''Safari'' is a 1956 British

CinemaScope CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...

adventure film An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, an ...

directed by

Terence Young Terence or Terry Young may refer to: *Terence Young (director) (1915–1994), British film director * Terence Young (politician) (born 1952), Canadian Conservative Party politician * Terence Young (writer), Canadian writer * Terry Young (American p ...

and set during the

Mau Mau Uprising The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the ''Mau Mau'', an ...

in Kenya. It stars

Victor Mature Victor John Mature (January 29, 1913 – August 4, 1999) was an American stage, film, and television actor who was a leading man in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. His best known film roles include ''One Million B.C.'' (1940), '' My Darlin ...

Janet Leigh Jeanette Helen Morrison (July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004), known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress, singer, dancer, and author. Her career spanned over five decades. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, ...

Roland Culver Roland Joseph Culver, (31 August 1900 – 1 March 1984) was an English stage, film, and television actor. Life and career After Highgate School, he joined the Royal Air Force and served as a pilot from 1918 to 1919. After considering other c ...

John Justin John Justin (24 November 1917 – 29 November 2002) was a British stage and film actor. Early life John Justinian de Ledesma was born in Knightsbridge, London, England, the son of a well-off Argentine rancher. Though he grew up on his father' ...

, and

Earl Cameron Earlston Jewitt Cameron, CBE (8 August 19173 July 2020), known as Earl Cameron, was a Bermudian actor who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. After appearing on London's West End stage, he became one of the first black stars in the Britis ...

, and was intentionally cast to attract an American audience—both the hero and the lead female character are Americans, played by American actors.

Plot

While American

white hunter White hunter is a literary term used for professional big game hunting, big game hunters of European or North American backgrounds who plied their trade in Africa, especially during the first half of the 20th century. The activity continues in t ...

Ken Duffield (Victor Mature) is off leading a

safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

, Mau Mau rebels attack his farm, slaughtering the labourers and his livestock. Duffield's young son Charlie and Aunt May (Estelle Brody) defend their home against the mass attack but they do not know that their

houseboy A houseboy (alternatively spelled as ''houseboi'') was a term which referred to a typically male domestic worker or personal assistant who performed cleaning and other forms of personal chores. The term has a record of being used in the British ...

Jeroge (a corruption of Njoroge) (Earl Cameron) is actually a Mau Mau general. Inside the farmhouse, Jeroge murders Aunt May with a

machete Older machete from Latin America Gerber machete/saw combo Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San Agustín de las Juntas, Oaxaca">San_Agustín_de_las_Juntas.html" ;"title="Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San Agustín de las Juntas">Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San ...

and Charlie is killed with May's rifle. When Duffield returns to his destroyed homestead, the police have obtained information about Jeroge's role in the affair. Surmising that Duffield will use his hunting expertise to track down and revenge himself on the terrorists in general and Jeroge in particular, they escort him back to

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

and revoke his hunting licence until the situation and Duffield cools down. Duffield spends his exile in Nairobi drinking and gathering information about Jeroge from his African friends. He gets his chance for revenge when the rich Sir Vincent Brampton (Roland Culver), accompanied by his flunky Brian (John Justin) and his young American trophy fiancée Linda (Janet Leigh), arrive in Nairobi. They are keen to hire Duffield to lead a safari so that Sir Vincent can kill a legendary man-eating lion named "Hatari" ( Swahili for "risky" or "dangerous"). Duffield knows that Hatari resides in an area which Jeroge is known to frequent, and that Sir Vincent can use his influence to get his hunting licence back. Setting off on safari with his boss boy Jerusalem (

Orlando Martins Orlando Martins (8 December 1899 – 25 September 1985) was a pioneering Yoruba Nigerian film and stage actor. In the late 1940s, he was one of Britain's most prominent and leading black actors, and in a poll conducted in 1947, he was listed ...

) and Odongo (Juma), Sir Vincent suspects Duffield is not interested in hunting lions when he carries a

Sten gun The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cost ...

; Duffield explaining "you never know what kind of animals you may find". Sir Vincent has his suspicion confirmed when Duffield jumps out of his

Land Rover Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers ...

to join the police in a firefight against the Mau Mau and is keen to extract information from the prisoners. Duffield keeps his promise to bring Sir Vincent and his party to Hatari's turf in the land of the

Maasai Maasai may refer to: * Maasai people *Maasai language * Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) * Massai Massai (also known as: Masai, Massey, Massi, Mah–sii, Massa, Wasse, Wassil or by the nickname "Big Foot" Mas ...

, where the audience witnesses a traditional Maasai lion hunt. But his plans face peril when a police radio report reveals that an unknown member of the safari is a Mau Mau plant. In addition, the obsessive Sir Vincent is determined to get sole credit for killing Hatari and therefore unloads Duffield's rifle, while Linda decides to take an excursion down a crocodile-infested river in a rubber dinghy. Another police radio report warns that 200 Mau Mau prisoners have escaped and are headed towards Duffield's safari to link up with Jeroge. Sir Vincent is so obsessed with killing the lion that he fires at Duffield. In the midst of this situation, Hatari the lion appears on a ledge above Sir Vincent and pounces. Although the lion is killed it has fatally wounded Sir Vincent. In a final scene, the group and local police, have to each take arms to defend themselves against an onslaught from Mau Mau attackers, and Nuffield's sten gun is put to use.

