Cougar
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Jay Bruce
Ranger
Sidney A. Snow
Edwin C. Hill
Sidney A. Snow
Sidney A. Snow
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Jay Bruce, State Lion Hunter of the Fish and Game Commission of California, begins a hunt for some of the remaining five hundred mountain lions, also known as cougars, who feed on cattle, sheep, goats and pigs owned by farmers, in addition to their natural diet of deer. After Bruce captures three baby coyotes, who along with other captured animals will go to zoos or circuses, one of his dogs gets its paw caught in a steel wolf trap. Bruce shoots a rattlesnake and observes a king snake suffocate a rattler. He then proves his contention that a rattler cannot endure the sun by keeping one from finding shade until it goes into convulsions after four minutes and dies after seven. At night, Ranger, Bruce's lead dog, warns him of a tarantula crawling in Bruce's bed. The next day, after finding the body of a deer devoured by a lion, Bruce captures a nursing mountain lion and finds her cubs in a rotten tree trunk. He bottle feeds the cubs with canned milk. Bruce then captures three half-grown lions playing. The next morning, Bruce travels a distance following a lion, whose tracks are the biggest he has ever seen. After Ranger chases it up a tree, Bruce goads it down with a long pole and noose, and he and his dogs follow the lion. After a few shots and an attack by the dogs during which Ranger is badly cut, the cougar dies. Bruce then hangs the cougar, the four hundredth he has caught and, at seven feet six inches, the biggest, from a tree.
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The subtitle of this film appearing on the print viewed was Capturing Lions Barehanded. While a review for the film appears in the July 22, 1931 issue of Hollywood Reporter, all other reviews located were from May 1933, when the film was exhibited in New York, and the national release date was listed in Motion Picture Herald release charts as November 1, 1933. The 1931 Hollywood Reporter reviews states that the film "is based on the disputed premise that the panther...is the most vicious and dangerous animal of the California jungle." According to Film Daily, the film took a number of years to make. The film opens with producer and cameraman Sidney A. Snow, who is identified as having previously made films about elephants and rhinos in Africa, stating that this film is all real. New York Times states that Jay Bruce had been the "official lion hunter of California" for the previous fourteen years. According to Variety, the Cameo Theater in New York, which held the premiere at which Bruce and Ranger appeared, billed the film as Cougar, the King Killer. New York Times notes that the theater exhibited dried skins of cougars and bears pegged to its wall. Titles on the film indicate that it was endorsed by James Rolph, Jr., the Governor of California; Robert G. Sproul, President of the University of California; W. W. Campbell, past President of the University of California; Brother Leo, President of Saint Mary's College; the dean of Stanford University's School of Engineering; and the California Superintendent of Public Instruction. Reviews list widely varying running times.
