Bungle in the Jungle: Apocalypto and the Naked Prey

When Mel Gibson's latest masterpiece "Apocalypto" opened in Southern Italy and the rest of Europe, naturally I went to see it with my wife. As action films go it was o-k, but what really struck me about the film is the feeling of deju-vu I had while watching it.

For the most part I'd seen this all before -- thanks to a little gem of a film that came out way back in 1966 called "The Naked Prey" -- directed, produced and starring Cornel Wilde, one of Hollywood's more popular leading men in the 1940s and 50s -- although an actor who couldn't quite crack the A-list of Tinsel-Town.

I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old when The Naked Prey hit the theatres and it was pretty heavy stuff for my still-impressionable young mind.

In much the same way that Apocalypto deals with the themes of courage and survival, so did The Naked Prey -- but it dealt with these topics about 40 years earlier and in a way that was a lot less bloody. The parallels between Apocalypto and The Naked Prey are more then evident: Prey contains only a few lines of English dialogue, the rest being spoken in native African tongues (minus the subtitles). It is virtually a silent tour de force for Wilde.

According to www.imdb.com, the tactile element in The Naked Prey is, perhaps, one of the most singular features: Death and torture are graphic (at least for 1966). The natives -- initially seen as barbaric -- club, bake, stab, and torment their victims. Wilde --- running naked through the jungle -- must rely on his wits to survive and somehow find a way back to the English outpost on the jungle's fringe. One by one, his pursuers catch him, and fall into individual and personal combat. As they pursue and die, mourn and argue, fight and weep, they become personalized and human for the viewer.

In a nutshell -- Cornel Wilde stars as a safari guide. A kind of Crocodile Dundee minus the accent. Wilde's group of sport-hunters is stopped along the way by a group of natives who seem to want nothing more than trinkets for their trouble. When this give-me-a-gift-and-I'll-let-you-pass act of friendship is refused by members of Wilde's safari, the perennial shit hits the fan, and before you can say "Guess who's coming to dinner?" Wilde and his colleagues are being served up as the main course in the Great White Hunter buffet.

Not to spoil anyone's fun, but the turning point in Apocalypto is similar to The Naked Prey. Cornel Wilde -- the last surviving member of his safari -- is taken to an open field where the head tribesman tosses a spear into the air. Wilde has the hundred yards or so that the spear travels as his lead to make an escape. Sound familiar? Mel Gibson made it a bit more difficult, the Mayan warriors give their captives a 50 yard lead and then use them for target practice with arrows, bolos and spears. If they can avoid all that, there's still a warrior at the end of the field waiting to chop them down.

Be that as it may, once Prey's Cornel Wilde and Apocalypto's Rudy Youngblood take their first tentative steps towards freedom, the both films take off. The thrill of the hunt is on.

Equal parts exploitation, ethnography, and straight-up action flick, Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey was set entirely in 18th century Africa. By any standards, The Naked Prey was a significant deviation from normal Hollywood fare: mostly wordless, featuring a host of non-actors in central roles, and possessing a soundtrack made up entirely of ethnic music, played by Africans on African instruments.

A bit of trivia for you: The Naked Prey was based on the true story of John Colt who was pursued by Blackfoot Indians across the Wild West's untamed wilderness in the 1800's. Wilde took this kernel of an idea and changed locations to Africa where he was able to get a lot more movie shot for his meager budget.

Produced for about $900,000 dollars, but bringing in much, much more at the box office, The Naked Prey was Cornel Wilde's masterpiece. And he didn't have to worry about working quite so much after the film's worldwide success.

Which film is better? Certainly Apocalypto has superior production values across the board and a budget that is reflective of modern film making. But The Naked Prey is a classic in its own right, and probably bears a second look after all these year.

The Naked Prey has yet to be issued on DVD but is still available on VHS.