1932's Kongo is a very dark take on the Heart of Darkness idea, with its "Kurtz", Flint (Walter Huston), a physically and morally crippled monster of a man who uses stage magic and fear to lord over his little corner of the African jungle, cruelly using both the local tribe and the small group of dregs and addicts that live in his compound. Lupe Vélez is almost bizarre in a non-comedic role, but though she gets second billing, the real heroine is Virginia Bruce, an alcoholic prostitute tortured by Flint as part of a long-term revenge plot. When a strung-out doctor shows up by accident, he may be her salvation, if she isn't sacrificed by the tribesmen first. This is a dark, pre-Code jungle thriller where the Congo is used as an exotic, strange, and thus disturbing setting, and where Flint's ugliness is really colonialism's, redux. While a lot of this kind of fare feels dated and systemically racist today, Kongo rises above that because its setting IS steeped in horror and its racist characters in no way meant to be "normal". I do think the final scene is tacked on, however, and do not need the relief it's meant to offer. The film's vision is just too bleak to really warrant it.
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Siskoid
1932's Kongo is a very dark take on the Heart of Darkness idea, with its "Kurtz", Flint (Walter Huston), a physically and morally crippled monster of a man who uses stage magic and fear to lord over his little corner of the African jungle, cruelly using both the local tribe and the small group of dregs and addicts that live in his compound. Lupe Vélez is almost bizarre in a non-comedic role, but though she gets second billing, the real heroine is Virginia Bruce, an alcoholic prostitute tortured by Flint as part of a long-term revenge plot. When a strung-out doctor shows up by accident, he may be her salvation, if she isn't sacrificed by the tribesmen first. This is a dark, pre-Code jungle thriller where the Congo is used as an exotic, strange, and thus disturbing setting, and where Flint's ugliness is really colonialism's, redux. While a lot of this kind of fare feels dated and systemically racist today, Kongo rises above that because its setting IS steeped in horror and its racist characters in no way meant to be "normal". I do think the final scene is tacked on, however, and do not need the relief it's meant to offer. The film's vision is just too bleak to really warrant it.