Africa Speaks -- English (1933) User Reviews

About as good as you'll find for Bergen and McCarthy

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 20 September 2008]

This is a very pleasant short starring Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy. Compared to other films I've seen with Bergen, this is among the very best, as it's a very pleasant little film.

Charlie and Edgar are flying above the African jungle when their plane runs out of gas. When they land, things look pretty hopeless until natives appear. But, their joy is short-lived, as these guys seem to be cannibals--albeit, the most polite and pleasant cannibals in film history! The jokes aren't too bad, the situation rather funny and compared to most films of the 30s, the humor does not come off as racist--which it easily could have considering the times. Nothing particularly inspired here but a good representation of Bergen at the height of his long career.

Bergen and Charlie and cultured cannibals...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 17 July 2009]

This Warner short is watchable, if only to see what short subjects back in 1933 were like and to enjoy hearing some of McCarthy's pointed remarks. But too often the humor is weak, the punch lines fall flat, and this short seems dated and unreal from start to finish. It may also offend those who find racist humor (of the '30s kind) offensive.

The Vitaphone short is creaky in more ways than one. The plane and the surrounding terrain are strictly studio-made, the plot is hopelessly uninspired (two fliers lost in the jungle), and the outcome is predictable in an enjoyable way.

But Bergen makes it work. Charlie really does seem like a real live character with a personality all his own. A better script would have served both of them well, but Bergen does do a good job of interacting with the dummy and throwing his voice. However, he was even better on radio because you didn't see the lips moving and the writers gave Charlie much smarter lines.

Typical lines here: Cannibal--"You must stay for dinner."

Charlie: "It's no use. We're cooked."

Summing up: For Bergen and McCarthy fans only.

Fairly funny, not so racist

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 20 May 2002]

One of the most successful documentary/travelogue films of the 1930s was "Africa Speaks", which was eventually parodied by various comedians ... including Wheeler & Woolsey in "So This Is Africa" and Abbott & Costello in "Africa Screams". "Africa Speaks - English" is another parody, this one featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his wisecracking dummy Charlie McCarthy.

Bergen (playing Charlie's uncle!) is flying his aeroplane "The Spirit of Ammonia" over Africa, with Charlie as passenger. Thanks to Charlie's meddling, the plane runs out of fuel and has to land in the middle of the jungle. Of course some natives show up, played by African-American actors muttering "unga-bunga" dialogue. Charlie addresses one of the natives as "Congorilla" (which was the title of another recent documentary film about Africa). At this point, I cringed and expected to hear a lot of racist jokes. By the way, who invented the cliché of the cannibal leader who wears a top hat? Yes, the leader of these cannibals is wearing a topper.

Amazingly enough, after setting up the usual racist stereotypes, "Africa Speaks - English" then subverts its own clichés. When the cannibal leader arrives, he speaks perfect English ... in what's meant to be a cultured British accent! He cheerfully explains that he once ate an Oxford professor who was passing through the neighbourhood. (Must be a Balliol man.)

There's some cute dialogue here, when the natives invite Bergen over "for dinner" and he's not quite sure how to take this. There's one bizarre moment when Charlie McCarthy nervously asks the cannibal king if he's a vegetarian ... since Charlie is made out of wood, we can't be sure what sort of answer he's hoping for!

There's more action than usual for a Bergen/McCarthy short, but we also get three separate shots of Charlie spinning his head all the way round on his neck like Linda Blair, with a slide-whistle sound effect. (This isn't funny the first time Charlie does it; it's even less funny the third time.) And of course there's an unfunny gag about black people eating watermelon. But the payoff line (SPOILER COMING) is funny: the cannibal king explains to Edgar and Charlie that they're in no danger of being eaten, because they landed in the jungle on Friday ... and "on Fridays we only eat fish". I'll recommend "Africa Speaks - English" as one of the better examples of vaudeville-style comedy captured on film.

Try not to get too hung up on the racial jokes, which really aren't as vicious here as they are in many other films of this period

Humor Of The Day, Long Ago

[Calaboss · 3/10 · 5 October 2008]

While these types of comedy shorts were popular in their day (1920's - 1940's), I find many of them lacking when viewed in a modern context. I do better with the Three Stooges than Laurel and Hardy and some of the others, as the Stooges seem to have less of a racist component to their shorts. Africa Speaks - English, has ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy landing in Africa and dealing with cannibals when their plane runs out of gas.

There are some racist elements here too, but not nearly as bad as some I've seen. Charlie wondering if Edgar could get Amos and Andy on the radio is one such reference, as the A&A radio program may have been the most racist in American history.

That aside, I suppose it's the continuity problems that bug me the most about these shorts. Whether it is the low budget, lack of stock footage in the early days of movies, or that they just figured the audiences of the day somehow wouldn't notice, they put very little effort into trying to get things right. In this case, Edgar and Charlie are flying along in an all white bi-plane with a radial engine. They do a quick jump cut and the next thing you know, their plane is now plopped down in the middle of the jungle with trees all around and no way it could have landed. The plane is completely undamaged and is now a single wing aircraft with a dark nose, thick stripes down the side, and no radial engine. That's just too big a leap for me to accept.

If you can get past all that, some of the dialog is fairly clever, and it's over before you get a chance to be very annoyed anyway.

McCarthy and Bergen Too

[Michael_Elliott · 23 July 2009]

Africa Speaks -- English (1933)

** (out of 4)

Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy's plane goes down in the jungles of Africa after they run out of gas. Soon cannibals come up on them and want them for dinner. Being 1933 and seeing the title, you should expect some rather racist humor and you get it here. The black natives are constantly joked on about being cannibals and there's even mention of other stereotypes so if you're sensitive then you might want to stay away. If you're not sensitive then you might want to stay away as well because there's not too many laughs here. In fact, there's not a single laugh in the film even though it does stay interesting just as a form of this is what kept people entertained back in the day. This is, I think, my third Bergen and McCarthy short and I haven't been overly entertained by any of them. The jokes are rather bland and way too obvious to work but perhaps those in 1933 found them funny.