As far as survival adventures go, Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant has been considered the gold standard since it swept the 2015 Academy Awards. While it is a great offering, The Revenant is not necessarily alone in concept, with other films such as Jeremiah Johnson that keep it in good company. Yet despite its relative obscurity in comparison, Cornel Wylde’sThe Naked Prey is a wonderfully tense adventure that set the standard before others raised it, and deserves to take its place in the hallowed halls of survival films.

The Naked Prey takes place in colonial South Africa, and follows the unnamed guide of an ill-fated hunting party that runs afoul of a local tribe. The tribe, as retribution for the hunters ignoring their guide’s advice and refusing to pay a toll, captures the party and spares only the unnamed guide after stripping him and commanding him to run. The film is actually one long chase, with the nameless protagonist both running from, and fighting, his pursuers that are always one step behind him. For the most part, that’s all the set-up the audience gets, and there’s very little dialogue from which to draw any further background information.

The Naked Prey

During the 1800s, a safari guide, two elephant hunters, and their crew run into trouble with the natives in the South African veld when they refuse to offer gifts to the tribesmen.

Actors

Cornel Wilde, Gert van den Bergh, Ken Gampu, Patrick Mynhardt, Bella Randles, Sandy Nkomo

Release Date

March 23, 1966

Language

English, Afrikaans, Nguni languages

Run Time

96 minutes

Director

Cornel Wilde

Studio

Paramount Pictures

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Can ‘The Naked Prey’ Be Considered a Survival Thriller?

The silence is a stylistic choice, since The Naked Prey can also be interpreted as a psychological thriller with the threat of death constantly looming, and every noise could mean death is alarmingly near. The guide has to run through a barren landscape where literally everything could kill him; the sun, thirst, starvation, exhaustion, his pursuers, the slavers he also encounters, and the local wildlife are all existential threats in a trial where he is completely alone. However, though fleeing solo, he is not helpless, and manages to fend off his attackers through tricks and skill, such as setting the tree line on fire with flaming arrows, and hand-to-hand combat.

The real triumph in the film is the atmosphere, where there are almost no spoken lines once the chase begins in earnest. The movie creates a sense of isolation that builds on a consuming anxiety since there’s no relief from the constant danger that follows the protagonist. Anything the guide does has to be weighed against the fact that he’s being tracked, and the audience knows that he can never let his guard down.

How Is ‘The Naked Prey’ Different From Other Survival Thrillers?

The film goes all in on its survival aspects, especially given that it was released in 1965 and the main character is, although we don’t see it, naked throughout much of the first act (years before Naked and Afraid). We also see his strong will to survive in the form of bush meals, specifically a snake and an edible plant, which adds to the strong sense of desperation that the audience has built throughout. There’s even a particularly effective scene where the guide, forced to hide in a tree above his assailant, is given away by drops of blood from an open wound that lands on his enemy.

At the end of the story, after the guide finally reaches the safety of a fort, he shares a respectful nod with his surviving chasers as they retreat into the undergrowth. The nod, of course, is more than just a concession, it’s a conferment of respect, which seems awkward but given the mood of the film, is appropriate. Despite the various levels of grimness we’re shown, the nod also acts as a sort of token of mutual admiration between the two men. After all, the Alan Quartermaine ethos, which the film indulges heavily, tends to treat death as something of a minor detail. If we take the movie on its own terms, it’s clear that it’s trying to aspire to a progressive missive, and even though it may not quite get there, compared to other movies of the era, it certainly deserves some credit.

How Does ‘The Naked Prey’ Portray The Local African Peoples?

In addition to the main plot, there is an interesting sociocultural study in The Naked Prey, where there are some stereotypical depictions of African and Near Eastern peoples, but there’s quite a bit that shows that the movie is generally intending a positive message. For example, the tribesmen that chase the guide throughout the film are non-descript tropes, but we’re given no real backstory of either the main character or antagonists. However, we do know a bit about them from the beginning, when they ask for a tribute to pass through their land, and are met with violence by the hunters. Even though the battle with, and torturous executions of, the hunting party are something out of a Joseph Conrad novel, the tribesmen are reacting to a violent incursion into their land that is not unprovoked (the film is careful to make this clear). It should also be noted that the guide had wanted to pay them for the use of their land, and had been generally respectful, which is why he is spared and given a chance to escape.

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There is also an interesting character arc with the arrival of a band of slavers, that we can only assume are of Near Eastern origin. The guide risks his life to free several tribesmen that have been tied up, including a young girl that winds up accompanying him for much of the rest of the journey, saving his life in return. In this way, while The Naked Prey does indulge in more stereotyping than it should, it takes a somewhat nuanced stance on the issue, providing both positive and negative examples for the different groups (although the slavers are a grey area since their vocation is reprehensible regardless of their national origin). The interplay between the guide and the also nameless girl is significant; given the American cultural milieu in which the movie was made, that some of the only dialogue in the entire film is when they each try to sing a song in the other’s language is a clear social statement.

Even so, the influence of The Naked Prey is still seen in today’s cinema, not just in movies, but with filmmakers themselves. In fact, Joel and Ethan Coen cite The Naked Prey as an early influence, and have admitted to having made their own Super 8 version with their boyhood neighbor. Still, whether you’re interested in a psychological journey or a survival adventure, The Naked Prey is a top-notch gem that shouldn’t be missed.

The Naked Prey is currently available to buy or rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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