The Naked Prey

The Naked Prey is a 1965 American adventure film[3] written and directed by Cornel Wilde, who also stars in the leading role. Set in the South African veldt, the film's plot centers around a safari guide trying to survive in the harsh environment all the while trying to avoid death at the hands of vengeful African natives. The story is loosely based on the experiences of American explorer John Colter. The acclaimed screenplay earned writers Clint Johnson and Don Peters an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

This article is about the 1965 film. For other uses, see Naked Prey (disambiguation).
The Naked Prey
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCornel Wilde
Produced by
  • Cornel Wilde
  • Sven Persson
Written by
  • Clint Johnston
  • Don Peters
Starring
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • June 3, 1965 (1965-06-03) (San Sebastián Film Festival)
  • March 23, 1966 (1966-03-23) (United States)
Running time
96 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
Language
Budget$647,649[2]

The film premiered at the 1965 San Sebastián International Film Festival before receiving release in the United States on March 23, 1966. Made on a scant budget of less than $700,000, the film was shot entirely on location in Southern Africa.

Plot

In colonial era South Africa, a professional safari guide leads two white men and their troupe on an elephant hunt through the African veldt. When the group intrudes on a local tribe's territory, some natives accost them, expecting to be bought off with gifts. Although the guide advises his client to be courteous, warning "they could give us a bad time," the client refuses to offer anything and insults the natives, sending them away empty-handed. Later, the tribe returns en masse, captures the entire party, and puts the captives to death, using various cruel and unusual methods. One man is covered in clay and roasted alive on a spit; another is tarred, feathered, and trussed, then chased and killed by all the women. The man who insulted the tribesmen is trapped in a ring of fire with a venomous snake.

The guide is spared until the last. He is stripped naked and then an arrow is fired into the air. The guide is given a head start; he runs and once he passes the arrow, he is chased by one tribesman who must reach the arrow before the next tribesman can join in the hunt. His pursuer throws a spear at him and misses, which he uses to kill his pursuer and take his supplies. The guide then flees, and a multi-day chase ensues. One by one, the pursuers fall; either killed by the guide or the ravenous wildlife. He eventually finds food and water, though initially forced to eat a snake after several failed hunts. Eventually, he comes across a village and camps nearby, only to be awoken by the gunfire of slavers of African descent.

Amidst the chaos of the melee, he meets an African girl who is hiding from the slavers. With the slavers closing in on their location, he runs out for the sake of diversion. He eventually escapes at a river, but nearly drowns in the process. Luckily, the girl from earlier finds him on the river bank and revives him. She travels with him for the next few days, and as they walk along, he sings a nineteenth-century drinking song, "Little Brown Jug". The child sings a song in her own language and they then attempt to sing each other's songs. They part ways near a village, and some time later the guide returns to a colonial fort just seconds ahead of his pursuers. As he reaches safety, the man turns and exchanges a salute with their leader.

Cast
  • Cornel Wilde as Man: The unnamed protagonist of the film and the eponymous "naked prey". He is a professional safari guide who is left as the sole survivor of his group after all other members are murdered by tribesmen.
  • Gert van den Bergh as 2nd Man: A member of the safari troupe. He is killed by the tribe.
  • Ken Gampu as Leader of the Warriors: The leader of the tribe who is disrespected by the safari travellers.
  • Bella Randels as Little Girl: A native girl who saves the safari guide from drowning and accompanies him on his passage.
  • Patrick Mynhardt as Safari Overseer/Slave Dealer/Irish Soldier: Mynhardt plays three roles.
  • Sandy Nkomo, Eric Mcanyana, John Marcus, Richard Mashiya, Franklyn Mdhluli, Fusi Zazayokwe, Joe Dlamini, Jose Sithole and Horace Gilman play warriors that pursue the guide.

Production

The Naked Prey was filmed on location in Southern Africa.[lower-alpha 1][4][5][6] The film's screenplay was only nine pages long.[7][8] The film's opening titles were accompanied by paintings illustrated by local artist Andrew Motjuoadi.[8]

Critical reception

The minimal dialog, richly realized African settings, and emphasis on making "the chase (and violent combat along the way) a subject unto itself, rather than the climax to a conventional story"[9] distinguish Naked Prey as an innovative and influential adventure film.[10] However, although it is considered a small classic today,[11] it received mixed reviews at the time of its release. Robert Alden of The New York Times, reacting to the brutality of some of the early scenes, dismissed the film as "poor and tasteless motion-picture entertainment", but did acknowledge its "authentic African setting" and "effective use of tribal drums and native music."[12] Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times, taking a different tack, called The Naked Prey "pure fantasy" of the "great white hunter" variety, adding disdainfully: "Sure, it's nice to think you could outrun half a dozen hand-picked African warriors simply because you'd been to college and read Thoreau, but the truth is they'd nail you before you got across the river and into the trees."[13]

Other reviewers, however, were more enthusiastic. In Time, the film was described as "a classic, single-minded epic of survival with no time out for fainthearted blondes or false heroics" where "natives are not the usual faceless blacks but human beings whose capacity for violence the hero quickly matches."[14] Variety reviewer praised the documentary-style use of nature photography to show "the pattern of repose, pursuit, sudden death and then repose" that characterises the entire chase.[15]

