Simba: The King of the Beasts is an 1928

1928 in film

-Events:Although some movies released in 1928 had sound, most were still silent.* July 28 - Lights of New York is released by Warner Brothers. It is the first "100% Talkie" feature film, in that dialog is spoken throughout the film...

 American black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, directed by Martin and Osa Johnson

Martin and Osa Johnson

Martin Johnson and his wife Osa Johnson were American adventurers and documentary filmmakers.-Biography:...

, which features the couple's 4-year expedition to track the lion across Abyssinian and Kenyan veldts into his lair. The film, which went on nationwide general release on , was premiered at the Earl Caroll Theatre in New York on .

Production

Footage for the film was shot from 1924 to 1927, during the couple's second and longest trip to Africa, when spent much of their time in northern Kenya by a lake they dubbed Paradise, at Mount Marsabit. The film Martin's Safari (1928) was also made with footage of this trip and some was reused in later productions Congorilla (1932) and Osa's Four Years in Paradise (1941).

Reviews

Allmovie reviewer Hal Erickson writes that, despite being made, "under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History," and purporting, "to be an authentic filmed record of the Johnsons' most recent foray into Africa," the "expedition" documentary, "seldom lets facts get in the way of a good story." For example, "The film's highlight shows the intrepid Mrs. Osa Johnson bringing down a charging rhinoceros with one well-aimed shot. But the reusage of Simba footage in the Johnsons' 1932 documentary Congorilla reveals that the rhino was merely scared away by the gunfire -- a classic example of how the truth can be 'adjusted with the help of a clever editor."

The "groundbreaking travelogue," was, according to WildFilmHistory, "Filmed in an era when African wildlife was still relatively bountiful, the production shows how the landscape looked in the early twentieth century." "Evading stampeding elephants, employing scores of servants and gamefully shooting down a variety of species," "with the production including provoked behaviour, staged confrontations and animals shot to death on film. Relying heavily on cutting in kills from professional marksmen, numerous hunting scenes culminate in a heart stopping sequence where, with the use of clever editing, the adventurous Mrs Johnson appears to bring down a charging rhinoceros with one well-aimed shot," and. "the film provides an intriguing glimpse not only into 1920s Africa but also into the Johnsons themselves, part of a 'gung-ho' breed that is, in itself, now largely extinct." "Responsible for introducing a whole generation of American movie-goers to the wonders of the African environment, Simba was a large-scale success, detailing wildlife and indigenous tribespeople that had seldom appeared on screen before."