HATARI! (1962)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks

SCREENWRITER: Leigh Brackett, Harry Kurnitz

FILM STARS: John Wayne, Hardy Kruger, Elsa Martinelli, Red Buttons, Gérard Blain, Bruce Cabot, Michèle Girardon, Valentin de Vargas, Eduard Franz

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Martin Milner

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Pocket Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1962

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1962

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Adventure

WORDS: A great example of what can happen between story, screenplay, novelisation and film. Everything looks the same but not quite. The book follows the film up to a point. All the films elements are there but the film goes off in directions its hands on director liked. The book (based on the screenplay) is an adventure novel crossed with a romantic comedy as is the film but the film leans more to romantic comedy with adventure thrown in. Howard Hawks, an auteur director, had his beliefs, ideas and themes and much like directors John Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Anthony Mann, Alfred Hitchcock can’t fail to inject them into his films. His work wasn’t just a job but an extension of himself.

The film was written by Leigh Brackett and Harry Kurnitz to what Hawks likes. Brackett had written for him before – “The Big Sleep” (with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman)(1946) and “Rio Bravo” (with Jules Furthman and B.H. McCampbell) and would go on to wite “Man’s Favourite Sport?” (uncredited) (1964), “El Dorado” (1966) and “Rio Lobo” (with Burton Wohl) (1970). Kurnitz had co-written (with Harold Jack Bloom and William Faulkner) “Land of the Pharaohs ” (1955) for Hawks. Hawks’ themes are the camaraderie amongst professionals, the need to get a job done, the distrust of outsiders to the group, strong tomboyish but sexually attractive female characters, the fight against nature (mother earth), humour as a bonding agent between people, and lots of talk, frequently rapid.

The book is all narrative / story and includes pictures from the film for good measure. You don’t get a lot of the local flavour though there is no doubting the characters are in Africa. East Africa’s Tanzania, l specifically. But, what Hawks has done is accentuate the films with grace notes which push his themes and the characters he loves : John Wayne’s Sean Mercer is central but he is more central in the film, the camaraderie in the film is more accentuated than in the book, the rivalry between the Kurt the German and Chips the Frenchman for Brandy is more accentuated in the book, Pockets in the film is a potential romantic interest whilst in the book he isn’t,  the Indian (Little Wolf) in the book is a potential romantic interest and not so much in the film. There other bits and pieces in the book like Kurt and Chips and the warthog, some business with the local village as well as other bits and pieces that don’t appear in the film. If they were filmed and cut, I don’t know. But, even so, this 166 page novelisation becomes a 157 minute film full of grace notes, pauses and bits and pieces of mood. Perhaps the biggest difference is in the title … Hatari is Swahili for danger, and there is “danger” in the capturing of live wild animals for zoos in the book and the film, but the film keeps it PG. The book has more than one wild animal that has to be shot to avoid injury whilst the film tends to avoid that bloodshed. This is aftercall, primarily, a romantic comedy.

The book is a great read for those who like to “compare and contrast” but the film is one of the great African safari type films, better so (for modern audiences) because animals aren’t killed but caught for zoos and for, arguably, their preservation.

The cast in this film is perfect. John Wayne is perfect. He is here both a man of action and funny (Wayne did a lot of comedy and was good at it, which is often forgotten). The international cast playing the international band of friends includes (the great) German Hardy Kruger as Kurt Müller, Italian Elsa Martinelli as Anna Maria “Dallas” D’Alessandro, Frenchman Gérard Blain as Charles “Chips” Maurey, Frenchwoman Michèle Girardon as Brandy de la Court, American actor of Spanish (and Austrian) descent Valentin de Vargas (born Albert Charles Schubert) as Mexican Luis Francisco Garcia Lopez, and Americans Bruce Cabot as native American Little Wolf (“The Indian”), and Red Buttons as “Pockets” the cab driver from New York.

Filmed on location brings the film to another level. and the actors actively engage with the landscape, which the novelization misses. Also, according to director Howard Hawks, “all of the animal captured in the film were performed by the actors themselves (though with professional assistance) —not by stuntmen or animal handlers (although a stand-in, Mildred Lucy “Rusty” Walkley, was used for some scenes involving Elsa Martinelli’s character) … Much of the audio in the capture sequences had to be re-dubbed due to John Wayne’s swearing while wrestling with the animals, and Hawks said Wayne admitted being scared during some of the action scenes, particularly those in which he is sitting in the exposed “catching seat” as a truck hurtles over terrain full of hidden holes and obstacles … Wayne “had the feeling with every swerve that the car was going to overturn as he hung on for dear life, out in the open with only a seat belt for support, motor roaring, body jarring every which-way, animals kicking dirt and rocks and the thunder of hundreds of hooves increasing the din in his ears.”  On the other hand, one evening, while Buttons and Wayne were playing cards outside, a leopard came out of the bush towards them, but, when Buttons mentioned the approaching leopard, Wayne reportedly simply said, “See what he wants.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatari!

That lighter mood in the film is enhanced by the wonderful soundtrack of Henry Mancini Mancini, American but of Italian Abruzzese descent (as I am often told). The whole soundtrack is wonderful (Hollywood African exotica), one of Mancini’s best and “Baby Elephant Walk” became the hit for Lawrence Welk and his Orchestra (#48 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1962 as well as #10 on the Easy Listening chart.). The instrumental earned Mancini a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement in 1963.

This is one of the great films of the 1960s.

Pages

Pictures

LINKS

TRAILER

MUSIC

The Theme (by Henry Mancini)

The hit song (by Henry Mancini)

The Hit song (by Lawrence Welk and His Orchestra)