Screenland (May–Oct 1927)

80 to hardships — manages to establish a clearing. Then he builds a house of bamboo — high up on piles so that he is protected from leopards, tigers and the other treacherous animals. The sides of his home are of woven Bamboo, the roof of grass and palm leaves. Everything is tied together with strands of split bamboo. Kru wouldn't know a nail if he saw one. Finally the house is all finished. Even to a pen down below for the goat and her kids. So Kru goes back to his native village to get his family. Chantui, his wife, is light brown in color, pretty, with heavy black hair which she wears very much like the slender models in our New York shops — combed straight back with a huge wad on the neck. She isn't a savage at all but is altogether appealing, totally feminine. She wears a sleeveless bodice and a tight skirt clear to her ankles. It's really a full skirt or sarong — which she wraps in at one side closely around her. Her figure is lovely. Hard work and none too much food keep her from that gross appearance which all too often afflicts more civilized beauties. In her arms she carries the baby of the family, a healthy boy about a year old. The other children, Ladah, a tender, soft-eyed girl about three years old and Nah. a fun-loving boy, complete the Jungle household. But I forgot — there's Bimbo — a great big monkey, almost as tall as Nah, and pure white. He's what you call a Gibbon. Bimbo never leaves Ladah or Nah. Hand in hand he accompanies them in .all their travels ■ — stopping only to search an errant flea. Kru's days are much the same. In the morning he goes out to his one rice field — the sole crop in this country and man's sole economic support. The path is so narrow that he touches the Jungle with either hand. To a white man with high-powered guns, the wild is a fearful enough spot. But to Kru, half-naked, with only his broad knife or his old gun for protection, the Jungle is a place of awesome terror. Suppose a tiger comes. What can Kru do? Even if he hits the tiger with a bullet from his gun, it won't stop the tiger's charge. Besides, Kru doesn't hold with killing tigers. Because he believes that this animal is the horse, namely the abode or vehicle of a Great Spirit. And if he kills the tiger, the Great Spirit will have no horse and will come and take Kru for his horse. Always wary Kru threads this Jungle path. His eyes can't penetrate the Jungle fastness but those cat eyes within the Jungle can see him all to well. Now it might interest you here to learn a little about these deadly enemies of Kru's. There are three kinds of tigers in this Siamese Jungle. The first feed naturally on smaller game. They are tigers in full strength, and are not much feared by the natives as they stick pretty closely to their animal depredations. The second class is the buffalo killing tiger. He too is in full strength but is getting a little old. Still he is sufficiently strong to kill buffaloes and domestic animals belonging to the villagers. All Siamese Jungle animals have a natural fear of man and they do not stay in man's vicinity unless they are man-killing animals. The third division — the man-killer — is a tiger that is old and weak, or one that has been injured so that he has lost his strength for killing buffaloes. There is only one soft, easy thing left to prey upon — MAN. (Of course, if a tigress is a maneater, she will teach her young to kill from birth.) In addition to these, Kru has still another dangerous enemy, the leopard. A leopard to Mr. Cooper's idea, is much bolder, more SCREENLAND C[ Natalie Kingston blooms again in "Lost at the Front". daring and courageous than a tiger. He has not the tiger's strength nor killing power but for each tiger that will come near a village, twelve leopards will dare. The colossal task of photographing these scenes is scarcely conceivable to us as we sit at home among our books. Cooper and Schoedsack aren't shooting faked tigers, nor enfeebled old zoo beasts, but young, cruel animals fresh from the Jungle. Cooper stands on a high platform near the camera so that he can shoot straight down on Mister tiger. And more often than not Schoedsack is flat on the ground or in a hole under the ground, protected only by a few logs, as a leopard charges right over his head. And added to all is that terrific blanket of steaming heat crushing out every particle of human and animal vitality. But the picture must go on. The question of light presents another great drawback. Of course, there isn't any artificial light