Movie review – “Safari (1956) **

The Mau Mau uprising inspired three films during the mid 50s, of which this is the worst. The others – Simba and Something of Value – at least made some attempt to put their stories within a political context. In this one the Mau Mau are basically just like a troublesome tribe of Indians, charging with cries at white people in fixed positions who mow them down; there’s even a climactic sequence where the cavalry come to the rescue.

At first I was willing to give this film a go. It was shot in technicolour and partly on location in Africa; Victor Mature plays the lead, and while it’s easy to mock Mature, he’s believable as a hunter, does good torment acting and has comfortable by-play with Janet Leigh (come to think of it, Mature almost always worked well with his female co-stars). But the story soon becomes far too convoluted: Mature’s son and housekeeper are killed by a Mau Mau attack, including his houseboy (Earle Cameron). Why did they bother attacking the house? Why have a mass attack? Why not kill them in their sleep? I mean it’s a good sequence, with this kid and spinster lady blasting away with their guns before being hacked down, it just doesn’t have logic.

So Mature has his hunting licence taken away from him by the local authorities, fearing he’ll want to get revenge. Then he gets an offer to lead a hunting safari which he takes because it’ll enable him to go into Mau Mau country. He then spends the rest of his time going after a lion, romancing Janet Leigh (the girl on the safari), saving Leigh, shooting at Mau Mau. It’s really all over the place.

Leigh is very sexy. She plays a former chorus girl who is mistress to Roland Culver, a ruthless English noble who is more interested in shooting a lion than anything else (these Warwick Productions usually favoured the American lead over the British.) John Justin has an interesting character as Culver’s emasculated, bitter Man Friday, but not enough is used of this - you keep expecting it to flower into a proper subplot but none comes. Instead we just get Mau Mau turning up at convenient times, conveniently involving the guy who killed Mature's son. It's a really poor script, despite being credited to Anthony Veillier. The black Kenyans with speaking roles are either treacherous, murderous thugs or happy smiling fools. The action sequences aren't even that good, and the real life footage of elephants being shot are liable to offend rather than inspire. A real disappointment.