I hope no one minds if I add to and bump this thread. I stumbled across something new to me a few days ago. I was doing a Google search about Osa and I stumbled across a web page on the Safari Museum's website that is apparently no longer linked on their website. I'm not 100% positive about that yet but I haven't found a link to it on the current website so far. I think the Safari Museum had the website redone at some point and somebody may have simply forgetten about the page that contains some videos. Or, they simply wished it to no longer be a part of the website. Who knows?...
Regardless, below are two of the videos that I "discovered." The first one is a short (5 min) video about the Johnsons. The second video is a
documentary about Martin & Osa that is
1 hour 18 minutes in length! I'd never seen these videos before. I thought others here might enjoy them. I know I did.
Cheers! Bob F.
---------------------------------
Osa Johnson: Queen of the Jungle
video posted to YouTube on Mar 26, 2025
description:
This is a short introduction to the story of explorers Martin & Osa Johnson and the museum in their home state dedicated to their global works.
In the first half of the 20th century, a couple from Kansas named Martin + Osa Johnson captured the public’s imagination through their films and books of adventure in exotic, far-away lands. Photographers, explorers, naturalists and authors, Martin + Osa studied and documented the wildlife and peoples of East and Central Africa, the South Pacific Islands, and British North Borneo. They recorded then unknown lands and, through their films, writings, and lectures, brought back knowledge of cultures thousands of miles away.
In the 1920s and 30s, reading or attending the theater was your passport to newly discovered and previously unimaginable worlds. Not being independently wealthy, to fund their travels, Martin + Osa produced 20 books, 10 feature films, dozens of short films and over 15,000 images and miles of the earliest surviving film footage from around the globe. This collection formed the core of the museum formed after their deaths.
------------------------------------
Adventure Lovers (English Version)
video posted to YouTube on Mar 21, 2022
description:
Documentary screened for the first time as part of the theme "L'esprit d'aventure" Grand Prix du Festival du Film d'Aventure Jules Verne 1999 Special Prix pour la Recherche Historique at the Festival de Turin 2000 Prix de l'Aventure at the Festival de Bailly 2000.
Martin Johnson (1884-1937) was a pioneer of documentary film and wildlife photography. Together with his wife Osa (1894-1953), who became both his partner and the heroine of his films, his life became a true novel worthy of the greatest adventurers. Unusual image hunters, the Johnsons first explored the South Seas, following in the footsteps of Jack London, in search of cannibals and headhunters. Then, commissioned by the Museum of Natural History in New York City, they captured thousands of extraordinary images of the splendor of wild Africa for nearly fifteen years. They made the first films about the king of animals, the pygmies of the Ituri forest, the first aerial photographs of Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro... "Lovers of Adventure" recounts the incredible lives of Martin and Osa Johnson, who, in the first half of the 20th century, opened millions of Americans to the unknown.
------------------------------------
