BEAT
Prompt - Beat : Listen to music with a strong rhythm or listen to drum loops. Write something that goes along with the beet you feel and hear
Deep in a Congolese jungle a grumpy but occasionally charming (when drunk) and frequently wisecracking (when sober) man in sweat stained fatigues and a crumpled sailor's hat (played, of course, by Humphrey Bogart) is journeying down river, back to the safety of the colonial administration, pursued by the local tribesmen he has angered by unintentionally insulting their god. On board with him are two crew members, three passengers. The engineer is long past his prime, living off reminiscences of the glory days when he was in charge of the engines of one of the great liners. Or was it a battleship? Or both? While the deckhand is at the opposite end of his seafaring career, young, gawky, naive, prone to panic, exaggeration and all kinds of youthful behaviour that appears to irritate his boss, who hides his affection for the lad behind snapping commands and regular abuse.
Passenger one is a middle aged man with long curly hair tucked under a bush hat, a sneer permanently on his pock marked face. He is a diamond smuggler, keen to obscure his identity from all, he tells everyone he's a wildlife enthusiast, keen on conversation. Bogart, smart as ever, has never believed him.
The final passengers come as a pair. An ageing Anglican missionary and his daughter. The man is a little befuddled by events, unable to understand why the locals seem to have turned against him. The daughter, outwardly modest and inwardly feisty, suspects the 'wildlife enthusiast' has a lot to do with it. The mutual antipathy towards the 'baddie' draws hard bitten forty something sailor and young woman, innocent but also surprisingly knowing, into an unlikely alliance which hints at romance, becomes mutual antagonism, and ends with warmly loving relationship. Hollywood's perfect couple.
The river's route is fraught with dangers for our disparate but ultimately intrepid band of travellers, with attacks from angry locals, engine trouble from the decrepit old machinery, a few crocodiles ready to snap up the careless, some highly photogenic, rapids, and volatility and arguments amongst the group, thrown together in stress and fear. The baddie will be bad, but ends up giving his life to save the old man, convinced of his badness by the daughter's goodness. Of course first to die, from a well thrown spear, is the young deckhand, and is that a small tear in the corner of the cpatain's eye? Of course not, he's much too much of a man for that to happen.
And so on, to the swelling strings behind the happy ending, as cliche piles on cliche and the hero delivers his classically understated assessment of what they've been through during their days and nights on the dangerous waters.
Instant classic (in atmospheric monochrome). Working title, The Jungle Drums.
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