Criterion Collection: The Naked Prey (1965) | Blu-ray Review

When one thinks of Cornel Wilde, a veritable Hollywood everyman who was peppered across a variety of noir and studio productions throughout the 1940s and 50s, he potentially conjures nostalgic memories from his leading man days (where he was often usurped by the prowess and pizzazz of his female co-stars, particularly by Gene Tierney in the seminal Leave Her to Heaven, or Ida Lupino in High Sierra). But the potential Olympian, who would forego a promising athletic career to pursue acting, was perhaps more a prototype for the similar trajectory of someone like a John Cassavetes, another actor who would eventually spend his later career fashioning an impressive directorial resume.

Whereas Cassavetes has long been revered as a godfather of indie American cinema, Wilde’s directorial achievements have fallen into obscurity. Of his eight feature films, perhaps the most well-remembered is his fifth endeavor, 1965’s The Naked Prey, which has been resurrected for Blu-ray after the Criterion Collection recuperated it a decade prior in 2008. Notably, the film premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival and went on to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay despite having a notable lack of dialogue.

Wilde stars as a character known only as “Man,” the lone survivor of a band of an ivory-hunting safari following a dispute over a cultural slight to a native South African tribal leader in the nineteenth century. A skilled marksman who had been on his own self-imposed last hunt before settling down on his own farm, he embarks on a fatalistic opportunity of survival despite the odds.

As far as tales of survival go, The Naked Prey is something of an odd cross between man vs. man, man vs. himself, and man vs. mother nature. Wilde foregoes any kind of heroic proselytizing about this white colonizer, a hunter on his last African gig, which, like something born of Hemingway and Greek tragedy, goes awry thanks to a clash of cultural and masculine posturing. What’s perhaps most notable is Wilde’s own portrayal of a character only credited as “Man,” who is depicted as one of the better kinds of white man (only because he doesn’t go out of his way to be cruel by comparison, and only kills elephants whose ivory is worth harvesting—what a dreamboat), who eventually becomes embroiled in native hubbub, choosing sides as a pseudo-protector of a young boy. But there’s no real ploy for audience sympathies, which is perhaps what makes The Naked Prey feel relevant and naggingly pervasive thanks to this transparency and lack of manipulation. Add to this the actor’s surprising physical prowess—at fifty-plus years of age and scantily clad throughout, Wilde is more omnipotent here than in any of his matinee idol years (and much more effective than his 1963 Sword of Lancelot).

As Michael Atkinson’s essay insert Into the Wild points out, Wilde’s aesthetics rival that of contemporary Samuel Fuller, particularly with the former’s presumed penchant for graphic violence. An initial attack on the white hunters finds some horrific examples of grotesque vengeance, which include a man being masked in clay and baked to death over a spit, and a rather vicious face-off with a cobra.

If anything, Wilde’s violent collusion of man and nature (there are many visual tangents depicting the hunter and the hunted amongst the vibrant denizens of local animals and insects) might more so touch on comparison to someone like Peckinpah, who incorporated the use of violence in nature in similar metaphorical fashion (or at least, like the children and the ants in 1969’s The Wild Bunch). And if anything, from where Wilde’s “Man” begins to where he ends up feels akin to the foreign frontier cinema so masterfully wrought in Nicolas Roeg’s more famous Walkabout (1971), both examples of how as a meditative, non-romanticized ability to survive the slings and arrows of Mother Nature are the emotional, and mental conduits for man (or woman) to tap into the humanity which civilization has eroded.

John Colter:
Paul Giamatti recorded this 2007 reading of “John Colter’s Escape,” illustrated with paintings, historical drawings, and various images, the tale of which was the original planned dramatization Cornel Wilde, culled from historian Addison Erwin Sheldon’s 1913 collection History and Stories of Nebraska.

Soundtrack:
Cornel Wilde recorded South African tribal chants for the soundtrack with ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey, who makes a statement with the track presented here from the film.

Final Thoughts:

An excellent entry into Wilde’s varied filmography (one hopes enough interest could be generated in later titles Beach Red and No Blade of Grass), The Naked Prey remains an impressive achievement worthy of greater acclaim.

Film Review: ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