¨Rampage¨ is an entertaining mixture of moving story , sunny adventure and loving drama about some wild-animal trappers . A team of professionals who holds each other to high standards in their job have a common objective , the animal trapping in . As German menagerie hires big game trapper , a zoo-suppling wild animals called Harry Stanton (sober Robert Mitchum) and renowned big game hunter Otto Abbot (sad-looking Jack Hawins) to travel to Malaysia to capture wildlife for the zoo , but the main object of the safari is to catch a special piece . As they are also tasked with capturing a very particular animal , a specie known as the Enchantress , a half tiger , half leopard that boasts the movie but when appears , it's rather a disenchantment , as she proves to be a simple leopard with her back dyed pink . Accompanying them is Abbot's mistress , gorgeous Anna (Elsa Martinelli) , an orphan who Otto adopted long time ago . Harry goes for her ; then , Anna falls in love for him . They fly into the jungles of Malaysia, an area that Abbot knows well having hunted there many times before , but it's Stanton who arranges to get the local tribal leader's cooperation and being helped by a native scout (Sabu) . Later on , it occurs thrilling scenes of the tigers hunt , when two of the animals are caught in nets at the same time . Then , there take places the old eternal triangle .
This jungle adventure yarn is full of spectacular scenes , thrills , an usual triangular drama and results to be quite entertaining , though mediocre with a lousy sense of pace and some holes in the screenplay . Hunting scenes through the footage of the capture of wildlife is made by stock-shots in that the risk of the hunters is none at all , as the Rhino hunt is filmed by transparency . Filmmaker Phil Karlson shot this tawdry jungle romance and Mitchum and Hawkins star in it , which should guarantee a high quality excitement and entertainment , but doesn't . This stirring picture effortlessly switching between love story and hunting scenes . All sounds a mite too familiar , it is because the picture is merely a blending from previous films such as ¨Red Dust¨ (1932) by Victor Fleming , ¨The Macomber Affair¨ (1947) by Zoltan Korda , ¨Mogambo¨ (1953) by John Ford and the best , ¨Hatari¨ (1962) , by Howard Hawks . This is a moving though average adventure movie in which a trapper and a white hunter go after a wild animal , a cross between a tiger and a leopard . For more exciting are the scenes of the leopard hunt on a modern building and over the attic . Foot-tapping and lively soundtrack by the classic Elmer Bernstein and glamorous color photograph by cameraman Harold Lipstein , though filmed in Hawai ; all contribute towards compensating for the flaws and gaps in the plot .
The motion picture was regularly directed by Phil Karlson . There were no half measures in this filmmaker . He would make adventure movies or violent and noir films . As he directed Western as ¨Gunman's walk¨ , ¨They rode west¨, ¨Texas rangers, ¨Iroquois trail¨ and Gansters genre or Noir films as ¨Phoenix city story¨ , ¨Kansas City confidential¨ and ¨Scarface mob¨ . Karlson was never able to capitalize on them and raise himself out of the B-picture mire , and he was stuck making things like ¨The Young Doctors¨ (1961), a Elvis Presley vehicle as ¨Kid Galahad¨ (1962) and a pair of failures Matt Helm films with Dean Martin such as ¨The silencers¨ , until he hit it big with Walking tall . Flops alternated with hits through his career , though Karlson's direction was more than successful in ¨ Walking tall¨ (1973) with invaluable help of Joe Don Baker , this was his biggest commercial success and which , since he owned a large part of the picture, made him rich . ¨Rampage¨ rating : 5,5/10 passable and acceptable ; Robert Mitchum fans will enjoy his idol .
