Anaconda DVD

Swedish Mondo film about the hunt for a giant anaconda in the Amazon. Amidst great adversity, the expedition encounters savages, waterfalls, curare-tipped arrows, and the cute monkey Laban.

A wonderful Swedish pseudo-documentary about a Swedish expedition that sets out in 1954 to capture a giant snake in South America.

The arduous journey takes them through the jungles of the Andes by truck, mule, horse, and canoe. The expedition buys a baby monkey in exchange for a Mora knife and encounters sengängare, darrarl, and curious jungle Indians. Together with the Indians, they hunt wild boar and compete in blowpipe shooting. Blomberg treats the astonished savages to a gramophone concert featuring Beethoven.After a series of adventures, the expedition's hunters find an anaconda and desperately try to get the others' attention, but the snake slithers away. Will the expedition fail in its mission?

Rolf Blomberg had already made short films for SF in the 1930s and 1940s from his travels to exotic places when he was commissioned by Nordisk Tonefilm to capture an anaconda. Filming ran into problems when the photographer refused to film on a Saturday for religious reasons, and it was on that very day that they managed to capture the snake from the film's title. The expedition was interrupted and the team returned several months later. With a new photographer, they managed to get the necessary footage. The exotic animals that were captured ended up at the Gothenburg Aquarium.