Jacare (1942) Pt 1

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] One thing I'm sure of, Mike, you're going to like this fellow. His name is Jim Donaldelson. He's a big raworn country boy and has an uncanny knack of handling wild animals. There's just one thing I want to warn you about. Jim is slightly gunshy. Not in the usual way. He just doesn't like to pull triggers. prefers to convince them with his bare hands. And that goes for anything from a jack rabbit to a rhinoceros. And that's what I like about him. He's a zoologologist and not a killer. I won't be there to bring him back alive. So, it's up to you to send him back alive. You know, as I know that anything can happen in the jungle. Hello. Yes, he is. It's Mr. Donaldson again. All right, let me have Hello. Hello, Jim. Yes, I'm just finishing it. Oh, you're having to worry in the world. No, no, no. You'll be delighted that you're taking my place. I know, Jim, but I can't be in Washington and Brazil at the same time. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'll read you what I've written. Give me that page that you type, will you please, Miss Wilson? Here you are, Jim. Uh, Mr. Sir Maguilinski, Bellang, Brazil. Dear Mike, lean up against something solid. I've got bad news for you. The trek up the Amazon we planned is off. At least for me. I've waited till the last minute to tell you because I knew how disappointed you'd be. But Uncle Sam comes first. And I've got to stick around where I'll be handy. But now I've got some good news for you. As a young fellow, a protege of mine, I'm sending in my place. I know you'll treat him exactly as you would me. And you'll get a kick out of his enthusiasm and the way he tackles his job. Yeah, all that will be all right. Now, the rest of the letter, Jimmy, is not important. It's just a sales talk about you, and I know you'll live up to it. Now, calm down. And no more telephone calls. What? Oh, the money and the tickets. Well, Miss Wilson will bring those over to you. And by the way, Jim, since you're taking my tickets and my money and my trip, let's make a clean sweep of it. That ring of mine that you've been admiring, and I hope it brings you the same good luck it's always brought me. You just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and listen to Mike. He knows all the answers that you think you know. I'll be down here to see you off. Goodbye. Now finish that Wilson. I'll sign it. We'll get off by our mail. I envy that boy. My letter to Mike Rejinsky goes on its way from New York to Brazil. Our great sister republic, the largest of all South American countries, full of a strange exotic beauty. Brazil has an area of more than 3 and a/4 million square miles. chief coffee producer of the world. Brazil is also abundant in gold, rice, cotton, sugar, and tobacco. More importantly, Brazil is bound to the United States by ties of culture and governmental brotherhood. Good neighborness is more than an empty phrase, and friendship has a real meaning. The principal city of fame, Rio de Janeiro, capital of the nation, and capital also of porn and frolic, deity, and glamour. My letter, however, is not flying down to Rio. It flies instead to Bang. Bang lies at the mouth of the Amazon like a jewel in velvet. The city is bound on one side by the jungle, on another by the sea, and on a third by the Amazon itself. The sea and the river slashes the borders of the town like knives, and the jungle pierces any wild animal, forever raids its boundaries. These are some of the natives of Bang, part of Brazil's 46 million friendly people. [Music] [Music] Mike Krojinski is home. The villainina named for his wife with a postman bringing my letter. Mike's house boy meets the postman. The letter is destined to send Jimmy Donaldson into conflict with the jungle into hand-to-hand fighting with red anaconda and ferocious jackaray. Rajinsky himself comes out. Mike is not a large man, but he's hard as nails, and he has a way with animals. [Music] As Mike reads the letter, his wife and daughter join him. Preparations for the adventure must be made. Nadi boys must be sent ahead into the jungle to establish a camp. Transportation must be arranged for The ship comes into harbor and there's Jim Donaldelson, the big fellow on the left with Clyde, an associate who also happens to be a friend of Rojinskis. The waterfront alive with activity, a fleet of river cargo boats. These picturesque craft play an important role in Brazil's economic life. Rain falls in torrent in Bang. The streets are often flooded. At the vessel docks, Jim and Clyde see Mike waiting for them. Light introduces the two men who are destined to share their adventure together, and they size each other up. [Music] passing the cargo boats, Mike explains them to Jim. They are sailed by daring Brazilians from the land to the headarters of the Amazon, bringing back cargos of grain, fruit, and general produce. These voyages sometimes last 3 months or more. On them, they broke encounter tides that fling their frail craft about, crossurrens that hurl them against the river's banks, and winds that rip their sails. As Mike, Jim, and Clyde start with their hotel, we see more of Bang itself. Once Bang was the rubber center of the world, but the development of rubber in other tropical countries almost ruined its enterprise. Today, planes going to and from every part of the compass, land and take off at Bang's airport. Modern in every sense of the word, the lang has its street cars and automobiles. Yet for all its modern air, it has managed to retain a primitive charm. Progress has stepped up the temple of its existence. But Balang remains its natural carefree self. Arriving at the hotel, Jim prepares to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow with Mike Rojinski, he'll be on his way to the density of the jungle. Jim and Clyde dressed for the jungle carrying long machetes meet Mike the next morning. Jim is anxious to get going while Clyde secures a permit from the authorities to visit Jakarand in a far interior. Looking over Mike's map, Jim sees some of the paths he must follow and sees jungle in which there are no paths. And Mike sees the ring that I gave to Jim in New York. He recognizes it as my good luck talisman. