Bring 'Em Back Alive

Bring 'Em Back Alive (1932)

Runtime: 64 minutes

Directed by: Clyde E. Elliott

Starring: This is a nature documentary starring Frank Buck

From: RKO

What a curio this was; not very good, mind you, but you'll see what I mean below: 

Not being able to sleep after a night that included both drama and a drunken oaf almost crashing into me on the road after taking a turn way too fast and spinning out... that means I was still up at a rather odd hour so I saw this obscurity on Turner Classic Movies. I understand the movie was rather popular at the time but for reasons about to become clear, it's something no one knows about now.

This documentary at barely over an hour is about an animal trapper named Frank Buck who was in what is now known as Malaysia to capture animals for zoos. The title refers to how he's not an animal hunter and that is a huge humblebrag on his part... yet he's an A-hole who takes baby critters from their moms (including a poor little elephant) so perhaps he shouldn't pat himself on the back so hard. Thank heavens zoos do not operate this way; despite what the psychopathic nutjobs at PETA would like to say, most zoos are reputable and do a lot to help animals. Maybe you shouldn't also chop down an entire tree in order to capture a young orangutan, nor refer to the adult natives as “boys”.


Then there's how the movie was more staged than a Kardashian show. There are plenty of animal confrontations, but it's so blatant how they set it up and none of it happened naturally, not even a They Live-like fight between a tiger and a python. Sure, I got laughs from the tawdry narration done by the middle-aged mustached Buck and I'd love to see how they created those obviously fake sound effects (I imagine some idiot snarling into the mic) but this is incredibly condescending 85 years later and even though this Pre-Code entry features some topless natives, stick with Planet Earth instead if you want to see all creatures great and small in the wild.