Product Details

• Actors: Joe Dlamini, Ken Gampu, Morrison Gampu, Horace Gilman, John Marcus
• Format: NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300215849
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,271 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Actor-turned-director Cornel Wilde (The Best Years of Our Lives) released this fascinating fever dream of a thriller in 1966, basing its terrifying story on the legendary escape of trapper John Colter from Blackfoot Indians. Wilde plays a laconic, big-game hunter (the script refers to him only as "Man") managing an ivory-gathering safari for an arrogant loudmouth who refuses to pay tribute to a local chief. The chief's tribe takes exception to this slight, capturing the hunters and subjecting them to sundry, nightmarish tortures. (The worst, arguably, is the baking of one poor fellow inside a head-to-toe clay suit.) Wilde's character is stripped bare and given a bit of a lead before being pursued by a party of spear-wielding men. For the next few days, the Man lives by his wits in the most violent surroundings, never far from the predator-prey cycle in the animal kingdom and even saving a boy from an attack by slave-traders on his village. Horrifying as the Man's journey becomes, there is something redemptive about Wilde's jaded character going back to nature in a radical fashion. Wilde the filmmaker expertly mingles stock footage of jungle beasts with his own bold images of a savage Eden, though nothing gets under one's skin quite like some of those torture scenes. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Naked Does Not Mean Defenseless, August 14, 2002

By 

Martin Asiner (jersey city, nj United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Naked Prey [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Most films which have the basic premise of a white man battling native Africans somewhere in the Dark Continent usually portray these natives as nameless, unmotivated ugga-mugga tribesmen whose only purpose in life seems to be able to toss missionaries into a round cooking pot. Thankfully, Cornel Wilde acts in and directs himself in THE NAKED PREY, a movie that is as astoundingly gripping as any film whose plot revolves around the hero's struggle for survival in a savage environment.
Wilde is a guide whose safari of foolish white hunters antagonizes some ferocious natives, who proceed to kill the hunters in a variety of graphically nasty ways. The natives allow Wilde a head start, then chase him. It is this chase that forms the bulk of the movie. Along the way, Wilde shows the natives (and the audience) that a near naked white man can still be a formidable foe. The pursuing natives, led by Ken Gampu, are a diverse lot, not all of whom are as dedicated to the chase as he is. They have numbers, food, knives. Wilde has only his fierce determination to live. What starts out as a standard chase movie, morphs quickly enough into another sort of chase. This time, though, it is Wilde who starts calling the shots about who is chasing whom. THE NAKED PREY is full of magnificent vignettes of survival on the African plain. This is no jungle movie. It is an engrossing film that allows the camera frequent panoramic sweeps over vast desert plains that are quite capable of supporting life if one only knows how. The natives are astonished that Wilde's knowledge is at least as full as theirs. Along the way, Wilde befriends a very young boy whose family was captured by Arabic slavers, and it is this boy whose very initial helplessness reminds Wilde that vulnerability is a trait that has the practical value of reminding one that arrogance on the plain is a negative survival characteristic. The latter half of the movie is a continuing series of confrontations between Wilde and Gampu. By the end, both the pursued and the pursuer recognize that sometimes the distinction between the two is a muddied affair at best, and the winner is not necessarily the one with a trophy, but with a recognition that all life, even the life of your enemy, has some value during a deadly game of chase.

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cornel Wilde is `The Man', January 7, 2003

By 

Edward M. Erdelac (Valley Village, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Naked Prey [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This overlooked gem directed by and starring one-time Olympic fencer Cornel Wilde concerns a knowledgeable safari guide (known only as The Man) whose greedy client gets him into a slew of trouble when he refuses to pay tribute to a band of Zulus while hunting elephants in Africa. The Zulus return en masse and take the white hunters prisoner, torturing them to death in a variety of ingenious ways. Recognizing Wilde as being made of stouter stuff than his companions, they strip him naked and cut him loose with the intent of hunting him down. But their generosity backfires when Wilde up and kills one of them. What follows is one of the greatest pursuit movies of all time as the vengeful Zulu hunters chase the Man across the savannah in a race to reach a remote British fort. The Man has to use every ounce of human ingenuity to stave off his relentless pursuers, as well as to contend with various random perils (pissed off wildlife, starvation, and slavers, to name a few).

This was filmed entirely in Africa and Wilde makes great use of the rich locales. The hunt is juxtaposed at various times with real footage of animals contending with each other in the natural world, and there are some pretty memorable scenes here alone (including the snaring of a flying sparrow by a tree climbing viper!). This is a 2:35:1 movie, but you?ll be hard pressed to see it that way. I think there is a laserdisc, but no DVD. If you can, catch it on AMC until they come out with a well-deserved DVD version, because the widescreen format is well-used here, serving to encompass a panorama of natural beauty. Despite the primal savagery of the plot, and the at times brutal violence (not too brutal - this is the 60's after all), everything in this movie is quite beautiful, from the locations to the hundreds of native non-actors.

This is a great movie for an amateur filmmaker to study, as except for the beginning and one brief segment towards the end, there is almost no English dialogue. This is a visually dynamic film reminiscent of a moving Frank Frazetta painting. The humans are lean and sensual, and the action is high yield. The earthen colors bring the viewer down to the basics, and the African singing and tumultuous heartbeat of the native drums make you want to put on your war face and go running through the bush. The theme of man vs. man vs. nature plays out to the fullest, in an admirably simple and refreshingly honest way.

While the subject matter of a white man being able to hold his own against a group of native Africans on their own soil could be misconstrued as racist, I think the parting salute between Ken Gampu?s hunter and Wilde?s Man, as well as Man?s short friendship with an African boy who saves his life shows that the film?s heart is in the right place. In the end, these men find mutual admiration in each other?s abilities, and the picture ends on a high note. This is the pulpy sort of stuff that reminds one of yellowed Weird Tales covers with Robert E. Howard?s name emblazoned in red ink over some two fisted man?s man rippling with unbridled don?t-give-a-damn-but-I-can-take-a-punch grit. Wilde got the idea from listening to an old radio drama about a trapper being hunted by Indians through the mountains of the northwest. Highest possible recommendation.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of my all time favorites, April 5, 2004

By 

Goozh "mcdray" (Carol Stream, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Naked Prey [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I accidentally caught this movie late at night when I was a kid...and found it the most gripping movie I had ever seen. 30 years later my opinion has not changed one bit. After an hour into the movie, I remember finding myself amazed at how much I cared about the characters and how strongly their personalities came through - even with virtually no dialogue!! This is perhaps one of the most underrated movies in the latter half of the 20th century. Other reviewers here have already done an exceptional job of running down the highlights, so I need not do the same.

This film leaves me with 2 questions that I would love someone to answer. First, why do they not make movies like this anymore? And second, when oh when will this come out on DVD??