Call Me Bwana

For years Bob Hope was one of cinema's most engaging presences, as classic comedies like "My Favorite Brunette/Blonde" and "The Princess And The Pirate" make clear even today. The lack of similar scripts in the 1960s didn't stop Bob from working, however, and the results were films like "Call Me Bwana" that diminished his legacy in a small but annoying way.

As the politically incorrect title suggests, this is a safari-themed picture, with Bob playing Matthew Merriweather, a writer who palms off his uncle's memoirs of African adventure as his own while loafing around his Manhattan bachelor pad in a leopard-print bathrobe. Only everyone thinks he's on the level, which is a problem when a capsule crashes down in Africa and both the U.S. and the Soviets figure Merriweather's the only man to find it.

The story is flimsy on many levels, but that's really not what's wrong here. Hope's not making "Out Of Africa," and the fact that the Frank Buck era of the Great White Explorer in Africa kind of ended by World War II is a minor nuisance, as is the fact its unlikely NASA couldn't find its own capsule with all the high-tech stuff they had even back then. No, you're supposed to enjoy this film as a vehicle for jokes. Only someone forgot the jokes.

Hope just moseys through the film, his timing solid but firing blanks. "I'm here on a mission for the President of the United States," he tells a hostile-looking group of tribesmen. "You know, President Kennedy?" No reaction. "Bobby Kennedy? Teddy Kennedy? Jackie Kennedy? Caroline? Boy, these guys must be Republicans!"

The attitude toward native Africans in this movie is not that bad. Hope's the buffoon, and for most of the film the black people around him are not targets as much as witnesses to his embarrassment. About the worst excess, other than the title, is when Hope makes a couple of porters carry his luggage on their heads, instead of toting them the normal way, because its more like what he's seen in "National Geographic."

What's more off is the threadbare plot and a cast of supporting players who don't want to be there. Anita Ekberg and Edie Adams play rival spies in a sort of dull-eyed way. If it wasn't for Hope's joking about it so much you wouldn't know they were supposed to be sexy, but of course he does joke, and joke, and joke, about it. Lionel Jeffries is awkward in bad makeup and adds nothing as a nasty Soviet spy pretending to be a pious missionary who'd rather kill Merriweather than find the capsule. The best supporting performance is probably that of golfing legend Arnold Palmer, just for the way he enters the picture, a supremely silly but classic moment revisited in the Dan Ackroyd/Chevy Chase film "Spies Like Us." Unfortunately, the producers then have Palmer and Hope do ten minutes of random club-swinging in the middle of the picture, Hope making in-jokes about Bing while trying to cheat his way into looking respectable against Arnie. It's one thing to tack on a quick cameo; but the padding here really shows.

Except there's nothing to pad. The whole movie is padded. Things happen, Hope makes a wisecrack, the scene changes, and everything we saw up to then is forgotten. At least a film set in Africa should be beautiful, but this is shot in such a cheap, offhanded manner it's almost distracting; its clear where the movie ends and the stock footage begins. The ending is particularly slipshod, which I couldn't spoil if I tried given I really have no idea what happened.

Any Bob Hope comedy has the potential to be great, so when one fails to deliver as persistently as "Call Me Bwana," it really leaves one flat.

Look this movie is a comedy that has a value today more as a remembrance of the type of fluff Hollywood produced in the early '60s. This film is watchable, but it isn't a classic. It has some funny gags, but not the best plot. It's something about a lost satellite in Africa, and once the leads get there it moves along briskly. It's very reminiscent of the 'Road to ...' movies, although this one doesn't have Crosby. It offers Ekberg who worked w/ Abbott & Costello AND with Lewis and Martin. The woman knows comedy and plays off Hope well. There are A lot of worse films to watch, and this does offer a good remembrance of the time once known as Camelot w/ its jokes about the Kennedy family.

"Call Me Bwana" is not a terrible film...and considering the sort of terrible movies Bob Hope was making in the 1960s and early 70s, this is saying a lot! Movies like "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number", "How to Commit Marriage" and "The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell" simply were NOT funny and it seemed as if Hope was simply going through the motions...so I had extremely low expectations for "Call Me Bwana". In many ways, the film was exactly what I expected....it wasn't funny. But, on the other, it did have nice production values and the story wasn't horrible!

The story begins with a moon probe going off course on its return to Earth. Somehow, it ended up landing in the middle of no where in Africa and the US government go to Matt (Hope) to ask this famous adventurer to retrieve it. However, Matt is full of hot air and has made up his tales of adventure and is a complete phony. At the same time, the Soviets have sent out a sexy spy (Anita Ekberg) and her assistant (Lionel Jeffries). And, since Matt is an idiot, he invites these two to accompany him. Can Matt find the probe...and can he prevent these two from getting to it first?

This one has 'time-passer' written all over it. There are a few parts that are even ALMOST funny...and Hope fans might enjoy it. All others, just watch his earlier films...your brain will thank you for it.

Lots of one-liners by Bob Hope, in this film produced by Albert Broccoli, who did all the early James Bond movies. Acc to IMDb, this was the second film produced by Eon productions. The credits don't list who does the voices for John Kennedy or Kruschev at the opening, but clearly its a reflection of the politics of the day. The basic premise is that one of our space ships has gone astray, and landed in Africa. To save face, the U.S. must be the first to find it, so they hire African expert Matthew Merriwether (Bob Hope). Co-stars Anita Ekberg, Edie Adams, and Lionel Jeffries round out the cast. Viewers will recognize Jeffries, who played the grandfather in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This film is very similar to Hope's "Road" movies with Bing, but moves slower. The good thing is... NO SONGS! and a five minute bit with a 30-something Arnold Palmer. Palmer had just won the 1961 And 1962 British Open. I can see why Broccoli wanted to do this project... lots of spies, intrigue, and exotic "foreign" locations, just like a James Bond flick. A fun way to kill some time. Not as bad as some others have thought....it's a lightweight Bob Hope comedy, after all.

Someone forgot to tell old ski nose that non-authentic African locations just weren't going to cut it any more. Not after King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen right up to Howard Hawks's acclaimed Hatari. What was good for the Road to Zanizibar wasn't going to cut it any more with a Sixties audience.

Call 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 uncle's African diary as material for some successful books. This in fact was the same plot device that was used in the very funny Man's Favorite Sport where Rock Hudson was a fishing expert.

But 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.

I do realize this is a comedy, but are we to believe that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't do some background check on Hope and found his credentials weren't all that good? Lord, they were non-existent. Helping Hope in his quest is CIA agent Edie Adams who I'm sure was personally hired at the agency by Allen Dulles.

Hiring Edie, I'm sure was either an act of charity or it's possible that Lionel Jeffries's part was originally meant for her late husband Ernie Kovacs. If the latter was the case it's a good thing Ernie checked out when he did.

There's a whole sequence when in the jungle Hope finds a golf course with Arnold Palmer playing on it. It'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.

The 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.

Anita Ekberg was a most beautiful and fetching Russian spy. But she'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?

Call Me Bwana was doomed from the start in its release. What was funny in 1943 couldn't be sold in 1963.