Now best known as the driving force behind the original 1933 King Kong and the model for its Carl Denham character, Merian C. Cooper led an adventurous life much like Teddy Roosevelt and the fictional Indiana Jones. After joining the National Guard to chase Pancho Villa in 1916, Cooper soon after joined the American Kosciuszko Squadron to support the Polish army against Soviet Russia. This is where he met lifelong friend and fellow movie producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. The two buddies continually sought adventure around the globe and jointly produced a number of films, beginning with their 1925 documentary Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life about a nomadic Persian tribe. Their exploits are detailed comprehensively on the special features section of the long anticipated King Kong DVD; that's what prompted me to rent Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness.

It's more like a "Jungle Melodrama." Although filmed semi-documentary style in the jungles of Siam (now Thailand) with untrained Laotian actors, the film is decidedly scripted for jungle adventure to set up conflicts with the local fauna. For instance, what native would ever tie a baby elephant to one of the main stilts holding up his family home, knowing that its mother has to be in the neighborhood? Of course, the whole premise of one lone family trying to stake out a small family farm in the middle of a jungle teeming with pythons, leopards, and tigers is pretty ludicrous.

Filmed in 1927, twelve years before the Motion Picture Industry worked out an agreement with the American Humane Association, this film harms large quantities of animals. In fact, scenes are specifically set up to shoot a few leopards and a couple of tigers. Another scene shows a number of captured animals in cages ready to ship (to zoos?) that includes a baby anteater, baby leopards, and a baby bear (prompting the audience to wonder what happened to the mother that we saw previously).

Cooper incorporates some of the conceits that Robert J. Flaherty uses in his 1922 Nanook of the North by using Laotian tribesmen and focusing on one family: Kru, his wife Chantui (not his real wife, however), and their three children. However, Cooper ignores any viable ethnographic study for the sake of adventure. He first sets up a minimalist scenario for Kru--the most daring of his tribe, who has taken his family deeper into the jungle to clear his own land, secure his livestock (his wealth), and grow his own rice. Chantui briefly shucks rice in the opening, but that's far too mundane a task to follow up on.

Instead, a leopard sneaks inside the pen and devours the family goat and then a tiger attacks the family water buffalo. That sets up the big cat hunt because Kru has seen "many leopards" besides the one that he's just set a trap for. Thirty brave hunters help build a variety of traps--pits, snares, and death slabs filled with pointed bamboo--to assist. These work to a degree, but the rifles are the most reliable weapon they have against charging big cats. We are treated to a number hunting scenes, and the most thrilling single shot of the entire movie occurs when one treed hunter is pursued by a tiger. Considering the quality of the camera lenses in 192, we can appreciate the courage of the cameraman that gets that closeup of that angry tiger's jaws!

Another highlight takes place near the end of the film when the "great herd" (elephants) stampedes through the village, flattening their stilted huts like smashed armadillos on a Texas highway. I'm not sure how Cooper and Schoedsack were able to choreograph these wild elephants, but they are smashing and brought to the screen with some incredible low angle shots that literally put us right under their feet! If you just want to see the two standout scenes, get hold of the special edition of King Kong and watch the background features, but the entire film is still worth checking out, especially since Milestone Film's re-issue with musical score. The DVD includes interesting background material from film historian Rudy Behlmer chronicling the numerous difficulties Cooper faced along the way.

While a number of inter-title cards are dated with hokey expressions or over-romanticized sentiments about man's place in the universe, remarkably the film continues to stand up as entertaining adventure. It's understandable that the public really took to Chang in 1927 to see exciting footage of real jungle animals (and a dangerous big game hunt) and why it was an Oscar nominee that year. It also helps explain why a number of people would venture into the theaters six years later in the midst of the Great Depression for further entertainment from Cooper and Schoedsack.