Call Me Bwana

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Call Me Bwana
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Gordon Douglas
Produced by	Harry Saltzman Albert R. Broccoli Pearl Thomas
Written by	Johanna Harwood Nate Monaster
Starring	Bob Hope Anita Ekberg Edie Adams Arnold Palmer
Music by	Monty Norman End Title Song sung by Bob Hope
Cinematography	Ted Moore
Editing by	Peter R. Hunt
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	June 14, 1963
Running time	102 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Call Me Bwana is a 1963 farce film starring Bob Hope and Anita Ekberg, and directed by Gordon Douglas. It is largely set in Africa. It is the only film made by EON Productions which is not about the Ian Fleming spy character, James Bond and was made by most of the same film crew as Dr. No (film).

[edit] Plot

Bob Hope plays a New York writer who has passed off his uncle's memoirs of explorations in Africa as his own. Hope lives his false reputation as a Great White Hunter to the point of living in a Manhattan apartment furnished to look like an African safari lodge complete with sound effects records of African fauna. Based on his false reputation as an "Africa Expert", he is recruited by the United States Government and NASA to locate a missing secret space probe before it can be located by hostile forces.

Hope's co-stars include Edie Adams and Anita Ekberg playing secret agents. Golfer Arnold Palmer makes a brief cameo, playing a crazy round of golf with Hope—a scene revisited in the film Spies Like Us where Hope makes a cameo appearance and plays golf through a tent. A scene involving an unseen President John F. Kennedy in his famous rocking chair is parodied with his Russian counterpart Nikita Kruschev rocking in a chair that squeaks loudly.

[edit] Trivia

An advertisement for this film appears on an exterior wall in Istanbul in the film From Russia with Love. After helping shoot a man who just crawled out of a hole in the wall ad (concealed in Ekberg's face), Bond (Sean Connery) remarks "She should've kept her mouth shut."

When meeting golfer Arnold Palmer, Palmer relates the fact that his golf clubs were owned by a former friend of Bob's. Bob dumps the golf clubs on the ground and sees they're bent. He then says the line, "Yep...those are Crosby's alright."

The film was originally intended to be shot entirely on location in Kenya but the problems of the Mau Mau Uprising led the producers to only have second unit cinematography led by John Coquillon

According to Albert R. Broccoli's autobiography When the Snow Melts, EON Productions were originally contracted by United Artists to make two films a year for them, one James Bond film and one non Bond film. Many original suggestions were meant to showcase Sean Connery who turned them all down as he didn't want his career totally in the hands of EON. When asked by United Artists executive Donald Zec if they had any ideas for their non Bond film, Harry Saltzman who had previously made The Iron Petticoat with Hope said he had an idea for a Bob Hope movie. Broccoli asked Zec if he had any ideas and Zec replied that he had seen a British rock and roll group called The Beatles that had sell out crowds and thought about featuring them in a film. Saltzman laughed and asked why he would want to make a film about four young long haired kids from Liverpool when he had Bob Hope. United Artists made the Beatles film with Walter Shenson and A Hard Day's Night (film) was more successful that Call Me Bwana.

Bwana is Swahili term of respect commonly used in East Africa.

During a scene of Hope's Land Rover's tyres being punctured by darts, a stage hand wearing a white shirt can be seen gesturing behind indoor studio foilage.