whatsoever. And the Jungle vegetation is so thick that scarcely any natural light penetrates it at all. And it is impossible to get the men or the animals out into what sunlight comes through — so fiercely hot and enervating is its glare. Even the gay little comedians — the monkeys — refuse to budge from their shady perches. But heat or no he^at, light or no light, Cooper and Schoedsack' must carry on. They show you Kru, plowing his rice field with a water buffalo instead of a horse. This is his only beast of burden, his entire fortune. Towards evening he starts for home with a few fish he has caught to vary the monotonous diet of glutinous rice and fruit. Across his path a python crawls. That doesn't bother Kru much. A python isn't poisonous but it can give a dangerous bite or a blow with its tail. But if it had been a deadly cobra, Kru's day might have had a different ending. But no mischance occurs. Kru reaches his happy family safely, ties the buffalo under his house to one of the piles and mounts the tall ladder up to his high-pitched home. Bimbo hangs by his tail from the ceiling directly over the cook pot. Ladah and Nah are drinking cocoanut milk — which they share with the kittens — from a big cocoanut. Chantui serves the rice which she has cooked by roasting it in a stalk of bamboo. After supper, just before the tropical sunset when the sun seems to slam itself below the horizon in the flame of a split second, the family go outside to make everything j secure for the night. Kru brings the goat and her kids into the pen. Ladah brings j in the puppies. Nah looks after the cat! and her kittens. The peace of Buddha rests upon the little' household. The baby nods in his cradle, the other four lie all together in one impro ( vised bed, one parent on each side — the children in the middle. The father sleeps with one arm around Ladah. Even in her dreams the mother clings to Nah. Bimbo hangs over them all by his tail — musing on' a flealess world. Suddenly Bimbo awakes. His animal instinct warns him of danger even before sickening, blood-curdling cries tear the night. Kru rushes out, his old gun in his hand. Fearfully Chantui grabs her children— and follows. But — too late. The Jungle has demanded its own. A cruel, slinking, but I can't spoil this for you. Daily, hourly, every minute and second of the day, Kru fights this never-ceasing battle against the Jungle. One moment Kru will be victorious; in the next flash, the Jungle has dealt him a back-breaking defeat. In this sinister and deadly Jungle the tireless combat continues . . . One night, Kru wakes up violently. The floor in his house is shaking up and down — like a leaf in the summer breeze. From the Jungle comes that horrible -volume of sound — never heard before in Kru's life time, nor even in his father's days. Like a poisonous dream there shoots to Kru's cunning mind the meaning of this sound THE CHANG. THE CHANG. THE CHANG he shouts to his family as he runs down the wavering ladder. What good a gun against five hundred trumpeting beasts with the battle lust in their wicked little brains? THE CHANG. THE CHANG. THE CHANG! For the first time in Bimbo's whole life he is left behind, about to be crushed by the falling house. Even the baby doesn't whimper as Chantui plunges into the night air, followed by Ladah and Nah. Into their scooped-out wooden canoe they jump and start for their native village. A curious sound floats across the water — the mixture of a bleat and a whimper: "Don't leave little Bimbo, don't leave little Bimbo. ..." but this tiny wail is drowned in that maddening clamor of furious beasts after their prey, like millions of giant war gods, hurling blody thunderbolts. Boom, Boom, Bam, Bang, this maddened army advances. Faster, and Faster, Closer and Closer, in terrible, tumultuous Jungle rythm. A vast path of utter desolation follows in their wake. Nothing can survive this mightiest of herds which sweeps through the Jungle like the throb of a million animal Tom-Toms. And where is Cooper all this time? God alone knows. And Schoedsack? Schoedsack is down in a hole in the ground, under these thousands of huge trampling feet. Just a few Jungle logs between him and certain death. Yes, jungle wood is strong. But one misstep — one tiny miscalculation — one mischance of the Jungle gods — and Schoedsack is Out in Beyond. A thrill? Well, say. This then is the story Cooper and Schoedsack have brought back to us — the greatest natural drama that has ever yet been filmed !> — the Jungle man's supremacy over the Jungle.