Hatari! (1962)

A friend told me about this film and that he would love to see it again. To my surprise I managed to get a copy of it.Viewing the method of collecting animals in 1962, would not be allowed today. I consider the story distasteful and disappointing.This overlong film which received an IMDb rating of 7.2 in its day, I only give 4, and that is solely for seeing these magnificent animals in their true, natural surroundings. Soon some of them will be no more . . .

"Hatari!" is one of those films they just don't make anymore. In this case, they couldn't; this film is probably much too leisurely and lacking in dramatic conflict to succeed with today's audiences. But if you are prepared to settle down for 157 minutes, "Hatari!" can entertain you. It has lots of magnificent animal footage, exciting action scenes, funny comedy, and predictable romance (well, it's not all predictable: the "comic relief" gets one of the girls). John Wayne is in a pleasingly relaxed and easygoing mood (he's not afraid to let others walk over his macho image), and the entire (ethnically diverse) cast develops a nice camaraderie. The fact that it was filmed on location also helps a lot. Parts of Henry Mancini's music score will be instantly recognizable even to people who watch the film for the first time! *** out of 4.

I know this is a John Wayne (Sean Mercer) movie, but I simply love Elsa Martinelli (Dallas) in this movie, she is my favorite. This is number 10 on the Elsa movie seen list (I have never seen it complete until yesterday, but boy did I remember seeing Elsa being chased by elephants in the incomplete version). With the exception of the monkey scene that was Red Buttons, every classic scene especially the kissing scene (with Wayne), the bedroom scene's and Elsa taking a bath with the elephants to the tune of 'Baby Elephant Walk' is priceless. Not a classic scene but seeing Elsa's legs getting in the truck is something else to watch.The scenery and the animals are awesome as well, and it is interesting seeing a woman get the best of John Wayne (every guy in the movie goes gaga for Elsa (including Red Buttons who does end up with Michele Girardon (Brandy), not a bad consolation price (but not Elsa)). Spoilers ahead: Not that anyone needed to know that it is 'The Duke' who ends up with Elsa (as do baby elephants). As for John Wayne it is a different kind of movie. He hits no one in the movie, and is the "Straight Man" for Elsa and Red Buttons. An absolute must see for Elsa fans. 10/10 Stars

I really enjoyed this movie, so much so that I have watched it several times on DVD. As always for any movie my criteria is 'was I entertained?' and I was certainly entertained. Red Buttons as Pockets was a delight. In fact all the performances were very good. The humour was fun, the scenery was beautiful and the animal chases were exciting and the baby elephants were cute and Sonja was gorgeous. Aside from things like the changing water level when Kurt and Chips Jeep was stalled in the river and after several references to 15 pounds and one reference to a shilling, when Pockets was taking up a collection to buy some goats he asked for 2 dollars from each person, but most things were fine and Pocket's rocket was great. The one thing that really stuck out for me as being very wrong was when The Indian aka Little Wolf was gored by the rhino, Pockets said (I think this is what he said - it's not in the Closed Caption and I'm a little hard of hearing) 'this tourniquet isn't doing any good' and then on the radio Sean said The Indian was bleeding badly and they would be at the hospital in about 5 hours. If Pocket's statement and Sean's statement were both accurate The Indian would have bled to death long before the 5 hours was up, probably in the first hour! Once I got past that rather lethal goof I sat back and just had fun.