I MARRIED ADVENTURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 74, 22 November 1940, Page 51

I MARRIED ADVENTURE

(Columbia)

| HERE have been jungle pictures and jungle pictures, and ever since I was told, on unimpeachable authority, that

one celebrated wild animal photographer seldom ventured further into the jungle than the back garden of his hotel, I have been more than a little difficult to please in the matter. But apparently the Martin Johnsons were the genuine article, and I’m glad to be able to testify that Mrs. Martin Johnson’s film "I Married Adventure" also appears to be the genuine article. It is, you might say, all the jungle pictures ever made rolled up into one. Certainly it will be difficult ever to make another one. Martin and Osa Johnson (he died some years back in an aeroplane crash) had an adventurous and fascinating life. After an expedition to Borneo which ended in fever and failure, they seem never to have looked back. Their successive adventures into the heart of Africa, and finally back into Borneo, were well financed and equipped, and the results they obtained correspondingly impressive. One expedition into Africa was made in two big amphibian ’planes, and much of their aerial photography will probably never be duplicated. "I Married Adventure" is based on a book by Mrs. Johnson, and follows the natural technique of narrative supér-imposed on spectacular shots taken on various expeditions.

That the early photography is a little hazy and jumpy does not matter much. All the monkeys that ever chattered for a film camera, all the lions that ever roared, all the hippopotamuses that ever charged at a lens-they’re all here, and surprisingly, I, for one, didn’t tire. If you don’t like jungle pictures, you may be bored; if you do like them, this is your picture.