Maybe it is just me, but I always enjoy this movie. According to my program guide, Hatari will be on Turner Classic Movies on Saturday, April 22, at 4:00 PM Central time.

It is silly but I like it anyway.

Its one of my favorites.

I would like to find some video's of "Wild Wild World of Animals" They had some really good African stuff on some of them.

As far as i can tell their were two different rhino catching scenes ,it alternated between the two ,one was with a smaller rhino and a dodge M37 power wagon ,then it would switch to a bigger rhino with a Dodge weapon carrier Wc52 modified to look like a M37 dodge ,evidently they went to alot of trouble to do this !why i dont know ,but still a good movie

If I remember correctly, Ken Stewart now of Stewart Bullets was the game capture fundi on the film....... might be worth watching the credits to find out.

Incidentally, John Wayne took advantage of that movie to do quite a bit of huntingwhile he was there. There's a photp of him in an old Weatherby Guide with him and a nice Lesser Kudu and his beautiful Custom 300 Weatherby. jorge

I know both Danny McCollum and Anton Allen worked on the film as well.

Charlie,

I too have never tired of the story..The wilds of Africa and what it was like...


Mike

Marked it.

TIVO set!

The Baby Elephant Walk is one of my all time favorite pieces of music. Was it done for the movie or already in existance and just picked for use in Hatari?

Great movie! I have but one question.

Brandy or Dallas?



RCG

Ms AZwriter picked up Hatari on CD for me. I think she got tired of Saeed's video, over and over and over and over...

RCG, Brandy.

quote:

Originally posted by stubbleduck47:
The Baby Elephant Walk is one of my all time favorite pieces of music. Was it done for the movie or already in existance and just picked for use in Hatari?

From Wikipedia:

The Baby Elephant Walk is a tune written in 1961 by composer Henry Mancini, for the 1962 release of the movie Hatari!

RCG and Grafton...they are both grandmothers..


Mike

One of my all time favorites.

Charles is correct, Mancini wrote it just for the movie. We used to play it in school band many years ago.

I gave a copy of the Hatari DVD to my nieces and nephew. They have memorized all the singing by the natives. Rather amusing to watch them singing along and beating out the rhythm when they are here watching the movie with me.

The nephew uses the double shotgun cap firing shotgun I gave him to "hunt and stalk" the various animals while on the big screen.

I'm taking him with us to Africa in 2008. He'll be 10 then and already has his bags packed.

Gives me some hope for the future!!

There is a fellow i work with,who goes around whistling ''baby elephant walk'' all the time but i doubt if he knows where it came from

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
If I remember correctly, Ken Stewart now of Stewart Bullets was the game capture fundi on the film....... might be worth watching the credits to find out.

Steve, I found this old post by chance, researching a trip I'm doing with Ken soon.

Actually the whole movie is loosely based on the Randal family and their game capture business.

John Wayne's character "Sean Mercer" is Ken Randal (He was cathy Stewart's father and cousin to Harry Selby)
Red Buttons character, "Pockets" is in fact Ken Stewart!

Ken & Cathy visited me for a great lunch yesterday with tales galore of the old hunting families esp. from East Africa.....

I have heard that John Wayne said he called his friends who where hunters and they made the movie so the movie company would have to pay for them to hunt while they where there

My PH in Tanzania was Paul Horsely. He told me that his dad worked on that movie as well. When the filming was done, John Wayne gave one of those trucks to Paul's father. Paul told me that he still has it, up on blocks in the barn, on his family farm somewhere around Lobo. No, it's not for sale. I already asked.

It was and still is a fun movie to watch, just for the entertainment. I am shocked at what Arusha looked like in 1961 compared to today..........sigh.
How 'bout Dallas and Brandy!.......double sigh.

Stephen,

A meal with Ken & Kathy is always such a pleasure huh!

Funnily enough I spoke to them just yesterday as well.

I've sent you an email BTW.....

I have watch it every chance I get since I was a kid and I still like it and will watch it again some time but not this time because I will be in the bush

quote:

Originally posted by retreever:
RCG and Grafton...they are both grandmothers..


