Review of Kongo (1932) by Allan C — 09 Apr 2017

While watching this film, I kept asking myself if I'd seen it before, but then it struck me that this was a talkie remake of Tod Browning's outrageous "West of Zanzibar," which had been made only four years before.

Walter Huston plays a conniving wheelchair bound magician in the jungles of Africa who frightens and manipulates the natives with his carnie magic tricks, though most of the film is spent on Huston cruelly treating the daughter of the man he holds responsible for crippling him.

The film does manage to be just about as over-the-top as Browning's original film, although it unfortunately also retains the racist portals of native people, but overall I still prefer Browning's silent version that featured the great Lon Chaney in the Huston role.