Massacre pour un fauve

A rare Malay safari flick that Robert Mitchum did because it enabled his family to take a nice vacation in Hawaii. Mitch floats serenely through the film (co-star Jack Hawkins claimed he downed 49 glasses of rum before a dinner) as an expert tracker who agrees to provide a Stuttgart zoo with some wild tigers and a rare Malay leopard. Jack Hawkins also said this film is best forgotten, which is surely true for him because the great German big game hunter he plays is ridiculously arrogant, misogynistic, and only worships his history of safari kills. Not only that, but he seems to have promoted adopted daughter Elsa Martinelli to being his wife and most prized possession. A silly love triangle ensues as they pursue the big cats in Hawaii and at the San Diego Zoo (filming in Malaysia is expensive!). None of the tribal Malaysians depicted looks like they've ever been to the Malay Peninsula, especially the tribal chief who looks more like Alan Hale from Gilligan's Island! Nonetheless, despite the dumb plot this film looks good, has an amusing exotica calypso soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein, a frisky nude bathing scene, and is one of the last films of Sabu, the beloved Indian actor who made a long and successful career out of jungle films. An reasonable substitute if you don't have time to make it to the San Diego Zoo!

The Wilhelm Zoo in West Germany hires big game hunter Otto Abbot (Jack Hawkins) and trapper Harry Stanton (Robert Mitchum) to travel to Malaysia to bring back two tigers and an "enchantress" (half-breed creature: part-leopard, part-tiger). Abbot's house is filled with wild animal artifacts (head trophies, rugs, animal skins). Harry wants no part of animal killing. Abbot's mistress is the statuesque and lovely Anna (Elsa Martinelli), whom he rescued when she was 14 years-old. She is a crack shot and will be along for the expedition. The jungle guide is Sabu ("The Jungle Book," 1942).

Early on the tone for the movie is set at a dinner club in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when the confident Abbot suddenly asks Harry if he'll try to take Anna away from him. Harry responds, "You drag it out pretty flat on a table, but as long as you did . . . Yes, I'm gonna try." Anna darts those tantalizing dark eyes; she has subjugated her life to Abbot.

In the jungle the expedition captures two tigers with the help of the local Sakai people, who beat their drums to drive out the tigers from hiding. But as Abbot uses his rifle once, the Sakai chief says that the beaters will no longer help (they are against big game hunters). But there is still one more animal to capture, and the film is not even half over at that point. So there is time for plenty of tension. Although Anna has rebuffed Harry early on, they develop a bond that makes Abbot jealous. Eventually an enchantress is captured after hard work. But on the train to Germany Abbot releases it to attack Stanton, and it soon escapes the train: Abbot is not caring about the damage it will do or the people it will kill. In due course, the climax occurs on a building rooftop with all principals involved.

The acting is fine, and Robert Mitchum has always had a strong screen presence. He reminds one of the legendary real-life trapper, Frank Buck of the earlier 20th century ("Bring 'Em Back Alive," 1930). The underrated Elsa Martinelli is appropriately gorgeous, slender, and sensual. She had a fairly similar role in a comparable but superior film with John Wayne as the love interest ("Hatari," 1962). The photography is fine: "Rampage" was filmed in Hawaii. On the negative side the screenplay could have been better, and the enchantress was rather small and somewhat disappointing. Nevertheless, the movie is still worth a look.

Big game hunt for a trophy wife with Robert Mitchum and Elsa Martinelli

This adventure film by Phil Karlson (1908-1982) is also known in German-speaking countries as "IM BANNE DER ROTEN TIGERIN / Under the Spell of the Red Tigress". The beautifully photographed images come from Harold Lipstein. Elmer Bernstein contributes the music. The Warner Brothers film studio spared no effort.

The famous Wilhelma Zoo from Stuttgart in West Germany (but was filmed in the San Diego Zoo!) commissions an animal catcher (Robert Mitchum, 1917-1997) to catch two tigers and a rare big cat called "The Queen" in the jungle of Malaysia. There is supposed to be support from a notorious big game hunter (Jack Hawkins, 1910-1973), who is in a relationship with a much younger woman (Elsa Martinelli). Even before they go to Malaysia, a bitter fight breaks out between these two alpha men over the beautiful woman, who of course goes on the expedition...