Mike

That don't mean anything to me I'm a great grandfather, so they'er young chicks to me!

............

I just re-read Brian Herne's book White Hunters and was reminded that one of the crew was killed by a peforming lion during the filming of Hatari in front of John Wayne, Red Buttons and the female star during the filming of the movie, which was obviously a very traumatic event. As I recall, she went into a cage with the lion and was mauled to death. Very sad in an otherwise pretty upbeat movie.

quote:

Originally posted by retreever:
RCG and Grafton...they are both grandmothers..


Mike

Actually the gal that played Brandy, whole real name was Michèle Girardon is no longer with us. According to Wikipedia: "She committed suicide via an overdose of sleeping pills at the age of 37 in Lyon on March 25, 1975, and is interred near Paris in the Cimetière de Bagneux, Hauts de Seine."

Brandy!

I was in a local Anchorage antique store that frequently has estate items. He had some items from John Wayne's estate. One of them was an elephant tail from the safari he took after the filming of the movie. It had an ivory cap and the bullet he used to shoot it with. I believe it was a 8x57.

Brett

I may be wrong,but I believe Jan Oelofse of Namibia was involved in the filming. I think he
was involved in catching big game for zoo's as well as hunting. He used to have a picture of himself and John Wayne in his booth at the SCI show and,I think hunted together with Wayne after the movie.

I found this info on the movie.

Many critics carped that the film seemed like a lazy vacation for Hawks. They were partly right - there was no finished script and Hawks relished the chance of filming what he wanted on location in Africa, far away from the watchful eye of the studio, happily burning through their $6 million budget.

According to director Howard Hawks, all the animal captures in the picture were performed by the actual actors; no stuntmen or animal handlers were substituted onscreen. The rhino really did escape, and the actors really did have to recapture it - and Hawks included the sequence for its realism.

Congo, the baby elephant in the filming, died in November 2000 at the Dubbo Zoo. He was the only male elephant in captivity in Australia at the time.

Hatari means "danger" in Swahili.

Composer Henry Mancini wrote a brief piece of incidental music to go with a scene where a baby elephant is taken for a walk. The simple little song became an international hit as "Baby Elephant Walk", and has been recorded by a large number of artists and in many different styles.

Much of the action sequence audio had to be re-dubbed due to John Wayne's cursing while wrestling with the animals.

In 1960 Clark Gable had agreed to star in the movie with John Wayne, provided he received first billing on the opening credits and $1 million plus 10% of the gross. Paramount however would not raise the budget to finance Gable, so the script was radically changed.

In an interview for a shooting and hunting magazine, Wayne related that in the original cut he killed an elephant, shooting it with the .458 Winchester Magnum rifle he is seen carrying in the movie.

Jan Oelofse, the animal supervisor, captured and tamed all the animals in Africa; the elephants, leopard, the cheetahs, and flew with 40 animals aboard a DC6 across Africa, through South America to Hollywood to continue scenes shot in Hollywood

Red Buttons, a liberal Democrat, later said that he greatly regretted his "gross misapprehension" line.

According to Hardy Krüger's autobiography, the film crew rented all vehicles available in Tanzania, even the privately owned ones.

Howard Hawks allegedly bought Elsa Martinelli's tight fitting safari suits himself at a New York department store.

I spent more than a week interviewing Jan Oelofse at his Mt. Etjo Lodge several years ago.

The leader of Hatari's two animal capture teams was a character named Oom Willie De Beer, and Jan Oelofse was one of his employees.

He assigned Jan all scenes involving elephants and big cats. Oelofse trained the baby elephants to follow him, and in all the scenes showing the babies following Martinelli they actually were following him.

Jan spent a lot of time carousing with John Wayne and Bruce Cabot until Wayne's wife and daughter showed up.

He guided Wayne to two buffalo and several antelopes. Wayne used Jan's .30-06 and a .404 Jeffery that originally had belonged to the Prince of Wales.

