Popular Indian child star Sabu (born Selar Shaik) was discovered by director Robert Flaherty working as a stable boy for an Indian maharajah and cast in Flaherty’s first fiction film Elephant Boy. For the next several years, British moviegoers, like their American counterparts viewing Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, and Judy Garland, watched him grow up in a series of films produced in both England and America. Criterion’s latest Eclipse box offers us three of his most popular early works made under the production hand of Alexander Korda. These three, along with The Thief of Bagdad (already on a spectacular Criterion DVD) constitute the prime moments of Sabu’s early career.
Sabu! Eclipse Series 30
Elephant Boy/The Drum/Jungle Book
Directed by Zoltan Korda, Robert Flaherty
Studio: Criterion/Eclipse
Year: 1937-1942
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 82/98/106 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 English
Subtitles: SDH
MSRP: $44.95
Release Date: November 29, 2011
Review Date: November 20, 2011
The Films
Elephant Boy – 3/5
Eager to become a hunter like his father (W. E. Holloway), Toomai (Sabu) is allowed to accompany his dad on a governmentally sponsored elephant hunt in India led by Petersen (Walter Hudd). Petersen’s heard of a vast elephant herd, but his safari is plagued by nothing but trouble including weeks with no sightings, a fierce tiger who is shot but manages to kill Toomai’s father, and the trampling of cruel hunter Rham Lahl (Bruce Gordon) by Toomai’s beloved elephant grieving for its master. When Lahl threatens to shoot the elephant for vengeance, Toomai steals away with his pal in the middle of the night hoping to put a great distance between them and their adversaries.
Known for his documentary filmmaking, Robert Flaherty had shot many hours of jungle footage with his protégé Sabu and then the young actor was brought back to England where Zoltan Korda shot the dialogue scenes scripted by John Collier from Rudyard Kipling’s Toomai of the Elephants to complete the film. Shot over a period of almost two years, the film seesaws jerkily between these two different approaches to filmmaking, and some of the nature footage mixes very uneasily with studio-based material (the tiger attacking was shot in daylight while the attack itself happened at night, but no effort has been made to alter the footage shot in India so the viewer jumps from day to night and back again during the sequence). Sabu has a charming screen presence (he was thirteen when the film premiered), but in his first film, he’s reciting lines rather than acting in a very amateurish performance (he got much better very quickly). Walter Hudd is well cast and gives a sincere performance as the head of the group, and Allan Jeayes as Petersen’s right hand man Machua Appa is equally effective.
The Drum – 3.5/5
When the British Governor (Francis L. Sullivan) receives word that a group of tribes in northern India are banding together for an assault on the British residency in Tokot, he sends newly married Captain Carruthers (Roger Livesey) to take charge of the situation. His wife (Valerie Hobson) refuses to stay behind and joins him in Tokot despite the danger, and her first act of kindness is bandaging the injured Prince Azim (Sabu) of whose identity she was unaware. When the Prince’s father is assassinated by his power mad brother Prince Ghul (Raymond Massey) who assumes command of the rebel factions himself, Ghul feigns benevolence in order to lure the British into a trap where he can wipe out the entire regiment to show the British back home that the people of India no longer fear the British and that they need to leave India immediately.
While his brother Alexander was mounting stuffy historical biographies like Rembrandt, Zoltan Korda was busy directing rousing action-adventure spectacles like The Drum emphasizing battle scenes and the sense of British patriotism and zeal for the Empire. The climactic fight scenes actually run on a bit too long in the film watching a succession of bodies hitting the ground without much in the way of fight choreography that would emphasize the ebb and flow of each side’s success. Sabu is top-billed with some charming scenes as he learns to play the drum, dreams of wearing a British army uniform (which might have endeared him to the English but didn’t do much for his countrymen back in India), and shows a marginal improvement in his acting since Elephant Boy, but the picture’s Roger Livesey-Valerie Hobson romance and married relationship gets equal attention in the movie. Livesey gives a a typically romantic leading man performance of the era, and Valerie Hobson shows typical British pluck in withstanding the anxiety of the murderous trap the British fall into. Raymond Massey in brownface make-up doesn’t look much like a Hindi, but at least he doesn’t play the wicked role with the expected melodramatic snarl that villains of the era sometimes adopted.
