I mentioned yesterday that I had two movies on my DVR coming up on TCM in quick succession. In fact, I think I've got more than that, although I didn't notice at the time I did the post on The Outriders. The next movie watched off my DVR is Kongo, which TCM will be showing tomorrow (Mar. 5) at 6:00 AM.
Walter Huston is the star here, playing a man named Flint. As we first see him, he's descending a rope from his bedroom on the upper floor of a building, and then crawling across the floor to a wheelchair. Flint is paralyzed from the waist down, and living somewhere in the jungles of central Africa, together with Tula (Lupe Velez), who is apparently his fiancée; and two factotums, Hogan and Cookie. Why the two men stay there, I have no idea, but apparently Flint has some sort of Svengali-like power over people. He's also going mad; he marks time by the month on a sign on the wall that says, "He sneered".
Presumably before coming to Africa, Flint was a stage magician in the States, because he performs magic tricks for the native tribe. Except, he's doing this to make them believe that he's some sort of god, so that they'll do his bidding, and make the area around where he lives forbidding for anyone he doesn't want to enter "his" territory. That, and he's been staying in Africa and marking time for reasons that are about to become clear.
In that distant past, just before he started marking time, Flint had a wife. But she ran off with an ivory trader, Gregg (C. Henry Gordon), and had a kid. Somehow, Flint was able to pay for the kid to be put in a convent school, and she's about to turn 18. So Flint is going to take "custody" of the kid, Ann (Virginia Bruce), and bring her to this middle-of-nowhere place as a way of inducing Gregg to come here as well. In addition to Ann, Flint also obtains a doctor, Kingsland (Conrad Nagel), in the hopes that Kingsland can perform an operation on him. Kingsland is addicted to one of the plant-based drugs in the region, and Flint is able to use that to maintain his control over Kingsland.
Flint's ultimate scheme is to have Gregg die while with Flint. Apparently, the natives have some sort of religious belief whereby if the father dies before marrying off the daughter, the daughter has to be sacrificed as well. So Flint's now obvious plan is to have Gregg die, which means that Gregg's daughter will never know happiness either. Of course, that plan is complicated by the other people in it not wanting to go through with it. Ann tries to nurse Kingsland back to health, and along the way, the two of them fall in love. They're both innocent, so they're going to have to try to make an escape as part of the movie's climax.
Kongo is apparently a remake of the silent West of Zanzibar, which I have not yet seen. Kongo, seen not in comparison to any previous version, is an interesting if bizarre little movie, and one that's got all sorts of plot messes. Why did any of these people stay with Flint in the first place? And how is Flint able to get all the props he needs for his magic tricks, as well as the copious amounts of western-style alcohol? Ah, don't pay any attention to these plot holes. Just enjoy the weird little movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment