Still Dreaming of Africa
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bitchy, stranded (an Indian prince-playboy failed to show in Kenya) New York
showgirl who will bag her man at all costs. (At the same time in real life, Ava
Gardner was beating a tattoo on Frank Sinatra who would fly to Kenya to see Ava
while on location for the film and was known around the set as Mrs. Ava
Gardner.) With an authentic African setting, the film featured a run-in with a
rhino and a close encounter with a deadly gorilla as well as an escape from a
“native” uprising.
The Snows o f Kilimanjaro (1952), based upon several
Hemingway stories, features Gregory Peck as a wounded, soul-searching novelist
and adventurer deep in the African bush who stares at vultures and looks back at
his life and many loves while being attended by Susan Hayward. Here we have a
true Hollywood portable Hemingway, which includes the Spanish Civil War
(memorable moment from that war: Ava Gardner dying, while Harry [Gregory
Peck] bellows repeatedly, “Stretcher bearer! Stretcher bearer!”), safaris, and the
boy getting his first rifle and becoming a man. Something o f Value (1957),
directed by Richard Brooks and starring Rock Hudson, Sydney Poitier, and Dana
Wynter, is based on Robert C. Ruark’s best selling novel about the Mau-Mau
rebellion in Kenya as seen from the perspective of a white settler and a “good”
African who gets involved with the Mau-Mau.
A “buddy” film that
unconvincingly attempts to see both sides in the case of the ritual murders of the
1950s, it does depart somewhat from the sweeping beauty of Africa mode which
would be in keeping with Ruark’s penchant for a blood-and-guts view of Africa.
Born Free (1965), based upon the book by Joy Adamson, tells the story of a
Kenyan game warden and his wife who raise three lion cubs, one of which, Elsa,
presents them with a family. Irresis tible scenery and animal shots, as well as the
title song, save this African weepie. In 1987’s White Mischief directed by
Michael R