TRADER HORN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 150, 17 February 1932, Page 2

TRADER HORN

IN THE JUNGLE WILD LEOPARD OBLIGINGLY PROYIDES MOVIE "SHOT." TWENTY FEET FROM ACTORS. , LAKE NABAGABA, Uganda, August 24. Ihave been enjoying one of the most interesting days in the history of my motion picture directing. We have had wild leopards perform'ing, in one tree, and actors in another, not 20 yards apart, and have registered a "shot" in which the camera travels from the actors to a leopard in an unbroken line. George tlogle, who registered this shot, is sharing the honours with Harry Carey and a baby leopard which has been added to our menagerie of monkeys. Major Dickinson, scouting around to meet my requirements in a live leopard, discovered their tracks in numbers by a stream about four miles back in a tangled wood. Accordingly, I took Nogle, the three actors concerned in the scene, Major Dickinson, and as few "boys" as possible, and made a 'set-up." Ignored Us It seemed liighly improbable that we would achieve the result desired. but circumstances aided us in a strange way. A leopard and a kitten were traced by Dickinson, who shot the big one after careful manoeuvring. Nothing is worse than merely to wound a leopard, as they came at you in zig-zag leaps and are quicker than lightning. With the help of the boys the kitten was followed and treed, and

brought down fighting like a wild cat. In the meantime, Dickinson discovered that the leopard he had shot was not the mother of the kitten, but a male. Realising that the mother would be along at any moment, he made the suggestion which we carried out. We seeured the kitten high in the branches of a tree. I stationed the actors — Harry Carey, Renaldo and the native Mutia — in the nearest big tree. Dickinson and I stood by with our rifles, as there is no predicting what a leopard will do. Nogle was 'all set" at his camera. We waited till well past noon, alternately hoping and despairing. Long shadows were beginning to creep in, making the faces of the actors indistinct, and I moved them from time to time on this account. Without our expensive electrical equpiment, which it would have been out of the question to bring up for the "shot" we wanted, we could not illuminate the jungle. The mother came " unexpectedly, leaping up the trunk of the tree and into the branches as if by magic. The faces of the actors registered a most remarkable amazement, as we; can tell from the negative of the film, developed later in the camp. She leapt from the small high branches, and the baby, unable to come down to her, strained at the belts with which we had tied it. She slid down the tree trunk again, practically ignoring us. I had raised my rifle, but Dickinson warned me not to shoot. Harry Carey, as 'Trader Horn," had an elephant gun in the tree with him. Though it was not loaded, he instinct ively had the leopard coverjed from her first jump. She jumped sidewise into bushes, and we saw no more of her. Lost His Bet. Satisfied with the "shot" — more than pleased, in fact — we all came back to camp, where 'Red" Golden, who had been carrying on, preparing for other scenes, acknowledged defeat in a bet after he had seen the negatives. He had given us a week in the forest before I would get any kina of a leopard shot at all. It was a lucky break. Harry Carey has named the baby 'Pinto." We are using animal skins for odd purposes in camp. The cameras, when working in close proximity to the microphone, are covered with the skins of leopards and lions to cholte the electrical noise resulting from the turning of their small motors. We cannot hear a sound, but it enters the microphone as the result of an electrical field due to the turning of the motors. Some of our folding camp beds are patched from side to side with wild animals' hides. I have a lion-skin rug in my tent, and the top of the large native drum .'I am using for a writing-table is headed with the undressed hide of a buck. We have made electrical tape from the juice of a wild rubber-tree and surgical bandages. No chain is stronger than its weakest link, and our entire operation of making a motion picture in Africa may be dependent on a screw of a certain size oi' thread. Therefore we are amply provided with film, with spare parts, and with machine-shop conveniences. It would take an entire newspaper page to print a list of all the small articles and individual •items we have brought along. A Horrific Spider. Yet the picture of "Trader Horn" was almost brought to a standstill by the lack of a little thing that one Would suppose would be easy to find

son-spider scene where the White Goddess shows her rescuers how to poison a spear. Perhaps I am "old maidish" in my demands, but to put over my idea of this scene I must have a spider that will give the audience the very creeps. Our search, assisted by modern science, has been crowned with success. This is by .way of introduction to the African "Radio Bug," Clyde de Vinna, who was ehatting yesterday with station VRQ at Mombasa. on the East Coast. He has struck up a radio acquaintance with a young fellow there. "What are you doing now?" says Mombasa. "We are waiting to catch a spider," says de Vinna. And so the conversation went on. The upshot was that Mombasa suggested our looking in the lower leaves of a tall fruit plant that grows here. It is a tree of one straight stalk and many broad leaves, with fruit like a canteloupe, except that the seeds are round and taste like nasturtium leaves. Clyde passed the suggestion on to me. I am a clearing-house on this expedition, by the way, for many ideas — some bad, others excellent. I passed the report on to Harry Albiez, who searched the trees until he found a speeimen 1" cannot imagine could be surpassed. It is a huge, hairy, slothful venomous creature, more greenish than brown. It is as large as a tarantula, but more repulsive. Bathing in Lake. For want of a better name, and in recognition of de Yinna's assistance, we have named it "the African Radio Bug." We will hasten to make the . spider scene before the spider expires. We have taken to bathing in the lake. The natives have been going in the water right along. We have also found some abandoned canoes, which some of the company have repaired with patches of thin sheet copper, shoe nails and pitch. I always have at least one hunter on the bank, with a rifle, in case of crocodiles. I am convinced, really,, that there is not the slightest danger from that source here, or I should be forced to prohibit bathing. We are careful not to eat any wild fruit or berries — no matter how tempting they may look — except the larger fruits, well known in Africa, which the "boys" prepare for the table. In this connection, the African hunters tell us to watch the monkeys, and .what ever they will eat, is saf e for humans. Perhaps so, but it is just as well not to make a monkey of orie's self unnecessarily.