Hatari!
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40 free Hatari! trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hatari! is the John Wayne film with almost no plot and an enormous amount of charm: a band of game catchers tearing across the East African plains in trucks, roping wild animals for zoos, and falling in and out of love between chases. The captures were filmed for real, which is why the action still looks startling more than sixty years on. This quiz covers the whole picture: the crew and their back stories, the orphaned elephant calves, the cast gathered from several countries, the score that outlived the film, and what happened behind the camera during months on location. It suits John Wayne fans, classic adventure lovers and anyone who grew up watching the movie on a Sunday afternoon. Every question comes with its answer and a short explanation.
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Q 01Which habit of John Wayne's meant much of the sound in Hatari!'s capture scenes had to be re-recorded?
Cursing
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.
Q 02Which future president, then running for governor of California, bought a $100 ticket to Hatari!'s premiere?
Richard Nixon
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.
Q 03Hatari!, set among game catchers in East Africa, takes its title from a Swahili word with which meaning?
Danger
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.
Q 04Which star of The Misfits did Hatari!'s director plan to cast beside John Wayne before the actor's death in 1960?
Clark Gable
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.
Q 05Which animals does Pockets trap by the hundred in Hatari! by firing a rocket that drags a net over a tree?
Monkeys
Monkeys are the prize: the rocket-and-net scheme snares nearly 500 vervets in a single tree, astonishing the whole crew, Pockets included.
Q 06What do the three orphaned elephant calves wreck when they barge in during the final scene of Hatari!?
The bed
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.
Q 07Which animal walked out of the bush toward John Wayne during an evening card game on the Hatari! shoot?
A leopard
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.
Q 08Which animal, the last order left to fill in Hatari!, gores the Indian during the film's opening chase?
Rhinoceros
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.
Q 09Which director of Rio Bravo and Bringing Up Baby made Hatari!, building a special camera car to film the chases?
Howard Hawks
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.
Q 10What is Dallas's job in Hatari!, a surprise to a crew who had been expecting a man to arrive?
Photographer
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.
Q 11Which job did Pockets, the animal-shy inventor of Hatari!, hold in New York City before coming to Africa?
Taxi driver
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.
Q 12Which composer of Moon River and the Pink Panther theme wrote the score for Hatari!?
Henry Mancini
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.
Q 13Which sport did the German catcher Kurt Müller give up before joining Sean Mercer's crew in Hatari!?
Motor racing
Q 21What does the French marksman Chips provide in Hatari! that wins him a job, soon after Kurt punches him?
A blood donation
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.
Q 22Why does Sean Mercer resist his attraction to Dallas for much of Hatari!?
His fiancée left him
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.
Q 23Which name, meaning Mother of Elephants, does a local tribe give Dallas in Hatari! after adopting her?
Mama Tembo
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.
Q 14Which profession did Luis Francisco García López follow in Mexico before he joined the catchers in Hatari!?
Bullfighter
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.
Q 15Which vehicle maker, supplier of many trucks seen in Hatari!, struck a joint promotional deal with the studio?
Jeep
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.
Q 16Which animals does the Hatari! crew round up to supply milk for the first orphaned elephant calf Dallas adopts?
Goats
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.
Q 17Which big cat, a tame pet called Sonja, wanders into the bathroom while Dallas is bathing in Hatari!?
Cheetah
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.
Q 18Which animal is the quarry on Dallas's first outing with the catchers in Hatari!, a chase full of rookie mishaps?
Giraffe
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.
Q 19Which award did the Hatari! tune Baby Elephant Walk win its composer in 1963, for instrumental arrangement?
A Grammy
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.
Q 20John Wayne's belt buckle in Hatari! is a keepsake from which cattle-drive western by the same director?
Red River
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.
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.
Q 24Which instrument does Pockets play in Hatari! in a Stephen Foster duet with Dallas at the piano?
Harmonica
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.
Q 25Which working title did Hatari! carry, the name of the East African territory where it was filmed?
Tanganyika
Tanganyika was the working title, replacing an earlier label, The African Story. The territory later united with Zanzibar to form Tanzania.
Q 26Which dormant volcano, about 70 km west of Kilimanjaro, forms the scenic backdrop to Hatari!?
Mount Meru
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.
Q 27In which town, home to the hospital that treats the Indian, does Sean catch the fleeing Dallas in Hatari!?
Arusha
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.
Q 28Which Swiss city's zoo, the catchers' biggest client, sends Dallas out to Africa in Hatari!?
Basel
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.
Q 29Which Italian actress and former fashion model plays Dallas opposite John Wayne in Hatari!?
Elsa Martinelli
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.
Q 30Which comedian, an Oscar winner for Sayonara, plays the inventive Pockets in Hatari!?
Red Buttons
Red Buttons was busy in 1962: he also played the paratrooper left dangling from a town steeple in the war epic The Longest Day.