FILMING "SANDERS OF THE RIVER"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22716, 31 October 1935, Page 7

FILMING "SANDERS OF THE RIVER"

By Gordon Mirams.

Just about 18 months ago there arrived in Africa Zoltan Korda. a director of London Film Productions, a cameraman, four cameras, 100,000 feet of raw film, sound engineers and microphones, assistant directors, a transport manager, and a white game hunter to see that the travelling larder of the company was always well stocked. With their cameras and microphones and all the other impedimenta of film production, they trekked into the interior of the continent to film hitherto unrecorded scenes of negro songs and dances and tribal customs for the British film "Sanders of the River." They collected 40 natives to act as porters and servants, chauffeurs and general odd-job men, and they loaded up with food, drink, tents, beds, lamps—and quinine. Then they headed for a place called Gulu. What with swamps and refractory rivers, the cars had to go one way and the lorries another, but three days and 400 miles later, fcp their mutual astonishment, they found themselves reunited, all present and correct, at Gulu. The native tribe in that part is known as the Acholi, a magnificent race of black eiants. The warriors wear leopard skins: the others wear almost nothing at all. With visions of an irate censor and embarrassed audiences, Zoltan Korda thought it might be advisable to introduce a little light clothing here and there But the district commissioner refused to agree, on the very good ground that any alteration of tribal dress (In this caso undress) would have a bad effect on native morals. The district commissioner arranged for the company to film a thousand warriors, all bedecked in their finery of ostrich-feather hats, buffalo-hide shields and spears. The interpreter explained that the white men wanted to hear the native songs and see the war dances. The commissioner warned the cameramen to be careful, because these natives take their dancing much more seriously than Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Every dance with the Acholi is a sort of marathon. And ever so often one of them will dance himself into a frenzy when he feels he must kill whoever is nearest him! Because of this remarkable parallel to the artistic temperament of more civilised stage and screen stars, Korda and his assistants were compelled to arrest and lock up on an average about six " actors" every day. For 10 days and 10 nights the thousand natives sang and danced almost without stopping—and the cameras turned intermittently. When they left off at last, the production manager fearfully approached the District Commissioned and asked how much was owed the Acholi for their services. To his astonishment, the bill ca7ne to only £3OO, which works out at sixpence per head per day! In making a film like this in Africa the one outstanding and almost insuperable difficulty is to make the African native work —especially when the sun is shining. It is no use explaining to him that it is only when the sun is out that a film sa'n be taken. Zoltan Korda once tried to explain to a tribe what a camera was for. He let one of his " actors " look through the view finder. Then 10 others did so, with the utmost gravity, and after each had taken a peep and had had time to spread the news of what they thought they saw, the whole mob, 800 strong, charged the, camera and began peering through every part of it. One fellow would fix his eye to a screw head, and then rush off to tell all his friends of the astounding things he had " seen " —all entirely imaginary. "The difficulty with making a film like ' Sanders of the River' in Africa is that you have to have lots of time, lots of patience, lots of cash—and lots of luck," is how Zoltan Korda summed it up on returning to England. "You have to know all the regulations laid down by the various commissioners, be an expert on car repairs when .you have a breakdown 150 miles from the nearest garage, think up methods of persuading casual hippopotami to give you the right of way along a jungle road, and avoid getting malaria. " But it was worth all the headaches. We collected nearly 50 different songs which have never yet been heard outside the few hundre<r~square miles where their singers live. The music lias been arranged to form the background to ' Sanders of the River.' We have thousands of feet of genuine African material in the film, including a tremendous battle scene. The theme of our picture in the devotion and self-sacrifice of the white men like Commissioner Sanders who watch over the interests of the thousands of natives scattered over vast tracts of jungle, often as large as all Wales. These men combine the patience of Job with the wisdom of Solomon. It was because he knew these men that Edgar Wallace wrote the novel on which the film is based; and it is to "them that ' Sanders of the River ' is dedicated. .They smoothed out the obstacles in my path; they did everything that was possible to help me produce the picture. Through their efforts we had a comparatively easy time where we might have had' to put up with every conceivable hardship and difficulty."