Main cast

as Ken Duffield *

as Linda Latham *

as Brian Sinden *

as Sir Vincent Brampton *

Liam Redmond Liam Redmond (27 July 1913 – 28 October 1989) was an Irish character actor known for his stage, film and television roles. Early life Redmond was one of four children born to cabinet-maker Thomas and Eileen Redmond. Educated at the Christi ...

as Roy Shaw *

as Jeroge (Njoroge) *

as Jerusalem * Juma as Odongo *

Lionel Ngakane Lionel Ngakane (17 July 1928 – 26 November 2003) was a South African filmmaker and actor, who lived in exile in the United Kingdom from the 1950s until 1994, when he returned to South Africa after the end of apartheid. His 1965 film ''Jemima a ...

as Kakora * Harry Quashie as O'Keefe * Slim Harris as Renegade *

Cy Grant Cyril Ewart Lionel "Cy" Grant (8 November 1919 – 13 February 2010) was a Guyanese actor, musician, writer, and poet. In the 1950s, he became the first black person to be featured regularly on television in Britain,Kurt Barling '' The Inde ...

as Chief Massai * John Wynn as Charley *

Arthur Lovegrove Arthur Lovegrove (15 July 1913 – 7 November 1981) was a British actor and playwright. His comedy ''Goodnight Mrs Puffin'' starring Irene Handl, ran for 3 years in London's West End, from 1961. Filmography * ''Noose'' (1948) - Drummer (u ...

as Blake *

Estelle Brody Estelle Brody (15 August 1900 – 3 June 1995) was an American actress who became one of the biggest female stars of British silent film in the latter half of the 1920s. Her career was then derailed by a series of ill-advised decisions and ...

as Aunty May

Production

Development

Rhonda Fleming Rhonda Fleming (born Marilyn Louis; August 10, 1923 – October 14, 2020) was an American film and television actress and singer. She acted in more than 40 films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most glamoro ...

was originally announced for the female lead and the producers were hoping to get

Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film In ...

to star. Location filming in Kenya began in June 1955 before the film had been cast. Victor Mature had signed a two-picture contract with Warwick Films and he was assigned to the lead. He was meant to make ''Zarak'' but ended up making ''Safari'' first.

Shooting

Filming began 1 August 1955 in

Elstree Studios Elstree Studios is a generic term which can refer to several current and demolished British film studios and television studios based in or around the town of Borehamwood and village of Elstree in Hertfordshire, England. Production studios ha ...

in London. Five weeks later the unit transferred to Kenya for

location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for exam ...

. The film was shot on location in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

simultaneously with

John Gilling John Gilling (29 May 1912 – 22 November 1984) was an English film director and screenwriter, born in London. He was known for his horror film, horror movies, especially those he made for Hammer Films, for whom he directed ''The Shadow of the ...

's ''

Odongo ''Odongo'' or ''Odongo Adventure on the African Frontier'' is a 1956 British Warwick Films CinemaScope African adventure drama film directed by John Gilling and starring Rhonda Fleming, Macdonald Carey and Juma. The screenplay concerns a white ...

'' with the

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...

-born child actor Juma repeating his role as Odongo. In an interview in 1997, Janet Leigh recalled that the film's

second unit Second unit is a discrete team of filmmakers tasked with filming shots or sequences of a production, separate from the main or "first" unit. The second unit will often shoot simultaneously with the other unit or units, allowing the filming stag ...

was actually attacked by the Mau Mau.Interview with Janet Leigh, made in 1997
Retrieved 18 May 2014.

Reception

The film premiered on 6 April 1956 at the Empire Cinema in London, and the reviewer for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' was not very favourable, in a review titled "'Safari': An American film about the Mau Mau": "Surely it is neither priggish nor pompous to find something disagreeable in the idea of so horrifying an episode as the Mau Mau terrorism in Kenya serving as material for a film whose purpose is solely to entertain – another film, made with a British cast on the same subject, has a purpose above and beyond that. Again, it is not intolerably insular to take the line that it is all wrong that an American, played by an American actor, should be the hero, and shown as the only one capable of dealing with the situation. Finally, there are those squeamish enough not to feel altogether comfortable at the sight of an elephant, a lion, and a rhinoceros being shot – it is to be hoped the scenes were faked – to give the audience a vicarious thrill. -- A film that leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth."

References

External links

* * * {{Irving Allen 1956 films 1956 drama films British drama films Films set in Kenya CinemaScope films Films directed by Terence Young Columbia Pictures films Films about hunters Films shot in Kenya Films set in the British Empire Films scored by William Alwyn 1950s English-language films 1950s British films