The King of the Kongo

: "For the 1952 Columbia serial see King of the Congo, and for other uses, please see Congo."Infobox Film
name = The King of the Kongo


image_size =
caption =
director = Richard Thorpe
producer = Nat Levine
writer = Harry Sinclair Drago
Wyndham Gittens
narrator =
starring = Jacqueline Logan
Walter Miller
Richard Tucker
Boris Karloff
music =
cinematography = Ernest Laszlo
Ray Ries
editing =
distributor = Mascot Pictures
released = 9 August 1929
runtime = 10 chapters
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:27447
imdb_id = 0020059

"The King of the Kongo" (1929) is a Mascot movie serial. It was the first serial to have sound, [http://www.searchmytrash.com/cgi-bin/articlecreditsb.pl?mascot(9-05) (Re)search My Trash: Mascot Pictures] retrieved 29th June 2007] although only partial sound ("Part Talking") rather than the later (and obviously now standard) "All-Talking" productions with complete sound. The soundtrack is now considered to be lost. cite web |url=http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/K/KingoftheKongo1929.html |title=Progressive Silent Film List: The King of the Kongo |accessdate=2008-04-16|work=Silent Era]

Plot

Independently, the two protagonists, Diana Martin and Secret Service agent Larry Trent are searching the jungle for missing relatives, her father and his brother. Tied up in this plot are ivory smugglers and a lost treasure hidden in the jungle.

Cast

*Jacqueline Logan as Diana Martin
*Walter Miller as Larry Trent, Secret Service Agent
*Richard Tucker as Chief of the Secret Service
*Boris Karloff as Scarface Macklin. The near fatal events occurring to the hero are preceded by shadowy shots of Karloff. However, he is revealed not to be the villain in the final chapter (he is actually the heroine's father).cite book
last = Harmon
first = Jim
coauthors= Donald F. Glut
authorlink = Jim Harmon
title = The Great Movie Serials: Their Sound and Fury
origyear = 1973
publisher = Routledge
isbn = 9780713000979
pages = pp. 351
chapter = 14. The Villains "All Bad, All Mad" ]
*Larry Steers as Jack Drake
*Harry Todd as Commodore
*Richard Neill as Prisoner
*Lafe McKee as Trader John
*J.P. Leckray as Priest
*William P. Burt as Mooney
*J. Gordon Russell as Derelict
*Robert Frazer as Native chief
*Ruth Davis as Poppy
*Joe Bonomo as Gorilla

Production

"The King of the Kongo" was the first film serial to have any sound element. Larger serial-producing studios (for example, Pathé and Universal Studios) were reluctant to change away from silent production (although Universal released their own Part-Talking serial, "Tarzan the Tiger", later in the same year) while smaller studios could not afford to do so. Legend has it that producer and studio-owner Nat Levine carried the sound discs in his lap from Los Angeles to New York City, by train and aeroplane, for them to be safely developed. For financial reasons, these discs could not have been repaired or replaced if anything had gone wrong. This was two years after the first Part-Talking film, "The Jazz Singer" (1927), had been released and a year after the first "All-Talking" film, "Lights of New York" (1928).

Two versions of this serial were released, a "Part Talking" version and a silent version intended for theatres not yet equipped for sound.

King of the Kongo is sometimes misreported as an alternate title for the serial King of the Wild, which also starred Borris Karloff.

tunts

*Joe Bonomo
*Yakima Canutt

Chapter titles

#Into the Unknown
#Terrors of the Jungle
#Temple of Beasts
#Gorilla Warfare
#Danger in the Dark
#Man of Mystery
#The Fatal Moment
#Sentenced to Death
#Desperate Choices
#Jungle Justice

ee also

* Boris Karloff filmography
* List of film serials by year
* List of film serials by studio

References

External links

*
*

###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
title=Mascot Serial
before=The Fatal Warning (1929) "(Silent)"
years=The King of the Kongo (1929)
after=The Lone Defender (1930)