It never ceases to amaze me how many reviewers immediately resort to the racism angle when critiquing a film, for whatever reason. Watching "The Naked Prey", the idea just never crossed my mind. Maybe it's because I'm from the Baby Boomer era and wasn't inundated with the white guilt message that seems so prevalent today.
Another idea I see expressed in the reviews by a lot of folks is how inconceivable it would have been for white man number one (Cornel Wilde) to consistently evade his trackers throughout the story. Well, maybe being a guide for hunting parties played into some of that; it's not like this was his first day in the jungle.
But I seem to be digressing. The main point I want to get to is that the film just wasn't very interesting to me, again in counterpoint to a lot of the enthusiastic reviews for this picture. When the point of a story is to see how someone evades pursuit for an entire hour and a half, well that doesn't constitute much in the way of excitement for this viewer.
There were some entertaining moments however. The scene of Cornel Wilde chasing after a prairie hen was pretty amusing, but the one where he tried to spear a small lizard about six inches long was downright hilarious. Probably the most interesting aspect of the picture for me was catching the law of the jungle at work in scenes of a lion taking down a wildebeest, the cheetah in a running argument with a baboon, and that one really weird scene of a larger toad eating a smaller one! I wouldn't have believed that one if I hadn't seen it. Oh yeah, and the white vulture which wasn't albino was pretty cool. The film makers must have been pretty lucky to come across that one.
And what was simply stupefying to me was to see that this picture got a Best Writing Nomination for a movie written directly for the screen. Perhaps I'm missing something here that another viewing might help me out with but that's not likely. I fast forwarded enough the first time I watched the picture, I don't need to do that all over again.
Another idea I see expressed in the reviews by a lot of folks is how inconceivable it would have been for white man number one (Cornel Wilde) to consistently evade his trackers throughout the story. Well, maybe being a guide for hunting parties played into some of that; it's not like this was his first day in the jungle.
But I seem to be digressing. The main point I want to get to is that the film just wasn't very interesting to me, again in counterpoint to a lot of the enthusiastic reviews for this picture. When the point of a story is to see how someone evades pursuit for an entire hour and a half, well that doesn't constitute much in the way of excitement for this viewer.
There were some entertaining moments however. The scene of Cornel Wilde chasing after a prairie hen was pretty amusing, but the one where he tried to spear a small lizard about six inches long was downright hilarious. Probably the most interesting aspect of the picture for me was catching the law of the jungle at work in scenes of a lion taking down a wildebeest, the cheetah in a running argument with a baboon, and that one really weird scene of a larger toad eating a smaller one! I wouldn't have believed that one if I hadn't seen it. Oh yeah, and the white vulture which wasn't albino was pretty cool. The film makers must have been pretty lucky to come across that one.
And what was simply stupefying to me was to see that this picture got a Best Writing Nomination for a movie written directly for the screen. Perhaps I'm missing something here that another viewing might help me out with but that's not likely. I fast forwarded enough the first time I watched the picture, I don't need to do that all over again.