Bob auf Safari (1963)

Bob auf Safari: Directed by Gordon Douglas. With Bob Hope, Anita Ekberg, Edie Adams, Lionel Jeffries. A returning moon capsule with vital information goes off-course and lands in Africa, where the little-known Ekele tribesmen find it. Washington orders African expert, Matthew Merriwether – an utter fraud and authority only on feminine pulchritude – to go find it.

“Someone forgot to tell old ski nose that non-authentic African locations just werenu0026#39;t going to cut it any more. Not after King Solomonu0026#39;s Mines and The African Queen right up to Howard Hawksu0026#39;s acclaimed Hatari. What was good for the Road to Zanizibar wasnu0026#39;t going to cut it any more with a Sixties audience.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCall Me Bwana other than establishing background shots got no closer to Africa than London where the film was made. The plot such as it is has Hope as a Robert Ruark type author who has used his uncleu0026#39;s African diary as material for some successful books. This in fact was the same plot device that was used in the very funny Manu0026#39;s Favorite Sport where Rock Hudson was a fishing expert.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut all Rock was asked to do was enter and win a fishing tournament. In Call Me Bwana, the Kennedy administration wants to have the CIA hire Bob Hope to lead an expedition to recover a lost satellite before the Russians get it. The Russians in turn are sending Gina Lollabrigida in a ridiculous blond wig to help their man in Africa, Lionel Jeffries.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI do realize this is a comedy, but are we to believe that the Central Intelligence Agency didnu0026#39;t do some background check on Hope and found his credentials werenu0026#39;t all that good? Lord, they were non-existent. Helping Hope in his quest is CIA agent Edie Adams who Iu0026#39;m sure was personally hired at the agency by Allen Dulles.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHiring Edie, Iu0026#39;m sure was either an act of charity or itu0026#39;s possible that Lionel Jeffriesu0026#39;s part was originally meant for her late husband Ernie Kovacs. If the latter was the case itu0026#39;s a good thing Ernie checked out when he did. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s a whole sequence when in the jungle Hope finds a golf course with Arnold Palmer playing on it. Itu0026#39;s about 10 minutes and what might have been funny in a surreal road picture lays a Vermont volleyball of an egg in Call Me Bwana. The golf allows Hope however to get his obligatory Crosby jokes in the script.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe real problem is that by 1963 the American public had increased its knowledge of Africa. Sub Sahara Africa was in the news then, the Congo was in civil war, apartheid was being challenged in the Union of South Africa, there were wars against the Portugese in Angola and Mozambigue, and both Northern and Southern Rhodesia were in turmoil. Bob Hope was way behind the times in trying to sell Call Me Bwana.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnita Ekberg was a most beautiful and fetching Russian spy. But sheu0026#39;s Russian in the tradition of Janet Leigh in Jet Pilot rather than Greta Garbo in Ninotchka. Of course the charm of Bob Hope forces her to defect as per the American script has. I often wonder though did the Russians make films where charming spies get Americans to defect to them?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCall Me Bwana was doomed from the start in its release. What was funny in 1943 couldnu0026#39;t be sold in 1963.”