verbusen Review of Cruise of the Zaca

Cruise of the Zaca (1952)

Errol's Jonas In The Whale Moment, Makes Reality TV Look Real

[4/10 · 9 May 2013]

This is kind of fascinating to watch if you are an old time movie fan (like me) but at the same time it's soooo fake and in the actual real scenes with the animals it is torturous to watch. Someone else reviewing this said it was made in the late 1940's and I could believe that but I will say that helicopter looks very advanced for the 40's, not that 1952 is all that much later, maybe the helicopter scenes (very staged) were added later to the ship footage? So why do I say it's fake? Errol starts the show saying I had a banana and an apple not expecting what was in store for me, (oh brother). Then he gets in a helicopter and goes whale spotting and him and the pilot(!) are all leaning out to get a "close up" of the whales, yeah whatever. Errol falls into the ocean and the pilot almost falls in with him, I mean this is kids TV folks. Most of the animal scenes are stock footage spliced in with close ups of the crew, you rarely see the animals in the same frame with the actors. The times they are together is when you probably will cringe because things like putting a rope around a large sea lion's neck looks very brutal. One can just imagine Flynn scheming, "now how can I recoup this yacht's expenses?" "Oh yeah I'll tell Mr Warner I've got some great color footage and splice in some garbage with a helicopter in!" Maybe for Flynn fans late at night, otherwise stay clear, it's boring, fake, and unpleasant.