You all may of seen this before.

https://youtu.be/N2Cim-4tWkw

Have seen it before, but its still awesome!
Thanks for posting.

Some things change and some don't. Ginny didn't make an appearance until the very end, so I assume this was the safari that he wrote about in Horn of the Hunter. Lots has changed with respect to hunting in Kenya, elephants, rhinos in particular and lions. The terminology has changed dramatically. I would never presume to refer to people as "boys". Much more appropriate to address senior members of the safari retinue as "mzee", particularly the senior trackers, skinners and cook. Although few of them are older than me at this point.

The amazing things they do in a camp kitchen hasn't changed a bit.

He hunted ele with Andrew Holmberg..Holmberg died in Sweden in 2015, aged 97..

Holmberg took numerous 100 pounders (and beyond..) with clients..

That was fun to watch!!!

The video is fascinating. A 110 lb elephant, a 23” Rhino and a 49” Cape Buffalo, all on one hunt. The amount of gin and beer consumed was a harbinger of Ruark’s early death at 49 from cirrhosis. A waste of a tremendous talent.

Great movie. But it still bugs the hell out of me that people so freely post copyrighted work on the internet.

I have seen in-person the photographic stills of the staff from this safari - Juma, Ali, Kidogo, all of them. Ruark did sketchings of them at a later date.

I have an original VHS from when this was sold (also without permission) through Cabela's. I believe the Harold Matson company put a stop to that rather quickly. That one is recognizable because in the intro the word "imperfection" is misspelled as "inperfection."

thanks for posting.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:

I have an original VHS from when this was sold (also without permission) through Cabela's. I believe the Harold Matson company put a stop to that rather quickly. That one is recognizable because in the intro the word "imperfection" is misspelled as "inperfection."

I have the one I bought through Safari Press. A few years back I read some of the reviews people had posted on their website. One, obviously written by a young person complained vehemtly about the video quality. He just couldn't figure out what was wrong with their video camera.

Very enjoyable.

Glad to see it.

That was outstanding! Thanks for sharing.

I always watch that old movie on DVD before I leave for every safari. Good stuff!

I watched it last night. I really enjoyed it. I did wonder what something like that would have cost, adjusted for inflation?

I have not seen this before. Thank you, kindly.

quote:

Originally posted by zebrazapper:
I watched it last night. I really enjoyed it. I did wonder what something like that would have cost, adjusted for inflation?

I have seen a receipt for (I believe) this safari - the date is may 1953. Bob had already paid 2193 pounds the previous March and had additional charges to total 2455 pounds. The conversion puts it at about 62K USD today. It is not itemized so i don't have the daily/trophy fees.

Not much has changed! The truck has been replaced with a land cruiser and the canvas coolers with refrigeration. The long drives to remote areas remain the same and the camps are permanent.

Interesting for sure. He used no sticks, nor a shoulder and did much off hand shooting. Only scope was for the "medium" leopard.

Thanks for posting.

Best of the Season, Tim

Found more info from K&D:

A 60-Day 1x1 hunt was 1,800 pounds, 90-Day 2,700 pounds

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
Found more info from K&D:

A 60-Day 1x1 hunt was 1,800 pounds, 90-Day 2,700 pounds

I may be off on my numbers but about $3k US dollars in 1953 would
be about $30K today.

Can't even imagine hunting in Africa like that for 90 days- Amazing!

I have a long history with this particular movie. I did an essay on Ruark for a college class back in the 80s, and during my research for the paper, I found a single mention of this movie in an old magazine. I tried for years without success to find a copy, but with the rise of the internet in the 90s, I learned that RKO had produced the film. I contacted them and they told me that they had sold their copy to Turner as part of a massive deal with Turner Classic Movies.

I sent an email to Turner, only to learn that they had shown the movie on TV in 1998 and had no intentions of airing it again. They told me that they had sold the original to Time Warner as part of another big deal that same year. I ran into a dead end with Time Warner.

I later got the idea to contact Sporting Classics magazine to see if they could find a copy. After a could of a months, I got a call from the editor of the magazine saying that he had appointed one of his writers to follow up on the movie. At that same time, I actually found a 16mm print at an online dealer of old movies. I bought it immediately and had it transferred to VHS at an A/V company in Charlotte, NC.

I shipped a copy of the VHS to Sporting Classics to let them get a look at it. I didn't hear anything for several months, until the editor contacted me to tell me that they were trying to buy the rights from Time Warner, but if they did anything with it they really wanted the color original, whereas my 16mm print was in black and white.

I couldn't store the 16mm print safely, so I finally sold it on eBay. Not long after that, the bootleg copy appeared at Cabela's. I bought a copy and confirmed that it had come from my print... there is a splice at the beginning of the print where Ruark says "From your very first look at lofty Mount Kenya" which identified it as being transferred from my old copy.

I let Sporting Classics know about the bootleg since they were working on getting a better original. Soon after that it disappeared from Cabela's and later showed up as a legitimate release from Safari Press, which also used my 16mm original with the splice at the beginning.

That's how the whole thing came about.

SC-Sportsman, Thanks for posting. Very interesting.

Crazy he was only 49, he looked 65.

Wow! That's quite a story.