40 Fun Facts About Hatari!

Which habit of John Wayne's meant much of the sound in Hatari!'s capture scenes had to be re-recorded?

Cursing was the problem: Wayne swore as he wrestled the animals, so the sound was redubbed. He also admitted being scared in the exposed catching seat as the truck hurtled over ground full of hidden holes.

Which future president, then running for governor of California, bought a $100 ticket to Hatari!'s premiere?

Richard Nixon and his rival for the governorship, Pat Brown, both bought $100 tickets to the benefit premiere in Hollywood, which raised money for an African food fund.

Hatari!, set among game catchers in East Africa, takes its title from a Swahili word with which meaning?

Danger is what hatari means in Swahili. The director needed approval for the title from African authorities, who assumed it referred to political turmoil in the region.

Which star of The Misfits did Hatari!'s director plan to cast beside John Wayne before the actor's death in 1960?

Clark Gable had just played a wild-horse catcher in The Misfits, doing his own stunts. The plan to pair him with Wayne ended when he died in November 1960.

Which animals does Pockets trap by the hundred in Hatari! by firing a rocket that drags a net over a tree?

Monkeys are the prize: the rocket-and-net scheme snares nearly 500 vervets in a single tree, astonishing the whole crew, Pockets included.

What do the three orphaned elephant calves wreck when they barge in during the final scene of Hatari!?

The bed is destroyed when the young elephants barge into Sean's room, after they have helped him track down Dallas and the couple have married.

Which animal walked out of the bush toward John Wayne during an evening card game on the Hatari! shoot?

A leopard came out of the bush toward the card table, and when his co-star pointed it out, Wayne reportedly just told him to go and see what it wanted.

Which animal, the last order left to fill in Hatari!, gores the Indian during the film's opening chase?

Rhinoceros chases bookend the film. During shooting the animal really did escape and had to be recaptured, and the director kept the footage for its realism.

Which director of Rio Bravo and Bringing Up Baby made Hatari!, building a special camera car to film the chases?

Howard Hawks used his knowledge of mechanics to build a camera-car hybrid for the chases. He began with little more than the idea of a film about people who catch animals for zoos.

What is Dallas's job in Hatari!, a surprise to a crew who had been expecting a man to arrive?

Photographer is her trade: Dallas arrives to shoot pictures for a zoo that is the catchers' biggest client, which is why Sean reluctantly lets her ride along.

Which job did Pockets, the animal-shy inventor of Hatari!, hold in New York City before coming to Africa?

Taxi driver was his old trade, and it explains his place in the team: Pockets, who is frightened of animals, sits at the wheel of the big capture truck.

Which composer of Moon River and the Pink Panther theme wrote the score for Hatari!?

Henry Mancini worked authentic African percussion into the score, and the soundtrack album climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard chart and stayed on it for 35 weeks.

Which sport did the German catcher Kurt Müller give up before joining Sean Mercer's crew in Hatari!?

Motor racing was Kurt's first career, and the retired racer puts it to use at the wheel of the fast herding car that steers animals toward the capture truck.

Which profession did Luis Francisco García López follow in Mexico before he joined the catchers in Hatari!?

Bullfighter Luis was played by Valentin de Vargas, an American actor who had menaced Janet Leigh as a gangster in Orson Welles's Touch of Evil.

Which vehicle maker, supplier of many trucks seen in Hatari!, struck a joint promotional deal with the studio?

Jeep supplied many of the vehicles used in production. Fifty trucks were delivered to the location, two of them camera trucks built to do fifty miles an hour over rough ground.

Which animals does the Hatari! crew round up to supply milk for the first orphaned elephant calf Dallas adopts?

Goats are fetched to feed the calf, and chaos follows. Two more orphans then turn up at the compound, the last of them infuriating Sean.

Which big cat, a tame pet called Sonja, wanders into the bathroom while Dallas is bathing in Hatari!?

Cheetah Sonja introduces herself by licking Dallas and purring. A cheetah from the shoot later joined the cast on the film's promotional tour of North American cities.

Which animal is the quarry on Dallas's first outing with the catchers in Hatari!, a chase full of rookie mishaps?

Giraffe is the day's order, and despite her mishaps Dallas enjoys the chase so much that everyone except Sean votes to let her stay.

Which award did the Hatari! tune Baby Elephant Walk win its composer in 1963, for instrumental arrangement?

A Grammy went to the tune, which was written for an impromptu scene of Dallas leading the three young elephants to a waterhole to bathe.

John Wayne's belt buckle in Hatari! is a keepsake from which cattle-drive western by the same director?

