Call Me Bwana [VHS]

Call Me Bwana [VHS]
by Gordon Douglas

Call Me Bwana [VHS]

List Price: ~~$19.98~~
Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Anita Ekberg, Arnold Palmer, Bob Hope, Edie Adams, Lionel Jeffries
Director: Gordon Douglas
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 103 minutes
Release Date: 1994-03-02
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)

VHS Movie Reviews of Call Me Bwana [VHS]

Movie Review: "Hope was never lovelier... Ekberg was never funnier!"
Summary: 3 Stars

The cast of CALL ME BWANA consists in part of folks then-touring with Bob Hope's annual USO Christmas show: Arnold Palmer, Edie Adams, Mai Ling, Anita Ekberg, etc.

This forgettable piece of fluff was the only non-007 feature produced by the British Saltzman/Broccoli team. Despite a cute parody of a scene from their DR. NO ([VHS]) (DVD), what is meant to be a comedy is saddled with a script crafted in part by one of the screenwriters of "No" and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1964) (VHS) (DVD). Not a bunch of laughs in those pictures, either.

Bob does get to play golf (his hobby) with PGA champ Arnie Palmer, so at least somebody was happy here. Don't expect to watch this silly (in the pejorative sense) movie and feel the same.

Here, Hope is a plagiarizing writer pretending to be an authority on Africa who's dispatched to the Dark Continent when a moon capsule carrying vital information crash lands there by mistake. As is typical of Bond movies, Anita Ekberg is the sultry foreign spy trying to steal this secret data from Bob, and since he fancies himself a ladies man she just may succeed in her mission. That is, if either of them can even get close to the spacecraft: a local tribe has found it and believes the object is sacred.

Politically un-PC "Bwana" may NEVER be released on DVD!

Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb user poll rating.

(5.3) Call Me Bwana (UK-1963) - Bob Hope/Anita Ekberg/Edie Adams/Lionel Jeffries/Arnold Palmer/Mai Ling

Movie Review: Bob Hope in Africa, Working for NASA
Summary: 5 Stars

Like the character Rock Hudson played in Howard Hawks' MAN"S FAVORITE SPORT?, Matthew (Bob Hope) is a liar and a buffoon, a man who takes credit for another man's life work and then gets away with it. We're supposed to think this is funny, particularly when he is menaced and titillated by two spies right out of a James Bond picture. Poor Anita Ekberg, here she had made a wonderful comeback in a towering international success, Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA, and this is the best her agents could come up with for a follow-up?

Edie Adams' memoirs tell the sad tale of the way that, after the death of her husband, Ernie Kovacs, she realized that she was nearly bankrupt and was forced to take any part in any movie, no matter how demeaning, which explains why she is playing second fiddle to Anita Ekberg. Similarly she (Adams) had just come off making Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT, one of the incandescent movie performances, and it's a little dispiriting to find her among the lost beauties of CALL ME BWANA. Not that it's a bad picture, just a little cheap. If you like golf, you'll enjoy seeing Arnold Palmer in an extended turn, playing off Bob Hope's famous fondness for golf and his idolization of golf pros.

Movie Review: First came Allan Quatermain (King Solomon's Mines) now Bwana
Summary: 5 Stars

An U.S. Capsule has returned from the moon and inadvertently landed in Africa. Naturally the president only wants the most knowledgeable and brave explorer to retrieve it before others claim salvage rights, Matthew Merriweather (Bob Hope).

The other leader banging a shoe on the table also wants the capsule and sends a noted anthropologist (Anita Ekberg) to use Merriweather to obtain the prize.

In reality Matthew has never been to Africa. His book is a rehash of his uncle's adventures.
You get the idea. Beautiful women, rough elephants, wild natives, and Arnold Palmer.
Gordon Douglas also directed "Them!" (1954) [ASIN: 6300269477] so he is no stranger to wild creatures. And from the rich backgrounds of the driving scenes you would never guess that it was filmed in Pinewood studios.

Movie Review: Features A Great Spoof Of A "DR. NO" Scene
Summary: 2 Stars

Though the film is typical of Bob's later 60's comedies there is a brilliant shot-for-shot spoof of the "deadly spider" scene from "DR. NO" (The film was produced by Salzman & Brocolli, the creators of the James Bond series)

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