KONGO (1932)

This wild and brutal jungle melodrama is close to being an archetypal pre-Code film, in manner and theme if not setting. Walter Huston plays a scarred and crippled big-game hunter who ruthlessly rules a small African village by virtue of his guns, his magic tricks, and his cohorts (who include Lupe Velez, later the Mexican Spitfire in a B-movie series of the 40's). He is confined to a wheelchair because of an encounter with another hunter (C. Henry Gordon) who had an affair with Huston's wife and crushed Huston's spine in a fight (and, according to Huston, sneered while doing so--Huston has the phrase "He sneered" on his wall). Now, Huston is putting the final touches on his long-planned revenge; he gets Virginia Bruce, Gordon's daughter (who was born of Huston's wife but apparently fathered by Gordon), out of a convent where she has been raised, has her taken to Singapore and forced into prostitution, then brought to Africa to be shown in her degraded state to Gordon. A doctor (Conrad Nagel) stumbles onto the scene, drugged out from chewing a wild leaf; Huston gets him under his thumb and forces him to operate to relieve some of the pain Huston still feels in his useless legs. Nagel falls in love with Bruce and conspires to help her escape, but Huston has other plans: once Gordon arrives, Huston will show him his miserable daughter, kill him, and let the villagers sacrifice the girl.

This is the very definition of unsavory material, but I mean that as a compliment here. The intensity of the performances, the unhealthy and grimy look of the surroundings (there's one particularly grotesque scene of Nagel stripped and plunged into a pond of leeches), and the perversity of the situation work together to give this a unique feel, matched in the early 30's only by the slightly less perverse SAFE IN HELL. Huston is powerful; it must have been tempting to go over the top with this melodramatic character, but Huston keeps a lid on his simmering performance which makes it all the more effective. Bruce is equally effective; when we first see her, she is a lovely blond angel, but when she arrives in Africa, she truly looks dissolute and diseased. The only false note is struck by Nagel, who is good when he's doped up, but is a little too sleekly Hollywoodish when sober and falling for Bruce. The climax has a nice little narrative twist which the viewer can probably guess ahead of time, but it still plays out well. Based on a Lon Chaney silent film, WEST OF ZANZIBAR. Highly recommended. [TCM]