JUNGLES IN SIAM

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 July 1927, Page 9

JUNGLES IN SIAM

.MOVIE-MAKERS’ THRILLS. Two hundred elephants stampede; the herd goes thundering.past you. An Enraged t’ger makes a leap at you — ■jud just misses. Such are the thrills of intrepid moving-picture makers in the jungles of Siam, where ths wild beasts roam in their thousands. Two ■of the best known jungle men are Merion C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, who in the course of their work daily risk death, not only from wild beasts, but from cholera, which ended the lives of seven of their expedition when securing the picture “Chang.” Schoedsack and Cooper divided the work of making this film, Schoedsack being at the camera with Cooper behind him, ready to dispatch with his gun the beasts as they charged. In one scene there is a huge tiger chasing a native hunter for thirty yards through a clearing, and then treeing the frightened man. Schoedsack is said to have climbed half way up the tree, relying upon the common belief that tigers don’t climb trees. But the tiger leapt to a height at which its claws were only two feet from Schoedsack’s camera. Another instance which is said to show that the producing of this film was hardly like a pink tea. was when Schoedsack photographed u. herd of infuriated elephants as they thundered into a village. First he photographed the herd from a distance of 25 yards in front of the trumpeting beasts, then he dropped into a hastily dug pit, covred by only three logs, and pictured the great animals as they passed above him. Thrice, Schoedsack explained laughingly, the timbers seemed about to yield to the weight of the pachyderms, but he continued to turn the camera crank.

These photographers hunted with their camera in the Nan district of Siam, said to be the worst tiger district in the world. The natives are Laos, a jungle race, a sturdy, brave, fine people. The white men found it difficult at first to get native help, for the Laos had the superstition that anyone who killed a tiger would be turned into a horse for the tiger to ride on. Still, if a tiger became too daring and carried off too many children, they would go out and hunt him, even if it took a volley from five or six of their old-fashioned guns to end his career. Some idea of the prevalence of maneating tigers may be gained from the statement of Mr. Hugh Taylor, the oldest missionary in the Nan district, that between 300 and 400 people were killed by tigers in the past five years. Cooper quoted the missionary as saying that one village of 100 people bad lost 20 from tigers in a single year. The two film men exhibited with somt ,pride a signed statement by a missionary that as a result of their big game hunting deaths from tigers had been rediiced by two-thirds. Three of their men were bitten by pythons, which are not poisonous. Cooper said, and one night a 20-foot python invaded Schoedsack’s room, which was 30 feet above the ground. After searching for ten minutes in the darkened room, they found the snake curled up in a corner, occupying a remarkably small space for such a big fellow.

In making their elephant drive, which resulted in the capture of about 100 of the herd, numbering more than 300, Cooper and Schoedsack employed 700 men, most of whom were occupied in the building of the elephant kraal, or wooden enclosure which served as the trap, , The colossal task of photographing these scenes is scarcely conceivable to us as we sit at home among our books. Cooper and Schoedsack aren’t shooting faked tigers, nor enfeebled old zoo beasts, but young, cruel animals fresh from the jungle. Cooper stands on a high platform near the camera so that he can shoot straight down on Mr. Tiger. And more often than not Schoedsack is flat on the ground or in a hole under the ground, protected only by a few logs, as a leopard charges right over his head. And added to all is that terrific blanket of steaming heat crushing out every particle of human and animal vitality. But the picture must go on.