Red River gave Wayne the silver buckle, which bears the film's cattle brand in gold. He wore it in nine later movies, though apparently never in one directed by John Ford.

What does the French marksman Chips provide in Hatari! that wins him a job, soon after Kurt punches him?

A blood donation from Chips saves the gored Indian, since he is the only man present with the right rare type, and it earns him the very job he had come to ask for.

Why does Sean Mercer resist his attraction to Dallas for much of Hatari!?

His fiancée left him, and Dallas, fearing he cannot get past the betrayal, writes a farewell letter and flees the compound once the hunting season ends.

Which name, meaning Mother of Elephants, does a local tribe give Dallas in Hatari! after adopting her?

Mama Tembo is the title she earns when the tribe, impressed by the way the orphaned calves trail after her, take her in as one of their own.

Which instrument does Pockets play in Hatari! in a Stephen Foster duet with Dallas at the piano?

Harmonica and piano join for Old Folks at Home, the Foster song also known as Swanee River, in one of the film's best-remembered musical moments.

Which working title did Hatari! carry, the name of the East African territory where it was filmed?

Tanganyika was the working title, replacing an earlier label, The African Story. The territory later united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania.

Which dormant volcano, about 70 km west of Kilimanjaro, forms the scenic backdrop to Hatari!?

Mount Meru rises behind the compound, and the film was shot at its foot. Much of the mountain's height was lost in a summit collapse about 7,800 years ago.

In which town, home to the hospital that treats the Indian, does Sean catch the fleeing Dallas in Hatari!?

Arusha is where the crew and the three young elephants track her down. The town was also the production's real base, and the catchers' radio calls go to Arusha Control.

Which Swiss city's zoo, the catchers' biggest client, sends Dallas out to Africa in Hatari!?

Basel zoo's backing is why Sean cannot simply turn Dallas away when she arrives, so he reluctantly lets her ride along on a chase.

Which Italian actress and former fashion model plays Dallas opposite John Wayne in Hatari!?

Elsa Martinelli got her first important film role from Kirk Douglas, who said he had spotted her on a magazine cover and cast her in The Indian Fighter.

Which comedian, an Oscar winner for Sayonara, plays the inventive Pockets in Hatari!?

Red Buttons was busy in 1962: he also played the paratrooper left dangling from a town steeple in the war epic The Longest Day.

Which German actor, who plays Kurt in Hatari!, liked the location so much that he made his home there?

Hardy Krüger owned a farm in the area for 13 years, and in the 1960s and 1970s he lived at the ranch where the film was shot, known as Hatari Lodge.

Which actor, best remembered as Jack Driscoll in the 1933 King Kong, plays the Indian in Hatari!?

Bruce Cabot belonged to John Wayne's circle: after the two met on Angel and the Badman, the star cast him in ten more of his films, this one among them.

What did Michèle Girardon, who plays Brandy in Hatari!, teach herself on the set after being cast?

English was new to the French actress when she won the part, a 1961 Life magazine profile reported, along with her five-year studio contract.

Which Hatari! screenwriter, a science-fiction author, went on to work on the script of The Empire Strikes Back?

Leigh Brackett wrote much of the script only after the unit came home from Africa with its chase footage, shaping the story before and during the studio shoot.

Hatari!'s Oscar nomination for colour cinematography lost out to which David Lean epic of the same year?

Lawrence of Arabia won the award for Freddie Young, beating Russell Harlan, who was nominated twice that year: for Hatari! and for To Kill a Mockingbird.

Which studio released Hatari! with what was reported as the largest promotional campaign in its history?

Paramount backed the release with radio and television spots, and sent four of the stars on a tour of North American cities with animals captured during filming.

Hatari!'s composer said the young elephants' gait suggested which eight-to-the-bar piano style for Baby Elephant Walk?

Boogie-woogie came to mind as he watched the scene, and he said an old Will Bradley number, Down the Road a Piece, set him on the way to the tune.

Which keyboard instrument opens Baby Elephant Walk in Hatari!, chosen to suggest the sound of a circus?

Calliope notes open the tune, a cheeky clarinet melody follows, and repeated tuba blasts help conjure a large, plodding elephant toddler.

Which future director of The Last Picture Show suggested a Museum of Modern Art retrospective as Hatari! opened?

Peter Bogdanovich proposed the 1962 show on the career of the film's director. The studio paid part of the cost as marketing, and the exhibition travelled on to Paris and London.

Gérard Blain, who plays Chips in Hatari!, was hailed by the French press as France's answer to which American star?

James Dean was the comparison French media reached for after Blain's breakthrough opposite Jean Gabin. He tried Hollywood with Hatari! but found himself ill-suited to American filmmaking.