Retrospectively, the film's reception has grown better. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 6.93/10.[16] Metacritic gave the film a 64 out of 100 rating indicating "generally favorable reviews, based on 12 reviews.[17] In July 2016, Matthew Thrift of the British Film Institute named the film among the ten greatest "chase films" and praised its "lush widescreen lensing" that "captures all the natural beauty and brutality of the African savannah".[7]

Accolades
Award Subject Category Result Ref
Academy Awards Clint Johnson and Don Peters Best Original Screenplay Nominated [18]

Home media

The Naked Prey was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in January 2008.[19]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack consists of African tribal chants, natural sounds, and occasional dialogue, in English and otherwise. There are no subtitles, and incidental music is mostly absent. It features Nguni tribal songs specifically recorded for the film. A vinyl LP The Naked Prey was released in 1966 on Folkways Records.[20] It was re-released as Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey in CD form on Latitude/Locust Music in 2004.[21][22]

Comic book adaptation
  • Dell Movie Classic: The Naked Prey (December 1966)[23]

Cinematic influence

As teenagers, Joel and Ethan Coen shot their own version of The Naked Prey on a Super 8 film camera. They called it Zeimers in Zambia and cast neighbor Mark Zimering in the lead role.[24]

Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto resembles The Naked Prey in its plot and in several similar scenes. The scenario of a man being pursued by a pack of warriors who set out, one by one, after he has reached the point where a loosed arrow fell was seen also in the 1957 film Run of the Arrow.[8]

Likewise, Robert Redford's 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnson has a similar plot line where Native American tribesmen give chase often, individually, to challenge Redford's character (Jeremiah Johnson) to duel to the death. Similarly, he signs off with the chief from a distance at the end of the movie. The character Jeremiah Johnson is loosely based on famous mountain man John Colter who reported an experience of being captured, then becoming naked human prey for Blackfeet Native Americans, in 1809.

The 1924 Richard Connell short story "The Most Dangerous Game" with the theme of humans hunting humans for sport, has run through film adaptations, as early as 1932.

Cultural influence

The progressive rock group Coheed and Cambria was originally named Shabütie after the African chant from the film. Shabütie translates to "Naked Prey".

In the first scene of the Mad Men season 5 episode, "Far Away Places," Abe coaxes a distracted and reluctant Peggy to go see the film with him. His pitch: "You're resisting a chance to see Cornel Wilde naked? I heard he wrestles a boa constrictor. Sounds pretty dirty."

The 266th episode of Cheers is titled "Bar Wars VII: The Naked Prey."

In the movie Where's Poppa?, the main character's brother (played by Ron Leibman) is regularly mugged while taking a shortcut through Central Park. In one mugging, the group of muggers refer to The Naked Prey as they strip him and then chase him. Garrett Morris plays one of the muggers.

gollark: That's actually really cool.
gollark: Yes, just exploit and don't tell them about it at all.
gollark: There's probably a forge mod for spoofing your mod list, at least.
gollark: OpenJDK?
gollark: d47d20cf-99af-4b8a-aea8-4e222d8e166f

See also
  • Survival film, about the film genre, with a list of related films

Notes
  1. Sources differ on which country the film was shot in.

References
  1. "The Naked Prey (12)". British Board of Film Classification. October 19, 2015. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
  2. Dick, Bernard F. (2001). Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2202-3.
  3. Stafford, Jeff. "The Naked Prey". Turner Classic Movies. Turner Entertainment Networks. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
  4. Eagan, Daniel. "When Humans Are the Prey: 5 Movies That Came Before The Hunger Games". Smithsonian. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  5. "The Naked Prey | film by Wilde [1966]". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
  6. "African Music from the Film - The Naked Prey". Smithsonian Folkways. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
  7. Thrift, Matthew (July 26, 2016). "10 great chase films". British Film Institute. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
  8. Stephen Prince (Film historian) (October 2, 2018). The Naked Prey [Audio Commentary] (Motion picture). The Criterion Collection.
  9. Brode, Douglas. Boys and Toys: Ultimate Action-Adventure Movies. Citadel Press, 2003, p. 186.
  10. Brode, ibid.
  11. "Naked Prey is Wilde's Minor Classic", The State, October 20, 1989, p. 4D
  12. Alden, Robert "Screen: 'The Naked Prey': Cornel Wilde Is Chased Through the Jungles", The New York Times, June 15, 1966.
  13. Ebert, Roger "The Naked Prey", Chicago Sun-Times, June 14, 1967.
  14. "Man Hunt" (review). Time, June 17, 1966.
  15. "The Naked Prey" (excerpt of 1966 review), Variety ((full text)
  16. "The Naked Prey (1966)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
  17. The Naked Prey at Metacritic
  18. "The 38th Academy Awards (1966) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on 2015-01-11. Retrieved 2011-08-24.
  19. Kehr, Dave (January 15, 2008). "New DVDs - January 15, 2008". The New York Times. Retrieved February 16, 2020.
  20. The Naked Prey at Discogs
  21. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey at Discogs
  22. Crumshaw, Michael. "Review of Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (soundtrack)." Dusted Magazine, June 13, 2005 (full text)
  23. Dell Movie Classic: The Naked Prey at the Grand Comics Database
  24. Gods of Film-making, "Joel and Ethan Coen" (full text) Archived 2008-09-21 at the Wayback Machine
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