Here's a film for every chartered accountant who ever wanted to be a lion-tamer. Hatari! (1962) concerns a group of expatriates in East Africa, capturing animals for zoos and circuses. And how do they do it? The fanny-kickin' way, of course: trucks, ropes, and cages. None of this wishy-washy tranquilizer nonsense. John Wayne and his gang are taking names. If you've ever fantasized about climbing into a beat-up old pickup truck and chasing an enraged rhinoceros across the sunlit grass of the Ngorogoro Crater, you've gotta sit down and see this movie.
The plot: John Wayne's character, Sean Mercer, is the boss of a game company, a crack team of drivers and animal wranglers based somewhere in Kenya. They live on an extravagant spread, a compound filled with bungalows, cages, enclosures, sheds, and enough booze and zebra-skin rugs to stock a hundred African adventure flicks. By day, they drive out to the savanna in a beat-up assortment of vehicles and run down the local fauna; by night, they smoke, drink, dance, and romance like New York socialites, accompanied by some of the grooviest tunes Henry Mancini could dish up. Seems like a pretty cool job, if you ask me.
Sean is a cantankerous Irish-American with bad luck in love. He came within an inch of getting married, once. Then he made the mistake of bringing her to Africa with him. She couldn't stand the place and walked out on him. Since then, Sean's shunned women with a vehemence bordering on misogyny. His well-ordered lifestyle is suddenly complicated by the arrival of a beautiful Italian photographer, Dallas (Elsa Martinelli), sent by one of the client zoos to take pictures of their acquisitions. Sean wants her gone, but Dallas immediately wins the hearts of his coworkers: wisecracking driver Pockets (a Brooklyn cabbie, played by the inimitable Red Buttons), who is secretly in love with Brandy (Michèle Girardon), for whose attentions the much-more-handsome-and-dashing Kurt Muller and "Chips" Maurey (Hardy Krüger and Gérard Blain) are hotly competing. There's the shadow of bad luck hanging over the whole expedition, too, as "the Indian" (Bruce Cabot), the expedition's rifleman, is wounded by a rhinoceros in the opening scenes. The crew must find a replacement and simultaneously cope with what the Indian is sure is a "rhino jinx."
Interspersed with all of this are some of the most amazing animal sequences ever seen in a movie, before or since. There are no CG effects going on here, people: it's the real deal. The cast members really did pile into trucks and Jeeps and go haring after rhinos and giraffes and zebras, all over the African plains. Not only that, but most of these scenes are unscripted: there was no way of knowing what the wild animals would do, so director Howard Hawks told the cast to ad-lib as they went along. Watching John Wayne doing his darnedest not to swear on-camera while wrestling a fully grown zebra into a crate (or getting his foot stomped on by a baby giraffe) is nothing short of cinematic gold.
Wayne proves his mettle, though. In one timeless scene, he faces down the charge of an angry mother elephant on foot, rifle in hand. I thought that was the pinnacle of manliness when I first watched this film as an eight-year-old boy. And it's not just chasing animals, either. Midway through the film, Pockets (my favorite character) comes up with a high-flown scheme to net a bunch of monkeys: a rocket. He plans to build a skyrocket to haul a net 100 feet into the air and drape it over an enormous tree, into which the helpful Warusha tribe (who, unfortunately, aren't really developed as characters, and are treated more as part of the African scenery) have chased 500 chattering, screeching vervet monkeys. Ever see that in any other movie? Eh? I thought not.
Comedy slides seamlessly in between hazards and canoodling. Not only are we privy to the whimsical courtship of Sean and Dallas, and Pockets's never-ending supply of one-liners (when a cape buffalo rams its head into the front grille of the catching truck, Pockets quips "Our insurance rate just went up"), but there are plenty of non-romantic hijinks to go around in between safaris. Bedlam ensues when someone leaves the gate of the ostrich enclosure open, and the lanky birds escape into the compound. Dallas, a compassionate soul, becomes a magnet for orphaned baby elephants, much to Sean's chagrin. And the research, development, and implementation of Pockets's monkey-netting rocket are always good for a laugh.
The film keeps the suspense going nicely, too. All the time, you're wondering whether the cast is ever going to run out of cigarettes. And through it all, there's the intangible sense of adventure hovering just below our perceptions. As one views this film, one subconsciously realizes the grandeur of the setting, the quiet ecstasy and omnipresent thrill of having a swashbuckling job in a far-flung corner of the planet. I dare anyone with a soul to resist the excitement that bubbles up in your midsection whenever the screen turns to a wide-angle shot of the Masai Mara and the catching cars heave into sight, engines roaring, bald tires kicking up dust. The very concept of the film—living and working in Africa, capturing fractious megafauna on a daily basis—is intoxicating.
Smoldering passions, shameless chain smoking, exhilarating chases, exotic locales, dangerous beasts, endless dangers and high thrills (and a hefty helping of male chauvinism) render this flick dated but endlessly fun. For world travel, nostalgia, adventure, laughs, romance, intrigue, and a rollicking good time, look up Hatari! and hang on for the ride.
Just don't get too close to the TV. That rhinoceros is a mean one.
