Wild Boar Hunt (1940) User Reviews

With Bow And Arrow

[boblipton · 5/10 · 26 October 2021]

Howard Hill goes hunting wild boar, and kills an eagle and knocks a rock off a fence on the way while Knox Manning narrates constantly.

Hill is best remembered for being the archery consultant on THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. He also directed and starred in a few shorts showing off his mastery with a hundred-pound bow. It's a pretty good short, although the print that plays occasionally on Turner Classic Movies has sme fuzzy sequences.

"What did that hawk ever do to him?!" . . .

[cricket30 · 4/10 · 19 January 2019]

. . . outraged viewers no doubt muttered as they angrily stormed theater box offices for their refunds back in the day. WILD BOAR HUNT begins with the totally gratuitous murder of an exotic endangered American raptor, allegedly to "protect" a pigeon junk bird. This is akin to slaying a whooping crane to "save" pond scum, or gutting a family of pandas to "preserve" a thicket of bamboo. No one ever has seen CROCODILE DUNDEE roasting a koala that was "caught decimating an eucalyptus tree," nor has anyone viewed "Mr. Roberts" gnawing on the bones of "Bugs Bunny" because the latter gobbled up all the neighborhood's carrots. "Howie Hill" stars as the villainous "Robin Hood" of WILD BOAR HUNT, slinging his Death Arrows at virtually anything that moves, as the sadistic narrator seems to egg him on. Unfortunately, there was no NC-17 rating to snuff out this snuff film when it first inflamed the Conscience of America. What IS remarkable is that a copy of this deplorable outrage has survived into our "Modern" 21st Century. Perhaps most appalling is the fact that some TV channels are allowed to screen it Today without so much as a Black Box Warning!

Decent Short

[Michael_Elliott · 6 October 2010]

Wild Boar Hunt (1940)

** (out of 4)

Part of Warner's "Bow and Arrow Adventures" series, this nine-minute short introduces us to Howard Hill, a skilled bow expert who helps a farmer track down a wild boar who is killing his chickens. I'm pretty sure this is the first film I've seen from this series and it was rather hit and miss. The hit parts were the actual trick shots with the arrow, which were quite entertaining to watch as we get some pretty impressive long shots. The misses are pretty much the rest of the film, which goes from cheap to cruel. There are several silly shots of the boar, which are obviously fake and there are a few moments where you can even see that the creature is just some sort of prop with someone opening and closing its mouth. The film takes a rather ugly turn towards the end when the dogs get the boar cornered while the hunters try to catch up to kill it. It's obvious that the boar is tied up during some of the shots so seeing this wasn't all that impressive. The boar also suffers a somewhat slow death on camera so boar lovers should be warned.

A litmus test on modern times

[dwarol · 7/10 · 21 January 2019]

I enjoy mini-documentaries like from the '30s and '40s because they become a litmus test on modern sensibilities. Having read other reviews here on this short about a wild boar hunt make this a perfect example.

It's a mostly innocuous short about hunting that would not have been the least bit controversial in the '40s. Some parts are interesting, such as the first section showing the archer's trick shots.

But there are two animals killed in this short, a hawk killing a farmer's chickens and a wild boar that's been going after those same chickens. Both are killed from a distance and it's hardly NC-17 material. The boar is killed as it is charging the archer.

Today this short is likely viewed by people who have never dealt with feral animals or even any kind of farm animal. Pigs that have gone wild are today still a major problem in many parts of the country such as Texas. They root up large areas and will go after any farm animals they can find. The only solution is to hunt them down.

But for example, one reviewer talks about an "endangered raptor" being "gratuitously murdered" to save pigeons. Yet the film states quite clearly that the hawk is also killing a farmer's chickens. In modern factory farms where chickens are crammed into indoor coops this isn't an issue. But today with the move to open range chickens which are raised out in the open it's a big deal again.

Another reviewer talks about closeups of a boar where somebody is "obviously" opening and closing the mouth of a prop boar. Having grown up on a farm and having dealt with domestic boars when they got aggressive, I can say that is exactly how boars chomp when they're getting aggressive and are about to attack. It's a warning sign that it's time to move back. It's also a behavior they display when they're cornered, which the reviewer took to mean that the boar was tied. I didn't see any evidence of that.