VOICES OF AFRICA SPEAK

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1932, Page 7

VOICES OF AFRICA SPEAK

“TRADER HORN” AT OPEBA HOUSE.

The solemn throbbing of the drums that beat their message throughout a continent, the roar of tho wild animal that seeks its prey, the wild chant of gathered tribesmen working themselves into battle frenzy and the thudding hoofbeats of herds of game thrilled the audience that almost filled the New Plymouth Opera House for the first evening season of “Trader Horn,” which opened a four-night season last night. It is the very heart-beat of Africa that tho sound-recording camera has brought to the screen for the first time.

The story is adapted from that of Alovsius Horn, the trader who saw much of dark Africa that no white man had ever seen ‘before. Now behind the cameras of what must have been one of the . greatest expeditions undertaken one sees the darkness of Africa unveiled. From the peaceful village where the trader is welcomed, while the children play, the men sharpen their hunting spears and the women • grind the corn or execute wonderful coiffures on the heads of their fellows, one is led into more savage recesses where the witch doctors excite their tribes to a blood-lust'that will not be sated. And all the while the drums throb monotonously. The struggle for existence. that life in • Africa becomes permeates the film. The stronger preys ,on the weaker and in the pointing of this the film contains splendid animal shots. Lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, buffaloes, hyenas, liartebeest, gazelles, antelopes, wildebeest—all manner of creatures are seen in their eternal conflict. Hero and here only the director’s hand fails him a little, for the cutting of those sequences could have been better done. But for the rest W. S. Van Dyke : haS given us a master film, a film of which we want more. Through the thrills is woven tho romance of the Peruvian youngster and the white-skinned goddess of a native tribe, the long lost daughter of a missionary to whom Trader Horn (Harry Carey) has made a promise he keeps at risk of his life. Duncan Renwldo is the Peruvian and Edwina Booth ably plays the part of the girh