{ "id": "epm6pvpzjf", "slug": "chang-1927-film", "title": "Chang (1927 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary", "label": "Documentary and biographical films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works", "label": "Individual documentary feature films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works.nature-science-and-environment-documenta", "label": "Nature, science, and environment documentaries", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works.nature-science-and-environment-documenta" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" } ] }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Asia (other) · 1800 to 1945: Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800", "label": "Asia (other) · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) is a silent Paramount film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, shot in Siam (Nan), about a farming family versus jungle animals and elephants; Oscar honorable mention 1929, precursor to King Kong.", "snippet": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) is a silent Paramount film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, shot in Siam (Nan), about a farming family versus jungle animals and elephants; Oscar honorable mention 1929, precursor to King Kong.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works.nature-science-and-environment-documenta", "markdown": "# Chang (1927 film)\n\n**Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness** is a 69-minute silent American film released on 29 April 1927, directed, produced, and edited by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack and photographed by Schoedsack for Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. It was filmed in the jungles of northern Siam (now Thailand) with a cast of local nonprofessional actors and real wild animals, and it follows a farming family's struggle against tigers, leopards, and a herd of elephants, the Siamese word for which, *chang*, gives the film its title.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang) • [3](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | 29 April 1927, opening at the Rivoli Theatre, New York; silent, black and white, 69 minutes, 6,536 feet on 8 reels[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Makers | Directed, produced, and edited by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack; cinematography by Schoedsack; titles by Achmed Abdullah[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Production company | Paramount Famous Lasky Corp., presented by Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Location | Jungles of northern Siam (now Thailand); modern sources place the shoot at the village of Nan[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Cost and gross | Costs listed at $70,000; the film grossed nearly $2 million according to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and over US$500,000 in its first few months of US release according to film historian Alexander J. Klemm[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [4](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/) • [3](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927) |\n| Recognition | Honorable mention as a \"Unique and Artistic Picture\" at the first Academy Awards in 1929[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography) |\n| Cast | Kru (the pioneer), Chantui (his wife), Nah (son), Ladah (daughter), and Bimbo, a trained monkey; with 500 native hunters and 400 elephants[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang) • [4](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and staging\n\nThe film follows Kru, a farmer living with his family on the jungle frontier of Siam as he plants and harvests his rice crop. A leopard attacks his pet goat and a tiger kills his water buffalo; Kru assembles neighboring warriors and kills a giant tiger. Elephants, the *chang* of the title, then destroy his hut and the neighboring village, and Kru organizes a massive hunt in which the herd is driven into a corral and gradually domesticated for heavy labor.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography)\n\nAlthough the onscreen credits present the cast as \"Natives of the wild: who have never seen a motion picture\" and \"Wild Beasts: who have never had to fear a modern rifle,\" the film is not a documentary by contemporary definition. Cooper and Schoedsack freely shaped the narrative, staged scenes, rebuilt the interior of the family hut for better filming, and cast Bimbo, a small trained monkey, as the family pet.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang) Cooper said in 1927: \"We didn't sit down in the jungle and shoot everything that we saw. [Chang] is as carefully constructed as anything made in a studio…We didn't create customs, but we chose what we wanted for the drama.\"[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography) Variety called it \"the first animal picture [to have] a scenario,\" a framing that itself raised the question of whether contemporary audiences saw it as a documentary at all.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography) The term \"documentary\" had been coined only the previous year, in John Grierson's 1926 review of Robert Flaherty's *[Moana](https://www.edgepedia.org/moana-1926-film)*.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang)\n\nThe film's climactic elephant stampede was scripted: the elephants, which belonged to and were protected by the King of Siam, were rented through a payment to Prince Yugala, the king's brother, then rounded up and coaxed into a stampede. Schoedsack filmed it from an underground bunker so that the herd appears to press down upon the viewer.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang)\n\n## Origins and production\n\nChang was the second collaboration between Cooper, a former merchant marine and fighter pilot, and Schoedsack, a First World War newsreel cameraman, who had met in Vienna in 1918. Their first joint film, *[Grass](https://www.edgepedia.org/grass-1925-film): A Nation's Battle for Life* (1925), followed the annual migration of Iran's Bakhtiari tribe and became a critical and popular success; Jesse Lasky of Paramount then agreed to finance another expedition of their choosing.