled Paradise Calling, in which just about everyone other than Sharif is lifelessly dubbed). For a film that’s notionally about shifting concepts of faith, it’s relentlessly superficial in probing everything from the contours of Elise’s beliefs, to the supposed theology of the cult (which doesn’t seem to go much beyond “God is love”), to Alex’s seemingly genuine change of heart in the closing stretch (evidenced by his riding a bus among the common people and enjoying it, and filling a room in the house with religious icons); the relish with which the cult leader embraces corruption is more eye-rolling than chilling. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, the film contains the primary narrative within a clunky framing device closing on an apparent promise of seduction and a spirited but hardly reflection-aiding performance of Guantanmera.

Torch Singer (Alexander Hall & George Somnes, 1933)

 

The 1933 Torch Singer, directed by Alexander Hall and George Somnes, is a calculatingly melodramatic star vehicle for Claudette Colbert, but rooted in a still-bracing initial frankness as her pregnant character Sally shows up penniless at what we understand is one of the few New York hospitals willing to extend charity to an expectant mother who won’t name the father (he’s a wealthy businessman who’s in China for some unspecified reason, not knowing what he’s left behind); for a year or so afterwards she manages to make it alone (an extended scene of Sally during bathtime with her own and her roommate’s baby showcases why the expressive “Baby LeRoy” was deemed worthy of star billing for a brief period), but eventually gives up the child to adoption, and thereafter achieves notorious stardom under the snappier stage name of Mimi Benton (while eventually picking up a contrasting sideline as the sweet-voiced “Aunt Jenny” on a daily kid-oriented radio broadcast). Colbert is magnetic and alluring throughout, not least modeling a series of perilously low-cut dresses, but one’s attention is even more fully drawn to Mildred Washington as her maid Carrie, emanating an alertly playful intelligence, all the more fascinating for the knowledge that the actress died of peritonitis in the year of the film’s release; it's a funny coincidence (presumably) that one of the film’s other most striking presences is also Black, the uncredited 4-year-old Carlena Beard delivering a sweetly unaffected-seeming minute or two, Colbert seeming genuinely charmed by her. The film becomes more conventional and less interesting once Sally’s lost love reappears on the scene and she becomes ever more preoccupied with regaining her child (which, hardly a spoiler, the movie accomplishes with not a thought for the rights or emotional investment of the adoptive parents), and the final moments feel as resigned as they do triumphant.