A Quick Look: CALL ME BWANA (1963 - color)

 

   James Bond was being spoofed (by his own producers, no less) before his second screen adventure began production. Filmed in 1963, CALL ME BWANA parodies a lot of elements familiar to the spy craze to come a couple years later. Bob Hope plays the author of a famous series of safari adventure journals -the source material coming from the real diaries of his long-gone uncle. Bob, as you might imagine, has about as much practical jungle experience as does Zsa Zsa Gabor! However, when an experimental spy satellite comes down in the most savage part of the African jungle, Uncle Sam recruits the hapless Hope to recover it from the dreaded Ekilee tribe. On the safari, Bob must contend with not just the perils of the jungle, but with enemy agents dogging his every step. Red femme fatal Anita Ekberg is right in his own camp, in fact! One of my favorite Hope movies, and one of the first of his 60's output that I saw on television, CALL ME BWANA is a delightful send up of the jungle genre and international relations/espionage of the Kennedy era. From EON, which produced the Bond films, the movie's poster was even prominently featured in an important scene of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.