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Fly bids them Goodbye as they start on the first leg of their journey. [Music] Having come as far as the station wagon can carry them, they transfer to an ox cart drawn by an Indian bulock. Many years ago, the Brazilian government imported these cattle from India and bred them for labor in the fields. The bulock is able to draw many times his own weight. The cart is loaded by native boys. [Music] Horrible animal pulls ahead. Mike's gun is at ready. Like Jim and myself, Mike never kills for the mere sake of killing. But he knows that in the jungle, you never can tell when death may leap from the underbrush or drop from the trees. He knows that it is necessary to be on the alert in order to remain alive. Having come to the great river, the ox cart gives way to a boat. They move up the sweep of the river in whose currents many an adventurer has perished. Men believe in many things, but most of all they believe in themselves. And that perhaps is why man has become lord of the earth and all it contains. Here [Music] they abandon their motorboat and take to native dugouts and paddle power because of the shifting sandbars in the river. Jim, of course, is excited over the great variety of bird life. Even Mike, to whom this trip is something of an old story, feels his pulse quicken. A rare crested blue heron lights and igrets are everywhere. The plumage of these rare and beautiful birds is protected by government decree. [Music] Now in quiet waters, waters so still they hold no heat of danger, they come to the jungle's edge. Mike leaps ashore and Jim for the first time sets foot in the mysterious, the fierce, the untamed. And guided by Mike, he has found the jungle overpowering in interest. And already he has accumulated a sizable collection of small animals and a few birds. As he returns to camp with Mike from a brief expedition into the underbrush, the native boys are preparing a meal. A man develops a good appetite in the jungle and he needs his three square meals a day with plenty of vitamins. [Music] Here are a couple of Jimmy's catches already accustomed to captivity. Jim and Mike sit down and the native boys served. They will eat finia made from mandiocar root and various meats roasted on skewers and spits. The food is wholesome, healthy and sustaining. And eating outdoors, as every boy scout knows, always seems better than eating in stuffy rooms. [Music] This is a part of the floor show. Most of the camp monkeys would like to join in the feast, but these fellows are more interested in monkey business. The natives do not use knives and forks, feeding themselves with their fingers much as the Hawaiians do when they eat poi. [Music] Wilbur, a woolly monkey, has become a camp pet, and he's philosopher enough not to mind his chain. Mike and Jim, you'll observe, haven't yet acquired the hand-to-mouth technique. In a jungle, fine feathers do make fine birds. A native boy feeds a monkey. A rare white mustached marmisette. The woolly again solving the mystery of an orange. [Applause] [Music] What Wilbur lacks in manners, he makes up in enthusiastic appetite. The South American woolly monkey makes the best of all pets. They're gentle and intelligent and eventually become very affectionate. An older native boy, handsome and intelligent, and a parrot who apparently has nothing to say. As the boys finished their meal, Jim and Mike, in a hurry to get back into the jungle, prepare to set out once more. Here's Wilbur forgetting his manners again. [Music] And these macaus are probably saying, "Careful, Wilbur. You'll get the gout eating that rich human food. A young boy constrictor, but not too young to be dangerous. He's got it. Jimmy and Mike are now in the very heart of the jungle in a dense tangle of brush and trees and vines as wild as darkest Africa. A family of tapers browsing Mother, [Music] baby, and father. Huh? Another woolly. Perhaps one of Wilbur's cousins. He'll scream a cry of warning to the tapers if Jim and Mike get too close. [Music] Baby tapers, whether of the South American or the Malayan variety, are always striped, changing color and losing their stripes as they grow older. Tapers are the only animals evolution hasn't changed. They're the same today as they were 12 million years ago. The oldest living creatures on the face of the earth. Jim is fascinated. He'd like capture this fine group. But he knows the Brazilian government protects the taper. Reluctantly, Jimmy goes and Mike follows. And is Mr. Woolly relieved? They're good riddens. He says he doesn't know it, but this is the code of Mundy, a distant cousin of the raccoon family. He doesn't look particularly vicious, but his claws are sharp and his teeth can bite through a board. [Music] Jimmy and Mike see him and they'd like to capture him. That bore constrictor also sees him and he has the same idea. He's a brave little fellow with more courage than good sense. Well, they saved him and just in time. [Music] The little court of money is full of life now. And on his way to join the camp collection, Jim decides to go exploring without Mike. Up the Amazon he goes past trees and vines and foliage woven by nature into strange and beautiful patterns and designs. This is the jungle as yet unconquered by mankind. As he paddles along with a native boy, he sees a harpy eagle. This beautiful bird is one of the rarest of its kind. His talons are powerful, one of the largest of the eagle family. He is by far the fiercest of the lot. Of course, only when he's hungry, but he's hungry often. With razor sharp beak and cold piercing eye, he appears exactly what he is, the tiger of the air. Jimmy cataloges him for future reference. King vultures, the jackles of the air roosting high on a tree. His majesty in person. How only a queen vulture could fall in love with a face like that. [Music] [Applause] [Music]