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The Naked Prey(Criterion Collection)

 

 

Produced and Directed by Cornel Wilde, Sven Persson


South Africa-US 1966 / Adventure / Drama / Chase Movie / 96 min / Color / Monaural /2.35: 1  Widescreen Anamorphic / NTSC / In English with Optional English Subtitles



Cornel Wilde, Gert Van Den Bergh, Ken Gampu , Patrick Mynhardt, Bella Randels, Jose Sithole.

Glamorous leading man turned idiosyncratic auteur Cornel Wilde created in the sixties and seventies a handful of gritty, violent explorations of the nature of man, none more memorable than The Naked Prey. In the early nineteenth century, after an ivory-hunting safari offends an African tribe, the colonialists are captured and hideously tortured. Only Wilde's marksman is released, without clothes or weapons, to be hunted for sport, and he embarks on a harrowing journey through savanna and jungle, back to a primitive state. Distinguished by vivid widescreen camera work and the unflinching depiction of savagery, The Naked Prey is both a propulsive, stripped-to-the-bone narrative and a meditation on the notion of civilization.

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Bonus Features:

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Audio commentary by film scholar Stephen Prince
- "John Colter’s Escape," a 1913 written record of the trapper's flight from Blackfoot Indians—which was the inspiration for The Naked Prey—read by actor Paul Giamatti
- Original soundtrack cues created by director Cornel Wilde and ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey, along with a written statement by Tracey on the score
- Theatrical trailer