Drums of Africa

Lloyd Bochner and Frankie Avalon are comical as the "bwanas" in this low-budget Hatari rip-off. Poor Mariette Hartley had this as her second movie. She has compared following the brilliant Ride The High Country with Drums of Africa to going from President to janitor in 2 days. This is overrating this incredible abomination. Poor Hari Rhodes looks ashamed to be seen by the camera in this mess.

With enough location footage shot from King Solomon's Mines to give Drums Of Africa a smidgen of authenticity MGM saved a lot of bucks not sending Frankie Avalon and the rest of the cast to East Africa for some real location shooting. No way was MGM going to spend a lot on what is clearly a B picture film.

Although Frankie Avalon is top billed he's in support of Lloyd Bochner, Mariette Hartley, and Torin Thatcher. Bochner plays an engineer commissioned to find a better route, part of that Cape to Cairo scheme the British had in those days. Avalon is the nephew of the owner and his American speech is explained as Frankie being Canadian. As is missionary Mariette Hartley. Torin Thatcher is the best known white hunter/guide in Africa spelled C-o-u-r-t-m-a-y-n lest we have to pay the estate of H. Rider Haggard.

Thatcher hates the railroad it will spoil his Africa. Hartley likes the idea of having her medical supplies delivered to her door without a big safari to get it and bring it back. She also likes Bochner.

Lloyd Bochner played mostly heels in his career and he's one here. But he's also called on to be a hero and someone like Tyrone Power made that a specialty, but it doesn't wear well on Lloyd Bochner.

Everybody however hates the slave traders and when they capture Hartley and some of her charges we go into action.

All that's left is a Frankie Avalon song, one of his most forgettable. This film is like eating leftovers.

Lloyd Bochner's character lectures Frankie Avalon about women. He says there are ten thousand million women in the world. This is 1897. 10,000 million is 10 billion. Wow. They weren't even trying.

Singer Frankie Avalon, Mariette Hartley, and Lloyd Bochner star in this adventure trip in Africa. First down a river, then on land, where they meet Courtemayne, the guide (Torin Thatcher). He doesn't approve of the train that the foreigners want to bring in. The story is actually pretty good, with lots of stock animal footage thrown in. An early film role for both Avalon and Hartley. (Avalon made this one AND Beach Party in the same year! and then THREE MORE beach movies the year after. ) the usual challenges of safari in africa... fire, poachers, kidnapping, animal attacks. more stock footage. Still, it's not so bad. Bochner overacts most of the time. Certainly not the romance and suspense that Clark Gable brought. and a silly scene where the natives try to teach Avalon to sing a song. Director James Clark seems to have made many films about epic journeys to far-away places over his career. Pretty entertaining, even if it looks like most of the scenes were filmed on the football field of hollywood high!

Mariette Hartley deserved better than to be cast in this mistake of a movie which supposedly takes place in 1883. Frankie Avalon is groomed like a 1960s guy, talks like a 1960s guy ("Terrific!") and likewise deserved better. Torin Thatcher does a nice performance however, he was quite the trouper, and is very believable. Lloyd Bochner is right about where he belonged in this type of movie, but the entire leading and supporting cast members all seem to be embarrassed by what they know will be a terrible movie. The cuts to wildlife action are really poor, totally unrealistic and embarrassingly obviously faked. At the end of the opening credits, where the date of production appears in Roman numerals, they even got that wrong MCMXLIII which means 1943 it should have been MCMLXIII for 1963. I half-expected Frankie to all of a sudden appear driving a 1962 Thunderbird through the bush.