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Tiger vs python:
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Black leopard vs python:
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from Introduction to Bring 'Em Back Alive
Shortly after writing his first book, Bring 'Em Back Alive, Buck arranged
with RKO to make a movie of it. In 1931, he traveled to the Far East with a
movie crew and shot 125,000 feet of spectacular film. When released in 1932, the
film version of Bring 'Em Back Alive was a blockbuster. A total of 82,660
persons saw Bring 'Em Back Alive during its first seven days, reported New
York's Mayfair Theater, 6,300 over the attendance mark for the first week of
Frankenstein, which held the previous high record for the theater.
Buck's second and third books, Wild Cargo and Fang and Claw, were
made into movies, starring, of course, Frank Buck. These were followed by
another movie, Jungle Cavalcade, a compilation of footage from the first
three films; and a serial released by Columbia Pictures, Jungle Menace.
In 1949, Buck appeared as himself in the Abbott and Costello feature, Africa
Screams. He was also the model for the jungle film director Carl Denham
(played by Robert Armstrong), who brings Fay Wray to Skull Island in King
Kong.
In his later films, Buck tried to avoid his early mistakes. In Bring 'Em Back
Alive, in a famous sequence, a tiger and a python lock in mortal combat. But
after considerable intercutting, the two combatants simply walk (or slither)
away from one another, leading some viewers to suspect that the outcome had been
rigged. One wag suggested that the tiger had not torn the python to pieces
because he had left his false teeth at home. Thus when Buck subsequently filmed
a battle between a black leopard and a python for Wild Cargo the scene is
continuous, with no intercutting, and the python finally crushes the leopard to
death.
BRING `EM BACK ALIVE:
THE JUNGLE ADVENTURES OF FRANK BUCK
was an NBC syndicated radio show, produced by the A.C. GILBERT COMPANY,
Sundays 5:45 - 6:00 pm. The show promoted Frank Buck's film Bring 'em
Back Alive. The first two episodes were
"THE GHOST TIGER OF SUNGAI"
broadcast date October 30, 1932
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"THE GIANT JUNGLE MAN"
broadcast date November 6, 1932
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The Ghost Tiger of Sungai (originally called Drums)
and The
Giant Jungle Man are in Frank Buck's book Fang and Claw. (The voice in
the two recordings is not Frank Buck's.)