Very well executed

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This movie took six months on site(s) in Africa. That was about three times the usual for the time. Upon return to the States some of the film was deemed unusable. So a crew went to Mexico and re-shot some scenes. Edwina Booth plays Nina, lost daughter of white missionaries. She is queen of an African tribe when she is found. To me she looked scared the whole time she played the queen but I think she was suppose to be looking savage and mean. While she runs around almost nude the entire time she is on screen there is nothing that shows. This was a ground breaking role for her and it also was basically the end of her career. She contracted malaria and it took her six years to recover. By then she had been all but forgotten. Harry Carey is the experienced, older white hunter who is chaperoning the son of an old friend around. Captured by Nina's tribe, all the bearers are tortured, killed and I guess eaten. When it becomes their turn Nina saves the two whites and their gun bearer. They escape with the girl and lead all on a merry chase. Then Carey separates from the pair to lead the trackers away. The end of the movie has Carey starting out on an expedition to find the two but just as he is leaving they show up. Filmed in 1931 when animals were shot or otherwise miss treated for movie scenes there are several times when this appears to happen here. The rhinos that shot and killed, the lions and leopards that attack the other animals were reportedly starved so they would attack. I don't think a lion who was not starving would go after a warthog, they are very formidable opponents. While did not care for the needless killings and such this is not a bad movie for 1931.

I don't think any film that managed to finish its shooting schedule and be released ever had as much problems as Trader Horn. So much so that for 20 years no American film company ever went back to Africa for location shooting until The African Queen and King Solomon's Mines. But so much footage survived that MGM was able to stock a series of Tarzan films and not put its players at risk the way Harry Carey, Duncan Renaldo and Edwina Booth were.The plot is a skimpy one. Carey is your basic white hunter who is taking along a young friend Renaldo into some unexplored country in search of missionary Olive Carey's daughter. When they find her she's now the princess of a savage tribe. But one look at these two, especially Renaldo, makes her realize there are others who look like her. After that it's the three of them plus Carey's gunbearer on the run from the tribe and without weapons in the jungle.While American companies avoided Africa, colonial powers like Great Britain shot films in Africa and did it because they knew what the hazards were and took precautions. The goring of a young native by a rhinoceros is real and captured on film and frightening. Director Woody Van Dyke kept his cast and crew loaded with gin and quinine. It still did not save Edwina Booth from a rare tropical disease which many thought killed her. I've always believed that was a deliberate publicity stunt by MGM because Ms. Booth was through with show business after this shoot. Who could blame her?The first half of the film is a travelogue on safari. At the time this was great stuff for the American movie-going public. Still no studio wanted to face the expenses MGM had during Trader Horn's shooting.

W(oodbridge) S(trong) Van Dyke (1889-1943) directed the MGM motion picture TRADER HORN in 1930 and later wrote a book about the production titled HORNING INTO Africa (1931). This was the first major Hollywood picture to shoot on location in Africa, which in this case meant Kenya and the Belgian Congo. Van Dyke hired professional big game hunters Sydney Waller and Dicker Dickenson to provide both the action footage and the meat required for the film crew's daily rations.HORN starred Harry Carey, Edwina Booth, Aubrey Smith, and Duncan Renaldo. Miss Booth, who bravely agreed to wear the horrendous makeup required for her character (ultra-realistic when you compare it to later "lost white princesses" like Sheena and the woman in JUNGLE GODDESS) nearly died from a severe case of malarial fever caught while in the Congo. Van Dyke produced so much stock footage of African crocodiles, wildlife, and scenery that it was recycled for years in Hollywood films about the Dark Continent, including the great MGM TARZAN movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and the incomparable Maureen O'Sullivan.TRADER HORN has been re-mastered and is an amazing document of Old Africa, providing footage of local cultural life and a long-lost wildlife paradise. Much of the natural history information given in the film (the lead character gives his protégé sort of a guided tour of the Serengeti) is more accurate than that contained in most hunting books of the time. There are also some authentic hunting sequences, as well as numerous "staged" battles like that between a pair of leopards and some hyenas.Incidentally, the crew of TRADER HORN was widely blamed for disrupting the local economy, at least by the colonials and at least as far as visiting photographers and film-makers were concerned. The story goes that the production unit wanted footage of a particularly impressive East African tribal chief, and offered him the sum of £40 pounds for the privilege. That amount was many, many times the going rate, and the local people immediately realized that they had been getting ripped off for years. MGM set the new price; even twenty years later Masai and Samburu warriors were often demanding as much as £1 for a still photo, and the colonials were still complaining about it.A remake of TRADER HORN was made in 1973. Starring Rod Taylor and Anne Heywood, it was so bad that the studio almost canceled its release. It is particularly remarkable for Taylor's performance as an Englishman; judging from his accent he was born in a quaint English cottage on the South Side of Chicago.

TRADER HORN, the Great White Hunter, treks into Darkest Africa in search of the long-missing daughter of a lady Missionary.MGM produced one of the seminal adventure classics with this film, a benchmark against which all others would be measured for years to come. Although beset with production difficulties & traumas, including the near death of the leading actress, the film was an eventual triumph. Rarely seen today, it still packs a punch, if for no other reason than its splendid performances and the undeniable impact of its on-location filming.Harry Carey, giving one of the first great performances of the sound era, is perfect in the title role. So well does he inhabit the character like a second skin that it is nearly impossible to imagine anyone else playing the part. Having already starred in innumerable silent Westerns, he brings enormous physicality to a movie which made great demands on its actors. Carey looks & sounds like someone who's spent years in the veldt. The slouch of his hat, the grim set of his eyes, the rough growl of his voice are all just right.Handsome Duncan Renaldo, as Horn's earnest young Spanish companion, and exquisite Edwina Booth, as a white tribal queen, are both admirably suited to their roles. The sparks of their budding, hesitant romance lightens the end of the film.Olive Golden Carey, the star's wife, is radiant in her very small role as a tough, determined but saintly missionary; the image of her seated in a sedan chair, being carried through the jungle on her endless quest, remains in the mind. Special mention should also be made of Mutia Omoolu, as Horn's gun bearer & friend, adding dignity and strength to his role; he was rewarded with rare recognition alongside the other performers during the opening credits.Movie mavens will recognize wonderful old Sir C. Aubrey Smith, appearing uncredited for a few moments at the end of the film, in the role of an Irish trader.Director Woody Van Dyke liked working on location, if possible, and so MGM went to the greatly added expense of sending the entire company to Africa. (Filming would take place in the Territory of Tanganyika, the Protectorate of Uganda, the Colony of Kenya, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan & the Belgian Congo.) This proved a great boon to the picture, giving it an authenticity not replicable in any studio back lot. The scenes of the actors beside a tremendous waterfall, floating down a swollen river infested with hippos, or interacting with native Africans are still sensational today.However, the cast and crew were forced to live and work under appalling conditions for many weeks. Miss Booth, one of the most beautiful actresses of the day, caught a ‘jungle fever' which left her deathly ill for years and effectively ended her film career. The attempts of the Studio to shut down the film after the company returned from Africa, and lawsuits & demands for more money on the part of ill-used performers, only added to the acrimony at the time. However, from a vantage point of more than seventy years distance, TRADER HORN has emerged as one of the great adventure movies and a prime example of the sort of film ‘they just don't make anymore.'