Judge — February 3, 1923 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

[Bo wor rane The Old Water Hole act Rarney’s old water hole is back n town—this time at the Lyric Theater—where it appears along with much that is fine and much that is terrible in a picture called “Hunting B Game in Africa with Gun and Camera. And we would like to put it into the rec- ords that when the motion pictures can so aequaint the public of New York with a r spot in the jungle that when they sce it in, after they murmur and nudge each other with the joys of red nition, they h done ren able thing. If after ten years a er full of people can celebrate old home week in British East Africa, the movies have i deed diminished the globe. That v of the first things they set them: do, before we began to have stars feature pictures and movie psychology, ind it is well for us to remember that they allied intentions. “Hunting Big Game in Africa with Gun and Camera” is, in itself, a perfect mess of stuff. Some of it is brilliant. Nothing more stirring than the scenes of the pen- guins could possibly be mi “Penguin Island” almost ceased to be a. satiric fantasy to become a bit of naturalistic reporting. All the tribes in Bechuanaland and British East Africa, though bally- hooed on the program as fiercely savage, were apparently most friendly and aecom- modating before the can nd showed off with splendid war and love dances. In fact, the humans before gun and camera in’ darkest Africa were much better fun, in most cases, than their wild animal brothers. But if H Snow and his son Sidney gun and camera in the order named) have not surpassed, nor even rivaled, Paul Rainey in the intimacy or beauty of their pictures of wild animals, they have some its which make them worth seeing. Incidentally, we are going to quarrel bitterly in a few moments with any notion of taking children to see them, but that must wait. aecomplishm ne of the most interesting things they have done is to chase their victims with a flivver. The sight of a bedraggled hut agile little ear chasing giraffes till the longest neck in the herd was drooping had all the elements of modern romance. The scenes where zebras came galumphing down for water in companies of ten and twenty were not only interesting but very BY RuTH HALE beautiful, and one of the few helpful cap- tions in the picture explained that zebi with broad stripes and zebras with little stripes had a social feud’ which only ed when they met at the well. An- other caption, which threw quite a light theory and practice of demoe- massed herd of id, had alw: ther in large numbers be were weak and unfortunately te mpting to lions. But just here we would like to throw in the foreword from the program, for pur- poses of imminent. contrast: “Fi pths of the jungles of the dark continent: which the White is slowly opening up to ation—comes H. A. Snow bearing a motion picture record of the thrills, the drama, the pathos, the comedy, the beau- tiful of a still vast domain where beasts of the wild reign supreme. “Red blood—the dauntless spirit of the pioncer—the scientist's knowledge, the hunter's unerring eye—the photographer's utmost daring, coolness and resource, were required to achieve these feats of the seemingly impossible. As you contem- plate man’s invasion of a sun-seared un- sharted Wild ruled by ruthless creatures and scourged by the tsetse fly whose sting is death to pack animals, you realize the vision and the bravery of the undertaking. H. A. Snow, the hunter; Sidney the photographer, sponsored and financed by the African Expedition Corporation of Oakland, submit what been done to make r dream of 1919 when first came to mind ‘Hunting Big Game in Africa with Gun and Camera.” very low, RoucHeED in tangled African ‘bush,’ lashed by insect pests, breathing the fevers of dank earth or parched with desert. thirst, H. A. Snow nd his son aited through torturing hours achieve, ACHIEVE! Under- Southern Cross, surrounded by tribesmen, with the cries and savage gs of w ild animal | enemies bid- trumpe ding defi the Eye of the C ‘amera, the YY visua only the End and the ‘Triumph, tur the defeats of to-day thevmoraw. If ihe faduction ple: thrills and entertains—if you, too, v what these dauntless men saw ized: the last and authoritative record of the Kingdom of Beasts whic by civilization’s urge to disappe: become a memory—then, indeed, the explorer and his son will have been re- paid,” ete., ete... You'd be surprised at how little of all this dauntlessness appears in the picture. It is true that the father Snow did go into a hyena’s « entering by the front as the hyena raced ou the bac that he did some very good shooting at times when a good shot was a true friend. But most of the vile perils of the Fore- word were not discoverable in the picture, and we saw no horrible discomforts. What was more, we saw the Snows, both father and son, come out of the jungle as plump and chipper as when they went in. “Hunti in Africa, average picture, making might have made of extraordinarily fine material. Only where the material forces its way past the treatment and limitations of the camera man and the gunner is it truly valuable. less inexcusable—two vital lapses in discretion. The first is the picture of the vultures flying over the sickening oxen, and finally tearing the careass api the second is the picture of the lion cubs dining on a hartebeest. We do not wish to be sufficiently explicit to pass on to you the loathing we felt for these sights. But we can say that we felt horribly ‘y for the children who were in the audience. We wondered which of them would wake up in the night... we wondered, too, ¥ had become of all this busy censorship that has lately afflicted us. Off, probably, snatching baby clothes out of some poor little film that couldn't harm a fly. Ry At Dusk Baby was nodding. “The sandman’s coming softly sang the young mother. Just at that point a vender in the alley yelled, “Fresh spinach!” sas "pee THINGS in “Hunting Big Game” to us quite around,” Whe prett that hy 2 man tells a woman that she is she believes him even if she knows is lying. tae Kriss—That was the celebrated dancer we saw last week who just passed us. Kross—So? I didn’t recognize her with her clothes on.