Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Powerful

The first must-see film of the year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Routine film dealing with the Congo of 1907 before Belgium took over.The glamorous Susan Hayward comes there from America to be a nurse and help the missionary Dr. Mary. Problem is that Mary dies at Hayward's arrival time.Robert Mitchum is a zoo keeper who is in partnership with a sinister Walter Slezak. Slezak wants to go upstream and get the gold there from the natives. That's where Hayward wants to get to so you know where the film is heading.The film explores that Hayward is able to treat the chief's ailing son. Without joking, the chief looks like Spencer Willians (Andy Brown) of "Amos and Andy" fame on television. Nice scenery with a routine plot and subplot. You know where this one is heading to very quickly. Nonetheless, Hayward and Mitchum do well together.

Lonni Douglas (Robert Mitchum) is a trapper working in Africa around the turn of the 20th Century. He captures large, exotic animals that he then sells to zoos around the world. His partner, Huysman (Walter Slezak), who is more the type to stay in the "office" and supervise, has an ulterior motive--he believes there is gold in "them thar" hills. So Douglas has been searching for the gold for years. There is only one place left to look--a remote area far up the Congo, inhabited by a tribe hostile to white men. When nurse Ellen Burton (Susan Hayward) arrives as an assistant for a doctor in a village neighboring the remote one, however, Huysman sees it as the perfect opportunity, with a benevolent "false front" presented to the tribes-people, for Douglas to take her up the Congo and search for the source of the gold.Based on a novel by Louise A. Stinetorf, director Henry Hathaway and screenwriters Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts created a genre-spanning feast for the eyes, ears and mind in White Witch Doctor. The film combines adventure, suspense, romance, drama, intentional and unintentional humor, and an almost documentary-like travelogue through Africa.The Technicolor cinematography is fantastic, and a great choice as we are treated to various African cultures in traditional dress, occasionally performing traditional dances and other ceremonies, throughout the film. I don't know a lot of background information on the film, but I would bet that some shots were filmed as documentary material in Africa. Possibly, some was stock footage.But the heart of the film is Douglas, his relationship to Burton, and an often subtle, mostly subtextual commentary on a clash of cultures, which was far ahead of its time. Both Mitchum an Hayward are fabulous, with Mitchum occasionally approaching an enjoyable camp in his macho swagger and Hayward, in the context of the film and its characters, showing an also ahead-of-its-time underlying strength, intelligence and independence beneath her more stereotypical initial appearance as a beautiful but dependent woman. The script has an effective combination of serious drama with the difficulties of dealing with different cultures as well as a light playfulness.This is a little-known gem of a film that deserves a serious first or second look. A 10 out of 10 from me.

As far as I know this has never been released on home video. Not surprising! The fake gorilla is a scream, and its not a comedy. Of course Mitchum completists must see this one. I saw it on the Fox movie channel. It is entertaining, just don't expect the caliber of say, Mogambo.

When I was about thirteen, I saw this movie and have never forgotten it, I enjoyed it that much. Romantic to a teenager. But I have been searching for about six years for a video of it without success. If anyone knows where a copy can be obtained let it be known. Thanks.