The Naked Prey  

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The Naked Prey is a 1965 American adventure film produced and directed by Cornel Wilde, who also stars in the lead role. Set in the South African veldt, the film's plot centers around a safari guide trying to survive in the veldt's harsh environment, while trying to avoid death at the hands of vengeful African warriors. The story is loosely based on the experiences of American explorer John Colter. The acclaimed screenplay earned writers Clint Johnson and Don Peters an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

The film premiered at the 1965 San Sebastián International Film Festival, then was released in the United States on March 23, 1966. Made on a scant budget of less than $700,000, the film was shot entirely on location in southern Africa.

Plot

Opening

Preface

In colonial era South Africa, a professional safari guide leads one haughty investor and his troop on an elephant hunt through the African veldt. When the group comes to a local tribe's territory, some of the Africans require a toll to be paid for walking through their territory. They are friendly, peaceful, smiling, and non-violent; the guide demands that they be paid, but the expedition's investor ignores this advice, brushes the Africans aside, and physically knocks the tribal leader to the ground, who is barring his way. Animosity spreads across faces except for the investor. No violent retribution immediately occurs, and the Europeans are allowed to walk past the warriors guarding their border.

Capture

Later on, the guide and investor are arguing about their elephant kills. The investor brags about killing so many more elephants than anyone else. The guide reminds him, "Everyone else only shot ivory-bearing elephants", to which the investor only laughs. During this conversation, a group of warriors from a local village discovers the poachers' camp, and armed only with spears, captures or kills the entire group of rifle-armed Europeans.

Dispatching the European captives

After a victory march of the Europeans to the African's home village, most are executed using various torture methods. One man is covered in clay, which is allowed to harden, and he is slowly roasted alive by being dangled over a fire. Another victim has multiple leather and rope lashings used on him until dead. Another is chased and killed by village women and children armed with sharpened sticks. The investor, who insulted the tribesmen, is tied up and placed in a ring of fire with an agitated venomous snake.

The Chase

The escape

The guide is spared until the last. He is stripped naked and then an arrow is fired into the air. The guide is ordered at the point of a spear to run; he runs and once he passes the fallen arrow, he is chased by another warrior in waiting. His pursuer throws a spear at him and misses, which the guide uses to kill his pursuer. Afterwards, he takes the warrior's supplies and evades his captors. The Warriors, grief-stricken about their dead friend, argue about continuing the hunt. The guide flees, and some of them continue the pursuit.

The Middle-Eastern slavers

Over the course of the pursuit, several of the warriors fall, either killed by the guide or the ravenous wildlife. The guide is able to find and eat a snail, an onion, a snake, and any type of food that comes his way in the wild. Eventually, he comes across an African village and camps nearby. He succeeds in stealing some barbecue and to sneak away, only to be awoken later by the rifle fire of Middle-Eastern slavers (the audience must deduce this from their turbans and use of Jezails muskets inscribed with the words from the Qur'an).

During this, the guide cuts captured slaves from their rope bindings, has a minor melee with the slave guards, and prepares to meet the slaver captain in combat, just as the captain falls into a ditch filled with large thorns that enter his eyes.

The orphan girl

Amid the chaos of the melee, he meets an African girl (6- to 8-years-old) who is hiding from the slavers. The slavers were closing on their location, and although never having met her, he runs out as a diversion, where he witnesses the thorn death of the slaver captain. He eventually escapes the slavers by jumping into a river, but is incapacitated after going over a large waterfall. Luckily, the girl finds him on the river bank and is able to revive him. They become friends after that, and as she travels with him for the next few days, he sings a 19th-century drinking song "Little Brown Jug". The child in return sings a song in her own language, and they attempt, with much humor, to sing each other's songs. They later part ways near an area that she indicates as her homeland, which she is unwilling to leave.

Ending

His surviving pursuers continue tracking him. The guide finally spots a colonial fort, just a short distance ahead of him. The lead pursuer, now running closely behind him, is shot dead by rifle fire from the fort's colonial soldiers, just a second before the warrior can land a fatal blow. When the guide finally reaches the safety of the fort, amidst the movements of the colonial troops, he turns and gives a saluting nod to the leader of his pursuers, who returns it, acknowledging the guide's final victory.

Historical inaccuracies

Muslim slavers from the Middle East being active in South Africa

Historically, the part of Africa most under the influence of Islam was the part closest to the Middle East (Northeast Africa, with Mozambique's being a perfect example of wholesalers in the slavery trade). The idea of Muslim slavers active in South Africa during the 1800's is not historically-accurate, and it's actually a nod to Henry Morton Stanley, who wrote about Muslim slavers in North Africa, not South Africa, but who had gripped British, public imagination since the 1900s when it came to the Euro-African literary romance.

Cast

• Cornel Wilde as Man: The guide, who is the unnamed protagonist of the film, and the eponymous "naked prey." He is a professional safari guide, and by the end of the movie, he is left as the sole survivor of his group after all other members are murdered by tribesmen.
• Gert van den Bergh as 2nd Man: A member of the safari troupe. He is killed by the tribe.
• Ken Gampu as Leader of the Warriors: The leader of the tribe who is disrespected by the safari travellers.
• Bella Randels as Little Girl: A native girl who saves the safari guide from drowning and accompanies him on his passage.
• Patrick Mynhardt as Safari Overseer/Slave Dealer/Irish Soldier: Mynhardt plays three roles.
• Sandy Nkomo, Eric Mcanyana, John Marcus, Richard Mashiya, Franklyn Mdhluli, Fusi Zazayokwe, Joe Dlamini, Jose Sithole and Horace Gilman play warriors that pursue the guide.

Dell book

The Naked Prey[1] is the title of a Dell book.

The Naked Prey : an epic struggle for survival on the deadly plains of Africa! -- New York : Dell Publishing Co., 1966. -- 32 p. : col. ill. ; 26 cm. -- (Dell Movie Classic)

-- Summary: A great white hunter's safari is wiped out by angry tribesmen. He is stripped of his clothes and his weapons and given a head start in a "lion's chance" to save his life. -- Genre: Jungle adventure.[2]

See also

• Survival film, about the film genre, with a list of related films

Human hunting

• The Naked Prey