FINE ANIMAL PICTURE

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 644, 23 December 1932, Page 3

FINE ANIMAL PICTURE

“ Bring ’Em Back Alive ” at Regent. The Australian all-talking production, “ The Sentimental Bloke,” will conclude its season at the Regent Theatre tonight. Christchurch audiences will see something entirely new in animal and jungle pictures when “ Bring ’Em Back Alive,” R.K.O.'s amazing record of Frank Buck’s recent expedition into the Malayan jtftigle, is screened at the Regent Theatre to-morrow. Although a drama, according to conventional standards, was not what Frank Buck set out to film when the Van Beuren-Buck Expedition #et out for the Federated Malay States to produce “Bring ’Em Back Alive,” this picture presents a complete cast just as though it were a formally constructed production. The cast of characters of this picture would look something like this: Heroine, honeyboar; city slicker, python; gangster, tiger: chee-ild. baby elephant; comedian, gibbon ape; another gangster, black panther; friend-in-need, orang-outang: policeman, water buffalo; a sailor, crocodile; tattooed lady, monitor lizard; the hero, Frank Buck. The cast also includes a group of assistant heroes, the trusty native boys who aided in capturing the “ city slicker,” the gangster and the tattooed lady. They also saved the heroine from the “city slicker” and the “chee-ild” from the second gangster. The guilty were “brought back alive” to justice; that is, modern standards of justice. They were treated with kindness, but incarcerated for their crimes. They were not put to death, but were photographed for the rogues’ gallery, of the animal kingdom, and sentenced to benevolent life imprisonment in some menagerie or some public park to atone for their offences against the jungle peace. Frank Buck claims that the man-eating tiger who is the villain of his jungle drama will make all the hard-working badmen of the movies green with envy when they see him fight his way through the R.K.O. Radio picture made by the Van Beuren Expedition. This ferocious jungle beast whose sole concern is to-day’s dinner, acts and fights with rare unconcern. He has no managers, no publicity men, no assistants, and no doubles. His work is spontaneous, and very effective. The photography in this unique film is positively brilliant. and results in a series of amazing animal close-ups, the like of which have never been seen before. The film is rich in natural drama and comedy, and contains all the elements of vital entertainment, at the same time offering something right off the beaten track. Frank Buck, the famous big game hunter, who is the personal commentator throughout the feature, has handled his subject with a quiet sense of showmanship, and allows humour, thrills and pathos to creep naturally into the narrative. The capture of the various animals, including a python, man-enting tiger, and black panther, is of startling interest, while the fights between the tiger and python and a tiger and a crocodile, result in hair-raising incidents. A baby elephant, orang-outang, and honeybear, also included in the bag, provide the comedy and human interest, and complete the natural drama. The scenes leading up to the establishment of Frank Buck's headquarters are full of interest, but the photography is shown at its best once the scene shifts permanently into the jungle interior. The camera repeatedly catches the animals off their guard, and the natural “ -hots ” have all the definition of a studied photograph. The fights, too, are taken at hazardous proximity, and this has given them that thrilling, breathtaking realism which has been absent from most of the previous animal pictures.