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang) Paramount agreed in March 1926 to produce the film, then referred to as *Hazards of the Jungle*, for the studio's 1926–1927 release season.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG)\n\nThe pair traveled to Siam, where they met King Prajadhipok in Bangkok and received government permission to film. They chose Nan province, near the Laotian border and then a week's journey from Bangkok, for its large population of wild tigers and its jungle scenery.[3](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927) The shoot used an all-metal Debrie camera and lasted eighteen months; the May 1927 *Amateur Movie Makers* reported that twenty-one months in total were needed to complete the picture, including cutting and titling.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) The film was also an early example of production on panchromatic film stock, which recorded red light that the older orthochromatic stock could not.[6](https://archives.lib.byu.edu/agents/people/1163?page=15)\n\nTo prevent Paramount's editors from padding the film, Cooper and Schoedsack cut it themselves and discarded the leftover footage.[4](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/)\n\n## Reception\n\nChang premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York on 29 April 1927, presented with Paramount's Magnascope process, which enlarged the image with a wide-angle lens attachment to fill the proscenium; the process had first been used for the premiere of *Old Ironsides* in December 1926. The film ran at the Rivoli for nine weeks and was seen by more than 301,000 people before its exhibition there ended on 1 July 1927. Record-breaking ticket sales totaling $27,600 were reported at the California Theatre in San Francisco in August 1927.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography)\n\nCritics praised the film. Variety's review of 4 May 1927 called it \"a remarkable moving picture,\" and Richard Watts of the *New York Herald Tribune* wrote that it had \"some of the most thrilling moments any dramatic form has been able to encompass.\"[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography) • [7](https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p97101/mobile/ch09.html) At the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, Chang received a certificate of honorable mention as a \"Unique and Artistic Picture,\" alongside [King Vidor](https://www.edgepedia.org/king-vidor)'s *[The Crowd](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-crowd-1928-film)*; the category was won by F.W. Murnau's *Sunrise*.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang) Klemm notes that the film did poorly in rural America, where farmers who dealt with wild and domestic animals daily could not connect with it, while city dwellers appreciated its contrast with urban life.[3](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927)\n\n## Legacy\n\nChang established the reputations that carried Cooper and Schoedsack to *King Kong* (1933), whose story drew on their travel adventures; in tribute, the pair placed a tiny Chang advertisement on the side of a subway car seen during Kong's rampage through Manhattan.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang) Klemm describes it as the first full-length Hollywood film made in Siam and the oldest full-length Western silent film produced there, and a Thai academic study calls it one of the earliest feature films made in Thailand by foreigners.[3](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927) • [8](https://so01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/executivejournal/article/view/105574)\n\nThe film has remained in circulation. In October 1927 a print was given to the British Museum, expected to be sealed for fifty years and shown again in 1977.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography) In 1983 the Bangkok-based composer Bruce Gaston and the Fong Naam ensemble presented the silent film with a new score fusing traditional Thai music, modern Western music, theatrical music, and computer-generated sound.[9](https://so18.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/pulsejournal/article/view/470) According to the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database, the film is extant, and it was screened at the Kansas Silent Film Festival on 26 February 2011.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Chang (1927), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG)\n2. [Bret Wood (2007). Chang, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/87769/chang)\n3. [Alexander J. Klemm (2018). Staging Authenticity in the Jungle of Siam: Chang – A Drama of the Wilderness (USA 1927), SSAMIC Conference Proceedings](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927)\n4. [Shari Kizirian. Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/)\n5. [Chang (1927), AFI Catalog of Feature Films (filmography page)](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG?cxt=filmography)\n6. [Merian C. Cooper collection description, BYU Library Special Collections](https://archives.lib.byu.edu/agents/people/1163?page=15)\n7. [Chapter 9. 'Films as foreign offices': transnationalism at Paramount in the twenties and early thirties, Connected Worlds (ANU Press)](https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p97101/mobile/ch09.html)\n8. [Jakkarin Thepvong (2017). Influences, Methods and Distortion in Film \"Chang\" (1927) by Merian C. Cooper, Executive Journal 37(2)](https://so01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/executivejournal/article/view/105574)\n9. [Anant Narkkong (2022). Chang – live music for a 1927 silent film by Bruce Gaston and Fongnaam, Pulse: Journal for Music and Interdisciplinary Practices](https://so18.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/pulsejournal/article/view/470)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Individual documentary feature films › Nature, science, and environment documentaries*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [ "https://archives.lib.byu.edu/agents/people/1163?page=15" ], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Chang (1927 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Chang (1927 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Chang (1927 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness is a silent Paramount film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B." }