And Fred is much cooler than Luba, who always seems duplicitous even when she says she’s reformed, so it’s weird that Matt only has eyes for Luba. The journalists who meet Matt when he arrives in Africa mention offhand that Matt has never been photographed on one of his expeditions before, but that’s as far as suspicions go. No one seems to care that Matt is a total poser, and they certainly don’t call him out on it. It’s not much of a spoiler that everyone finds what they’re looking for, like the pod, not to mention a few other things, but nothing turns out the way anyone expects.Ĭall Me Bwana is quite a ride, although it does have its weak spots. For one thing, Mungo and his two henchmen try to spirit Matt away from the tent where he’s taking a bath, but they bag a lioness instead. The spies who are trying to nab Matt aren’t as competent as they might seem either, seeing as their schemes never turn out right. However, he does have a set of clubs for Matt, left by his pal, Crosby. He leads the group in circles, even somehow ending up on a golf course, where Arnold Palmer is busy plying his trade, and no, the drink that bears his name is nowhere in sight. It’s immediately apparent that Matt is not the intrepid explorer he’s been made out to be. Naturally, Matt is smitten and naturally he invites Luba and her “dad” on the mission. Then Matt realizes his luggage was switched and he goes to find out where it went, which of course takes him across Luba’s path. The mission gets off to an explosive start when the champagne sent to Matt’s room to commemorate his arrival blows a hole in the floor. ![]() His organ doubles as a ham radio and he pretends to be Luba’s dad. Ezra Mungo (Lionel Jeffries), sham pastor and the head of the Better World Tomorrow Society. The Russians have also sent their own operatives: anthropologist and professor Luba (Anita Ekberg) and Dr. Coming along are CIA agent Frederica or “Fred” Larson (Edie Adams) who’s there to help protect him, a situation which Matt isn’t opposed to in the least. Just in case the mission goes really, really bad, of course. Matt has nothing else to do but accept the terms, the tracking device (for finding the pod, of course) and the cyanide pills they give him, not to mention the poisoned needles and the hand grenade. When he tries to sneak away to his aunt’s house on Cape Cod, the agents are waiting in the elevator for him. When federal agents come to Matt’s apartment to recruit him for the mission, Matt is a no-go, or at least that’s what he thinks. He likes living the high life and doesn’t think it will ever end. ![]() His assistant cautions him that he can’t keep up the charade forever, but Matt is unconcerned. Matt gets all his material from his uncle’s diaries, and since the man wrote volumes, Matt has been mining his words for a long time. ![]() The difference is that Matt doesn’t enchant people with forgetting spells so they can’t rat him out. His apartment might be full of traditional African tchotchkes and his help might dress like an askari and a Polynesian bombshell respectively, but his apartment is in the middle of Manhattan and he’s about as much of an explorer as Gilderoy Lockhart was a great sorcerer. Only Matthew Meriweather is not what he seems. He’s even written a bestseller, In Search of the Ekele Tribe. Anyway, they all agree Matthew Meriweather (Bob Hope) is the guy to accomplish this mammoth task, seeing as he’s an intrepid explorer, or Great White Hunter as he calls himself. We don’t see their faces, but Kennedy’s Boston accent is a huge tipoff, and both are sitting in rocking chairs, although Krushchev’s squeaks. Yes, one is Kennedy and the other is Krushchev. Heh.Ī probe has landed in the African jungle after a trip to the moon and the leaders of the United States and Russia are debating (separately, of course) as to how to get it back. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s Road pictures are pretty iconic, but of course there were times when Bob went on jaunts sans Bing, such as in the rollicking 1963 comedy, Call Me Bwana. Wow.
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