In the Amazon Jungles with the Captain Besley Expedition
Cast & Crew
Franklin B. Coates
Captain J. Campbell Besley
J. K. Holbrook
Film Details
Synopsis
Scenes include crossing the Andes on foot between Puente del Inca, Argentina and Juncal, Chile; the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru; Indian market scenes in La Paz, Bolivia; views of Lake Titicaca, Tiahuanaco, Veracocha, Cuzco, Ollanty Tambo, Machu Picchu and other Inca ruins in the interior of Peru; hacienda life in the Peruvian interior; the cocoa industry; St. Anne, Cerro de Pasco and Lima, Peru; the southern railroad of Peru and Arequipa; llamas on a mountain trail; the source of the Amazon; rafts and canoes on the Huallaga, Putumayo and Ucayali Rivers; the rubber industry in the Putumayo district; tortures practiced on the "peons"; the turtle industry at Para; a banquet on the Peruvian battleship America given by the governor of the Iquitos province to members of the expedition; animal, bird and reptile life throughout South America, particularly in the Ucayali district, Pampas del Sacramento and the upper reaches of the Amazon; and pictures of members of the expedition.
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The sources for the following information concerning the expedition and the film were an interview with Franklin B. Coates in Moving Picture World April 4, 1914 and an interview with Captain J. Campbell Besley in Moving Picture World November 7, 1914. The information above about the film's content was taken from the copyright descriptions. English explorer J. Campbell Besley set out in 1913 from Lima, Peru with a party of eleven scientists and photographers, including director Franklin B. Coates and cameraman John K. Holbrook, to explore and take films and photographs of the Chanchamayo district of Peru. During this trip, one camera, 3,000 feet of film and a number of dry plates were lost when a mule fell from a steep slope into a stream. After returning to Lima, Besley and Coates journeyed to the "buried cities of the Incas" and decided to attempt a third trip to traverse the continent from the source of the Amazon River to its mouth through uncharted regions from which no known white man had returned. Although President Guillermo Enrique Billinghurst of Peru attempted to dissuade them, Besley, Coates, Holbrook and J. W. Dunne made the journey on horseback, foot, canoe and raft. Along the way, they found what they believed were the bones of missing American explorers Mirko Seljan and Patrick O'Higgins and gave them a Christian burial. Upon returning to New York in February 1914 with 7,000 feet of film in "perfect" condition from the Amazon trip, which he intended to cut to 5,000 feet and show on a lecture circuit, Coates discovered that the footage shot on the two earlier trips, which was shipped to New York before the Amazon trip, was stolen. He notified Besley, then in England, and in April 1914, they returned with Holbrook to reshoot this footage. During this expedition, they rescued American explorer William Carr, whom they found unconscious in a snow drift. According to a news story in November 1914, Besley planned to cut the 16,000-18,000 feet with which he returned so that it would be ready shortly for presentation in a New York theater. No information has been located concerning any exhibition of the film. It was copyrighted at 12,000 feet in November 1915. The copyright catalog calls the film In the Amazon Jungle with the Captain Besley Expedition but information from the Scenograph Feature Film Co. in the copyright descriptions gives the title as listed above. William Besley was the president of the Scenograph Feature Film Co., and Percy A. McCord, who was the secretary of the expedition, was also the secretary of the company. A film entitled The Captain Besley Expedition, copyrighted in May 1914, contained footage from the same expedition (see listing above).
