English

Congorilla

In the first half of the 20th Century, Martin Johnson with his wife Osa, captured the public's imagination through their films and books of adventure in exotic, faraway lands. As photographers, explorers, naturalists, and authors, they studied the wildlife and peoples of these unknown lands and brought back film footage and photographs, offering many Americans their first understanding of these distant places. In Nov. 1929, the Johnsons returned for a fourth tour in Africa, intent on making the first movie with sound produced entirely in Africa. Their plan was to return to the Congo area and film the legendary pygmies of the Ituri Forest, as well as find the rarely observed gorilla of the Alumbongo Hills. On reaching the villages of the Mbuti tribe in the Ituri Forest, the Johnsons soon learned the overwhelming difficulties sound recording would entail in this extreme environment, Crushing humidity caused the equipment to quickly corrode, the oppressive heat warped the film and threw the delicate cameras out of adjustment. Despite the adversities, the Johnsons were determined to record Mbuti life and they succeeded not only recording the sounds and sights of village life but Mbuti

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