After the scenes on location in Tanganyika were shot, the indoor scenes were filmed in California. Oelofse flew there with 40 assorted critters -- elephants, lions, baboons, cranes and other birds. The five-day trip with all the animals in a DC-6 was an adventure in itself,

Oelofse later went to work for Ian Player in South Africa's Hluhluwe Reserve and pioneered capture techniques using helicopters and long "fences" made of plastic materials.

He has led quite a life.

Bill Quimby

I guess what I heard wasn't too far off.
Our first African Safari was with Jan &Annette
at Mt.Oetjo in Namibia. First Class operation for those who might be interested in hunting there.

quote:

Originally posted by yellowstone:
My PH in Tanzania was Paul Horsely. He told me that his dad worked on that movie as well. When the filming was done, John Wayne gave one of those trucks to Paul's father. Paul told me that he still has it, up on blocks in the barn, on his family farm somewhere around Lobo. No, it's not for sale. I already asked.

I hunted with Paul's brother Charley met Paul.
I visited their farm where there father was buried.It is located in Lobo.
Don't remember the truck not to say its not there.

quote:

Originally posted by jeff h:

quote:

Originally posted by yellowstone:
My PH in Tanzania was Paul Horsely. He told me that his dad worked on that movie as well. When the filming was done, John Wayne gave one of those trucks to Paul's father. Paul told me that he still has it, up on blocks in the barn, on his family farm somewhere around Lobo. No, it's not for sale. I already asked.

I hunted with Paul's brother Charley met Paul.
I visited their farm where there father was buried.It is located in Lobo.
Don't remember the truck not to say its not there.

sorry the family farm is in Locosalle (not spelled correctly)
Anything John Wayne is in I will watch over and over.

quote:

Originally posted by Brett Adam Barringer:
Brandy!

I was in a local Anchorage antique store that frequently has estate items. He had some items from John Wayne's estate. One of them was an elephant tail from the safari he took after the filming of the movie. It had an ivory cap and the bullet he used to shoot it with. I believe it was a 8x57.

Brett

Did you buy it? I sure would have! How much was it?? PM me!

No! I was a poor chiropractic student and the $2,500 price tag was just too much for me to justify. I can assure you though that I've never wanted to "waste" $2,500 more in my entire life! Now that I have the money I think I would have done it. I spoke with the owner of the store and it sold not long after I visited. That was August of 2007 I believe.

Brett

Hatari! Wow, that movie really brings some fond memories. I still have the video and watch it from time to time. I remember watching it back in the 60's on the big screen, I was just a kid, and the part I remember the most was when John Wayne walked up on a group of elephants, they were so big they just filled the whole screen, and he was standing there holding his big rifle; I recall thinking back then - I would really love to do that some day!

quote:

Originally posted by RCG:
Great movie! I have but one question.

Brandy or Dallas?



RCG

After watching the movie again this weekend, I think it might have been a better movie if they had left Brandy, Dallas, and "Pockets" out entirely. All the guys seemed to spend more time running after Brandy and Dallas instead of hunting, and Red Buttons character "Pockets" well, he was a little strange. Wayne was his usual great self, except where he was catching monkeys with a birdcage over his head! And the elephants were not as big as I remembered them, looked about like 30#ers. Anyway, Dallas was too skinney, and Brandy had big feet!

Funny thing about John Wayne movies, for some reason they all seemed to have some sort or number of FEMALE love or potential love interests in them.

Somehow, I think the movies would not have made it if they were not involved.

Maybe you need to go back and actually watch some of those movies, all of them center on the conflicts Wayne's characters had with FEMALES!

Now that I think about it, most of them do have some woman, usually chasing him, but I recall some without the "love connection"; "The Alamo", "Green Berets", and the "The Cowboys" comes to mind, although I really didn't think "Green Berets" was one of his better ones. Hatari could certainly have done without "Pockets"!

The Alamo had Linda Crystal, the Green Berets had the Asian female agent that set up the VC General, and the Cowboys had his wife, and the Madame with her covey of hookers. The female component was always somewhere in his movies.

Maybe subdued in some.

"Hatari" is just plain fun.