Beyond Bengal (1934) User Reviews (3)

Harry Schenck documents his porters getting mauled.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 24 September 2016]

"Beyond Bengal" is a documentary about Harry Schenck and his friends going on an odd hunting safari in Malaysia. What makes it odd is that he said in the film that "wanton killing was not the point of the expedition" and then he and his friends blasted the crap out of a lot of creatures. Also odd is that most of the film (especially the final half) seems to consist of his loyal porters being savaged by wild animals!

The film consists of a lot of silent footage with sound effects and narration added. Considering they were in Malaysia and not Hollywood, I could understand not having state of the art sound equipment with them! Some of the footage is exceptional and some of it (mostly the crocodile attacks) appears to have been faked. In other words, when you see crocs chomping on everyone, I really doubt if anyone got hurt making the film. However, for the audiences watching at the time who were not as familiar with animals as we are now in this video age, it must have been pretty exciting and scary stuff to watch. Now, it, along with the very patronizing (talking about his porters as his 'boys') and hyperbolic narration ("...there it is...the most treacherous and hateful thing that lives" when referring to a leopard), it does have its problems when viewed today. Still, mildly interesting and can be downloaded for free from archive.org.

Wowwee Elephant Exploitation

[artpf · 6/10 · 14 November 2013]

The record of an expedition deep into the Malayan jungle.

In the mid-30s a number of these exploitation expedition movies were made. In one of them, which also featured Lowell Thomas who went onto TV fame, a party member gets eaten by a lion and the narrator says, Oh too bad.

This one shows plenty of lions running in ways that make no sense and natives chucking spears to kill them. It's not a well made movie but there is a great scene where a tiger climbs way up a tree after a cameraman.

They stage a python attack with a native. Not really sure the snake was real. To be honest, a lot of this film looks like it was made in a zoo! The tiger growling never ceases and they must kill 10 of them.Leopards, lions, tigers, you name it, are all killed with one shot,They don't seem to care much when the beasts go after the natives, but when the white man gets in trouble, bullets fly.

A white gibbon is practically drawn and quartered. This is a crazy movie that you can't keep your eyes off.

Kill or be killed, or killing just for the sake of it?

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 24 April 2019]

Poor prints makes early nature documentaries often difficult to watch, especially those which were released for third and fourth rate studios. The prints are choppy, often cutting off the dialog and ending before the scene is obviously over. This one, at the ripe old age of what the baby elephants seen here would be now, has some great footage, but the passage of time hasn't been kind to it. The film is also disturbing in many ways with baby animals and human beings seen being attacked by giant snakes and huge cats. But then there are cute monkeys of all sorts, baby elephants (who out there doesn't love a baby elephant?) and calmer mammals just grazing.

It is obvious that filmmaker Harry Schenck means well in filming what goes on out in the jungles and open plains of Malaya. But just the mention of hunters and trophies is enough to make some viewers apopleptic over the unnecessary deaths, as well as shots of the natives being cruel to various wildlife. One rare monkey is seen being stretched from limb to limb, a rather upsetting visual. Natural enemies of all jungle mammals are explored, including various types of snakes and the conniving crocodile. The race between a swimming baby bear and a giant crocodile is particularly disturbing. This has a few good moments, but a lot of it is a disturbing reminder of the cruelties of rather...and mankind.