Jungle Book – 4/5
After being lost in the jungle as a toddler, jungle boy Mowgli (Sabu) is adopted by wolves and raised to know every inch of his environment. Twelve years later, he returns to the village and his mother Messua (Rosemary DeCamp) though his heart is torn between his human family and his jungle family. He quickly makes an enemy of village leader Buldeo (Joseph Calleia) whose lovely daughter Mahala (Patricia O’Rourke) is immediately attracted to the young native boy, and Mowgli’s jungle enemy the tiger Shere Khan continues to hunt him. But Buldeo’s attitude toward Mowgli changes once he discovers that Mowgli knows the location of a vast hidden treasure chamber in the ruins of an abandoned city. Mowgli, however, refuses to take him there knowing that to touch the treasure is to invite death.
This lushly impressive Technicolor feast is made all the more impressive knowing that it was filmed in Hollywood by Korda who in doing so trumped any of the Tarzan jungle sagas mounted by the mighty MGM always in less expensive black and white. The Oscar-nominated cinematography takes full advantage of the flora and fauna, and the adaptation of the five Kipling stories from his book makes for a truly wonderful Indian adventure. Sure, some of the special effects with the automated crocodile and the stuffed tiger Mowgli fights underwater might not look so impressive now, but it’s still a lively adventure tale grandly directed and with no slow spots. This was Sabu’s last film with the Kordas, and he makes the most of his opportunity. He’s undoubtedly the star of the movie, and does enough running, jumping, swimming, and climbing to fully convince as a creature of the jungle. Joseph Calleia is the snarling villain of the piece, and while it’s a conventional performance, his work is as fine as always. Rosemary DeCamp doesn’t make any more a credible Indian than those who surround her, but she’s also full of warmth and motherly grace and is a welcome addition to the cast.
Video Quality
Elephant Boy – 3/5
All of the films are presented in their theatrical aspect ratios of 1.33:1. Strangely, the long shots and medium shots are often quite sharp, but close-ups are inevitably soft and unappealing. Since Eclipse releases aren’t cleaned up prior to release, there is plenty of dust and dirt on display, and there are also occasional scratches and some missing frames. Black levels are surprisingly good, and the grayscale overall has been captured nicely in this transfer. The film has been divided into 12 chapters.
The Drum – 2.5/5
Sharpness is never all one would wish for in this transfer, and much of it is soft, particularly in long and medium shots. The Technicolor varies throughout the presentation though it looks better in the latter half of the movie. The first half is much too brown and muddy. There are some chroma lines that swivel through the frame during the first five to ten minutes that are very distracting. With no clean-up attempted, there is plenty of dirt and debris and occasional scratches, too, along with aliasing and moiré at certain points. Details in shadows are often crushed in this mediocre presentation. The movie has been divided into 16 chapters.
Jungle Book – 4.5/5
This is the Technicolor look one always longs to see in vintage films. The color is strikingly lush through most of the presentation, but it’s never out of control, merely deeply saturated. Sharpness is by far the best of the three films in the set with some shots of jungle vistas with animals running past upconverting well enough to convince as almost high definition images. There are some occasional flecks of colored dirt and debris, and there’s a bit of aliasing here and there. Otherwise, this is a superb looking disc. The movie has been divided into 15 chapters.
Audio Quality
Elephant Boy – 2.5/5
All of the films are presented in Dolby Digital 1.0. Elephant Boy contains a good degree of hiss throughout, and there is some distortion when John Greenwood’s music score comes in a bit too loudly. There is a fair amount of ADR which also mixes uncomfortably with the live recording. Still, dialogue is always discernible and is never drowned out by the sound effects or the music.
The Drum – 3/5
There is fairly constant hiss, but it’s not noticeable except in the quietest moments. There is also occasional soft flutter. There is some distortion in John Greenwood’s music, but the music and sound effects are never loud enough to distract from the recorded dialogue which is usually very easy to understand.
Jungle Book – 3.5/5
There is some hiss present, but it’s not as noticeable here as it was in the previous films in the set. Dialogue is easily discernible, and Miklos Rozsa’s Oscar-nominated score resonates in the mono mix without ever reaching distortion levels. Sound effects are likewise well blended with the dialogue and music making for an appealing mono sound mix.
Special Features
1/5
Eclipse series releases don’t offer bonus features, but each disc in its own slimline case contains interesting liner notes on the productions by Michael Koresky.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
Sabu! will be a welcome box set for fans of the young actor in some of his earliest and best known film vehicles. The films haven’t received any kind of attention, however, as is usual for Criterion’s Eclipse releases, so those expecting pristine presentations may be in for a letdown (though Jungle Book looks the best it has ever looked on any home video release).
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
