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According to a discussion on IMDB, this scene with the "bird man" is not on the Criterion disc. Is this true?

Narshty wrote:According to a discussion on IMDB, this scene with the "bird man" is not on the Criterion disc. Is this true?

I seem to recall this scene being in the Criterion edition.

It's untrue. That's all on the DVD. It's a rather confused thread over there but I think they've figured out their mistake.

I just realized that that whole scene is sort of like Cannibal Holocaust-lite :O

It's a ferocious scene for a 1966 movie. It's the glee of the tribal people that disturbs - the casual, everyday jokiness of it all. Great scene.

What a great film! I enjoyed it enough to immediately watch it again with the commentary track on, something I hardly ever do. (Prince gives good commentary, btw.)

Anyway, I found the old NY Times review interesting:

Robert Alden wrote:"THE NAKED PREY" is a poor and tasteless motion-picture entertainment, redeemed somewhat by its authentic African setting and its effective use of tribal drums and native music as the accompaniment for a primitive jungle chase.

A fundamental weakness stems from the fact that its protagonist is barely introduced to the audience. We know him only as the leader of a safari, a kind soul who wants to give trinkets to some tribesmen[...]

I guess Alden didn't quite get what Wilde was up to. Prince addresses the lack of characterization in his commentary.

And can we give it up for Cornel Wilde? He was 54 when he made Naked Prey, and most 54-y-o's aren't that ripped!

I took another look at this last night. Prince's commentary is most impressive, it is one of the most scholarly and theoretically sophisticated of any in the collection. This is the point I was trying to make in the Serious Horror Films thread: that the most "serious," academic analysis of a film is for one of the pulpiest. This is indicative of the so-called "cultural turn" that film studies took in the 1980s, in which the post-colonial discourse that Prince engages in vis-a-vis The Naked Prey played no small part. To ignore this fact, and insist that these "lower" forms -jungle adventures, slasher films- don't justify serious discussion, as many did in that thread, is the height of ignorance.

There's a pretty big divide between the Naked Prey and I Spit On Your Grave

domino harvey wrote:There's a pretty big divide between the Naked Prey and I Spit On Your Grave

Thank you. I really didn't want to point that out. But kudos to the call on the Prince commentary. It really does justice on this landmark film.

domino harvey wrote:There's a pretty big divide between the Naked Prey and I Spit On Your Grave

Explain.

King Prendergast wrote:

domino harvey wrote:There's a pretty big divide between the Naked Prey and I Spit On Your Grave

Explain.

Finally got around to watching this tonight and it was a revelation. Not only does it LOOK amazing, it's just riveting from start to finish. One of my new favorites in the entire collection, and one i'll have to revisit again soon after letting it digest a bit.

I couldn't help but wonder how much of this was outright copied by Gibson in Apocalypto though...i'll have to watch them back to back some time. Has he ever explicitly given Wilde props for making the movie first?

I also wonder how differently this would have been received had he done what he originally intended by retelling to story that inspired the film: a fur trapper who endured this chase in the Rocky Mountains being chased by Blackfeet Indians. Given that we were entering the hippie era and the era of white guilt about the fate of Native America was just beginning, I can't for the life of me imagine the story going over well...

As for the animals...imdb has this in their "trivia" for the film:

Cornel Wilde was careful to try to avoid harm to animals appearing in the film where possible. In the scene where the python and the monitor lizard battle, it became clear that the python was winning and the monitor was in danger. Wilde personally intervened to save the monitor lizard and the lizard bit him on the leg, refusing to let go. Crewmembers killed the monitor and Wilde had to be evacuated to hospital for treatment.

I'm surprised to see nothing about the elephants in the very beginning...do you suppose that was footage of a hunt in the 20th century he used? the original shot of them running looked like stock footage...and I hated seeing them go down so hard like that - it sure as hell looked real.

It was definitely stock footage.

And there's me thinking it was all done with mice and trip wires #-o

This was one of Criterion's best looking DVDs, so I am beyond excited to see how great it looks on Blu-ray. The movie's a hoot too

Another case of hard-to-understand score for the extra features compared to the UK release.

Not a fan of his reviews, but the doctor of oboe-ology does slide in with a good malaprop in this one:

"There is quite a bit of interesting stork footage that focuses on the wildlife"

Came in to post Svet's review to see it already was. How disappointing that this is essentially an up-res of the DVD. The film's got a very distinct look and deserved a new 4K remaster.

Adding my appreciation for the Prince commentary, which is a model scholarly track. What I liked about it most was its contextualisation, not only the film’s place in the changing cinema of the era (and unsurprisingly he’s very sharp on its representation of violence) its commentary on apartheid and its relation to 1960s primitivist discourses from the ‘back to the garden’ movement to The Naked Ape.

Morbii wrote: Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:38 am Was any stock footage used for this film? Or did they capture all of the nature on their own? Also, were the Elephants really killed? If not, it was quite convincing.

Wilde states in a 1971 Q&A with UCLA students that they filmed actual killing of elephants done by National Guards when the animals were considered dangerous. I recommend listening to this Q&A session. Wilde comes through as a very articulate person and gives a wealth of details regarding the shooting of NAKED PREY.