The Naked Prey

Criterion DVD

Glamorous leading man turned idiosyncratic auteur Cornel Wilde created a handful of gritty, violent explorations of the nature of man in the sixties and seventies, none more memorable than The Naked Prey. In the late 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 and back to a primitive state. Distinguished by widescreen camerawork and unflinching savagery, The Naked Prey is both a propulsive, stripped-to-the-bone narrative and a meditation on the notion of civilization. SPECIAL EDITION 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 PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Michael Atkinson and a 1970 interview with Wilde