Bring 'Em Back Alive
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Clyde E. Elliott
Frank Buck
Edward Anthony
Carl Berger
Frank Buck
Nick Cavaliere
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Frank Buck, an experienced American animal trapper, leaves from Singapore with Ali, his "number one boy," on an expedition into the Malayan jungle. From their jungle headquarters just north of Singapore, Frank, Ali and a team of native helpers roam the area from Northern Johore to Perak in search of interesting wild animals, reptiles and birds. As soon as they set out, they encounter both exotic and familiar jungle creatures, including rhesus monkeys, wild boars and a proboscis monkey. Buck's first catch of the expedition is a monitor lizard, a rare example of the most primitive of reptiles. Later, at night, he literally bags a black leopard. Another black leopard narrowly escapes an encounter with a giant python and then battles a bigger and stronger tiger. After successfully trapping a spotted leopard using a wooden cage baited with water buffalo meat, Frank adopts a baby honey bear, who soon becomes the favorite of his growing menagerie. A baby elephant is also adopted and fed coconut milk and strained rice through a handmade bamboo baby bottle. Frank next captures a Sumatran orangutan but fails to trick the elusive tiger into stepping into his camouflaged pit. As a diversion, Frank visits the "bathing festival" of a local tribe and watches as tribesmen kill an intruding spotted leopard with their blow darts. The tiger then meets up with an enormous regal python, who has just crushed a crocodile, and fights to a draw with it. Determined to add the tiger to his collection, Frank builds another cage with bait and finally lures the animal inside. His job completed, Frank leaves the jungle and returns to America.
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of the film was Jungle. According to the film's foreword, Frank Buck had twenty years of experience trekking "into the jungles of the world for the purpose of bringing back alive and in perfect condition, the strange, wild animals, birds and reptiles which you see in zoos and menageries everywhere." A notice at the beginning of the film, which is sub-titled the "Official and Authentic Motion Picture Record of the RKO Van Beuren Malayan Jungle Expedition," states that "every foot of this picture was actually photographed in the Malayan jungle country." The Motion Picture Herald reviewer, however, questioned the authenticity of the animal fight sequences. In an "addendum" to that review, Terry Ramsaye, editor of Motion Picture Herald, defended the film's authenticity, claiming that the animal action was all shot "in a compound adjacent to the city of Singapore, in the Straits Settlements." Ramsaye continues: "The scenes staged and recorded in the compound May be accepted as dramatically reasonable reconstructions of what actually happens in the open jungle." As Leonard Mitchell was an established sound effects person, the above "effects" credit would probably refer to sound, not photographic effects. The film appears to have been shot "silent," with a soundtrack added in post-production. During the New York run, Buck appeared before the screenings and told "jungle" tales to the enormous sellout crowds, according to Variety. Modern sources state that the film grossed almost two million dollars and was a major success for RKO.
In his autobiography, All in a Lifetime, Buck tells the following story about the making of the picture: Buck got the idea of making Bring 'Em Back Alive after he saw Ernest Schoedsack and Merian Cooper's films Grass (Paramount, 1925) and Chang (Paramount, 1927). In spite of the success of his book, however, he failed to interest any of the major studios in adapting it for the screen. Finally turning to makers of short film subjects, Buck was contracted by Van Beuren Corp., a subsidiary of RKO that specialized in shorts and cartoons, to produce thirteen short films. Van Beuren Corp. financed Buck's expedition to Malaya and offered Buck a percentage of the films's profits. After shooting 125,000 feet of film in Malaya, Sumatra, India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Buck convinced Van Beuren to release a 7,000-foot feature, instead of a series of shorts. RKO edited portions of Bring 'Em Back Alive and its sequels, Wild Cargo and Fang and Claw (see below), into a new "best of" feature called Jungle Cavalcade, which was released in 1941. Bring 'Em Back Alive was re-released in 1948. In the fall of 1982, CBS aired a television series called Bring 'Em Back Alive, which was based loosely on Buck's life. The series, which starred Bruce Boxleitner, ran from September 1982 to February 1983, and from May 1983 to June 1983.