Elsa Martinelli (1935-2017) looks beautiful in this film and is decked out in the most elegant costumes. Nevertheless, the way in which she is portrayed here as a woman trained by men is rather unpleasant. The viewer learns, for example, that she met her older partner as a 14-year-old orphan. Creepy! The year before, the Italian actress, who in those years regularly commuted between Hollywood and the Roman Cinecitta, was seen in a film of a similar nature, "Hatari".

In the jungle itself (all exterior shots were shot in Hawaii), the focus is on capturing the animals, but the conflict over the beautiful trophy wife continues to simmer. The great actor Sabu (1924-1963), who is unforgettable for his appearance in "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940), can be seen as a local helper. Here he can be seen in a very unworthy role as a submissive servant of the two "master men", who even offers his own wife (Cely Carillo) as a lover to the unwomanly Robert Mitchum. You can feel the colonialist look there!

In addition to the questionable gender image, the animal scenes are certainly no longer to everyone's taste. It's all excellently staged and photographed, but capturing animals for zoos (as a West German company from the idyllic Alfeld an der Leine did in particular in those years) was simply a ruthless business.

Incidentally, the enchanting Hercules star Sylva Koscina (alongside Steve Reeves in the first two Hercules films) as a stewardess and the German-born Stefan Schnabel (1912-1999) as the chief of the Sakai can also be seen in smaller roles.

At some point the ordered animals (the queen turns out to be a leopard painted red!) will be captured and will be ceremoniously handed over to the zoo in beautiful Stuttgart. But now the eponymous "killing spree" (in the original English the film is called RAMPAGE) finally occurs: one of the two alpha males completely freaks out and there is a fatal showdown with Leopard.

Fortunately, this film has now fallen out of time. The sexist, racist and animal cruel undertones are very noticeable these days. Nevertheless, the film is excellently directed in its own way. And men's stalking behavior is not glorified either. Still acceptable as an adventure film with the drawbacks mentioned.

British big game hunter Otto Abbot (Jack Hawkins) and American trapper Harry Stanton (Robert Mitchum) have been hired to hunt for big cats including a legendary one known as the Enchantress. Anna is Otto's 'general staff'. The trio travels to the jungle of post-British Malaya.

The most compelling is hunting the animals. The jungle is not the deepest and darkest jungle. It's the wilds of Hawaii. It's beautiful but it doesn't look dangerous. The movie is generally flat for it. Harry is a static character. He has one mode. There is no romantic triangle possible and yet the movie forces one. Otto has a semi-interesting relationship with Anna. A better script would have them deal with their relationship. That's the drama in this story. This should really be a movie about their companionship with Harry as the outside observer. The movie does have some good looking cats.

Rampage casts Robert Mitchum and Jack Hawkins as a trapper of wild game and a hunter of same respectively. They've been hired by the Berlin Zoo to bag some big cats for exhibition. Both of them see themselves as Hemingway like existential characters, each with a distinct philosophy about the profession they've chosen for themselves. Both have world wide reputations for what they do.

Probably it would all have been fine had not Hawkins introduced Mitchum to Elsa Martinelli his mistress who has been such since she was found in a burned out church during World War II as an adolescent. Hawkins did introduce her to the facts of life, but Elsa's been taking care of business on her own for a while, but she always comes back to Hawkins. A fling with Mitchum though has Hawkins going through the Othello thing without an Iago to stoke those green fires.

The trio is looking for special game, it is reported that there is an enchantress in the Malay jungle, a mixed breed of a tiger and a leopard. When we see the enchantress it looks like it has the bone structure and shape of a tiger, but the spots of a leopard. The Malay natives regard them as special.

I saw Rampage in the theater when it first came out and the jungle scenes are great, but the soap opera plot among the leads is strictly melodramatic. Still I think fans of the leading characters will like it.