Coffee king’s films leave a rich legacy

Dana Brown’s estate seeks a home for the footage that the St. Louis icon shot on safari.
By BILL SMITH

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS | When Dana Brown died in 1994, he left a trust fund that has pumped almost $40 million into such St. Louis institutions as Children’s Hospital and the city’s zoo.

The savvy businessman and globetrotting outdoorsman also left another, less well-known legacy — more than 400 film canisters documenting his travels to exotic locales in Asia and Africa from the early 1960s through much of the 1980s.

The silver-gray metal canisters and reels of 16 mm films inside have been carefully stacked on the shelves of a fourth-floor storage room in south St. Louis. If the film has not deteriorated — and a brief inspection recently indicated that it remained intact — it offers a potentially amazing look into the lives of the people and wildlife that inhabited some of the most remote corners of the world at that time.

The film also provides a glimpse into the life of a local icon, whose Safari brand coffee commercials and documentaries entertained generations of St. Louisans.

Many of Brown’s documentaries began with “This is Safari Land, and I am Dana Brown.â€

“I would think a lot of this would be very interesting to someone,†said Tony Shimkus, director of facilities at Concordia Publishing House, where the film canisters are housed.

The films are treasures, said Lela Rice, Brown’s longtime assistant, confidante and a trustee of his estate.

David Diener, a vice president with U.S. Bank charged with helping oversee the Dana Brown Charitable Trust, said trustees have wrestled with the question of what to do with the films almost since Brown’s death.

Diener said the estate pays for storing and insuring the films. For insurance purposes, Diener said, the films’ value has been estimated at up to $3 million, but it is virtually impossible to determine a real value.

Rice said her boss’ other mementos from his journeys, such as the trophy mounts of animals killed on his safaris, were auctioned off. But a permanent home for the reels has been harder to find.

Diener said trustees made an initial inquiry of local auction houses and civic institutions several years ago but found little interest.

“There wasn’t much of a market for film in an era of changing technology,†he said.

Still, Diener and Rice said the trustees remain open to suggestions.

Inside the publishing house storage room, the canisters lie on their sides, stacked up to 20 containers high. Masking-tape labels are peeling from the edges, but most remain legible:

“Tiger Scenes.â€

“Africa III Revised.â€

“Dana Brown Fishing on River Bank.â€

Rice keeps a more detailed listing with a group of personal possessions that include several photos of Brown on his travels.

The list identifies 440 canisters, though Rice said she is not sure whether it is complete. Some of the entries identify film dating from the early 1960s, when Safari coffee was called Tiger Coffee.

“Bushman making poison arrows,†read one entry. “Cooking rolls in ant hill oven,†said another.

“There’s quite a legacy there,†Diener said.

“I certainly don’t think anyone would want to throw them in a Dumpster.â€

Rice, who has some of the film footage on VHS cartridges, said she would like to find the films a good home, with a profit going to the trust.

Brown, who was 89 when he died inside his St. Louis apartment, was born in Greenhill, W.Va., one of 10 children. He quit school early to become a lumberjack and also worked as a cowboy and Fuller Brush salesman before getting into the coffee business. He founded Dana Brown Private Brands Inc. in the late 1960s, running the company out of a small office in his apartment building until 1991.

He made 25 trips to Africa and seven to Nepal.

With todays technology I would wonder why a company like Safari Press would not want these and transfer them to DVD's. I would assume some would be in black and white while others in color. It would take some editing to produce say a dozen or so DVD. Of course they may want an arm and a leg for them but it may be cheaper to give them to a good home and get rid of the on going expense of preserving them. Another way would be a royalty to the trust from the sale of the end product.

I'm not in the publishing business, but it sounds like an expensive proposition. The film and audio quality may be poor. Though a severely edited version resulting in a couple DVD's may be of interest to some of us, I wonder how it might compete with all the hundreds of videos available today.

On one hand they are invaluable and on the other hand they might pitch them.

I agree Bill, but Saeed is producing videos and CC Hunter is doing the same albet from current hunts. It seems it is getting cheaper these days to do things like this. I guess I am just doing some wishful thinking.