Africa Speaks

Billed as "The Strangest Adventure Ever Filmed", Africa Speaks chronicles the (mostly) real-life exploits of Colorado explorer Paul F. Hoefler. Filmed over a 15-month period, Hoefler traveled nearly 14,000 miles across Central Africa on foot with a safari of 200 natives. Some of the incredible sights captured by his camera crew include man-eating lions, wild antelope who jump 40 feet high, and a swarm of locusts that devour everything in its path. The expedition makes camp at the home of the Ugangi people, where women insert large discs beneath their lips to avoid being taken by Arab slave traders. They also learn of the tribe's unusual marital practices, which, according to narrator Lowell Thomas, would "shock the sensitive, and fascinate the modern." The film's most startling moment arrives when a native guide is devoured by a lion. In reality, the scene was staged at the Selig Zoo in Los Angeles, using a toothless lion and a hired actor as the 'native'. Africa Speaks was a huge hit at the box-office, no doubt due to the presence of topless native girls. It would inspire a book, a song ('Africa Serenade') and parodies starring Porky Pig (Africa Squeaks, 1940) and Abbott & Costello (Africa Screams, 1949). Footage from the film was later extensively used in the popular Bomba, the Jungle Boy series (1949-1955).