Left Field Cinema

Hatari! Swahili for Danger! Is the fitting title for this stand-along genre picture shot in 1962 Tanzania, Howard Hawk’s follow up to Rio Bravo is the most underrated of he and star John Wayne’s work. Hawk’s production is an action-comedy. Wayne is Sean, the veteran American here with sidekick Pockets (Red Buttons) we arrive as hunting gets underway, we’re joined by Italian Anne-Maria aka Dallas, the German Kurt, a French woman Brandy who’s with Charles aka Chips & finally a young Mexican man called Francisco. Sean, Pockets & Kurt are seasoned catchers of wild Tanzanian animals, rhino and all, the many lassoed in fast chases are sold to western zoos. Little Wolf, a great Indian hunter is injured in the opening chase, leaving Sean to lead the rest, with Dallas quickly arriving to take photos of the wildlife for one of the city zoos, a female contrast to Brandy who’s lived in rural Africa all her life.

Wayne is much like Heston & Gable (who was cast, then died during Hatari pre-production), he’s a mature presence here as ever, also with those two other Oscar winners he continued to play roles written for movies stars in there 30’s well into his 50’s given the three were always bankable, the romantic aspect here is clearly not for a 50-something as in The Misfits/Omega Man, the lack in a true great romance is offset by the simple joy you can have with Elsa Martinelli as Dallas & Michele Girardon as Brandy, whether the names are a play on the happy-go-luckiness of it all…? Based on a Harry Kurnitz story, or idea, Hawks favourite Leigh Brackett gave the story many dovetails, apparently written after shooting in Tanzania. Brackett was also versatile like Hawks, writing The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo & assisting on The Empire Strikes Back. Listen for Henry Mancini’s music which feels like a modern 70’s score.

Red Buttons (birth name Aaron Chwaat) is a comedy-wise crack of the Groucho variety, 62 was his best year, Buttons was the comic-character-actor of his time. The film incorporating slapstick as well as musical numbers with Red Buttons playing the harmonica to Dallas piano accompaniment, to ‘Old Folks at Home’, all adding to the variety show this two and a half hour film offers, the support actors like Gerard Blain as Chips & Bruce Cabot as ‘Little Wolf’ let you enjoy their successes and difficulties with them, As in Touch of Evil, Valentin de Vargas is great as the volatile hotshot Francisco, like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence there is gunslingin’ showmanship between Wayne with this time Hardy Kruger, a villianless, charismatic German hunter & Vargas.

The wild animal chases scene are about half the of the action which is 40% the movie, the final chase involving the baby elephants are well shot but no King Solomon’s Minds, the hunted animals provide unique action given at least Hollywood pictures won’t risk animal-safety, unfortunately also that this is one of the few genre films ever made in Africa, if you compare to Australian based genre-film, you definitely get limited quality instead of exploitation, which Hatari could be classed at, but the film has a great spirit, the natives aren’t in the zoo business, the western world is widely represented to maybe emphasise the our general culture of zoo exotica, we have an even better safari here.

Hawks can best be described as the most versatile Golden Age Hollywood director, continuing his prior-film love for fun and action, he started gangster in 1932’s Scarface, moving into screwball comedies, noir with Bogie & Bacall, musicals, grand romance in Today We Live, war in Air Force, classic westerns & 1951’s proto-Sci-Fi original The Thing from Another World.

Arguably the best post Rio-Bravo work of Hawks & Wayne, Hatari stands as a fine African based studio picture, to shot it there, written and produced in great spirit, the film doesn’t pander, as with JJ Annuad’s Black & White in Colour, films based in Africa should have a story-point for being so; why all the Pulitzer prizes, natural born killers and corcassion melodrama ‘nowhere in’ or ‘out of’ Africa?

Darcy S. McCallum