The New Pictures

Safari (Warwick; Columbia) had the interesting idea of shooting 30,000 feet of film in Kenya and then hiring a writer to think up a plot. What results is an African western with ferocious Mau Mau taking the place of rampaging Sioux and a biff-bang ending that has Victor Mature standing knee-deep in corpses just as the soldiers come charging to the rescue. Along the way are the usual scenes of trumpeting elephants, petulant rhinos, man-eating lions and fiendish crocodiles with an eye for a pretty girl--in this instance, Janet Leigh. In fact, most of the denizens have their eye on Janet, possibly because she romps invitingly about the camp in negligee and paddles nude in jungle pools. Only stout Victor remains impervious while he tracks down the Mau Mau who murdered his family. Once revenge is taken care of, however, he melts pliantly into Janet's arms. And so--there they can be left as the crimson sun sinks slowly into the green hush of the jungle and we say goodbye to beautiful Kenya.

The Great Locomotive Chase (Buena Vista). Walt Disney has intelligently made a Technicolor, CinemaScope film out of one of the best adventure stories of the Civil War. In the spring of 1862, a Union spy named James J. Andrews and a score of volunteer infantrymen from Ohio penetrated nearly 200 miles behind the Confederate lines in Tennessee, seized a railway train outside Marietta, Ga. and raced north intending to destroy track and railway bridges as they fled. Their object: to prevent Southern reinforcements from being sent from Atlanta while Union General Mitchel made a surprise attack on Chattanooga.

The gamble failed because Andrews had to waste time bluffing and cajoling his way past a discouraging amount of southbound traffic on the single-track line, and especially because the stubborn Confederate conductor of the captured train pursued him so closely on foot, handcar, switching engine and reversed locomotive that there was never time to do a thorough job of sabotage. Captured only ten miles from Chattanooga, Andrews and seven of his men were hanged, and the rest thrown into prison. All of the raiders were awarded the first Congressional Medals of Honor in U.S. history.

In making the film, Disney not only stuck fairly close to the facts but was even courageous enough to dispense with a love story. About the only women in sight are relegated to such menial jobs as waiting on table. Sturdy Fess (Davy Crockett) Parker trades in his coonskin cap for a felt hat as the federal spy; Jeffrey Hunter is the picture of keen-eyed implacability as the pursuing conductor; and a large group of native Georgians adequately re-create their Civil War ancestors. Since the raid involved a minimum of hand-to-hand fighting, Disney partially supplied the lack with a skull-bashing brawl during a jailbreak after the spies were captured. Disney also softened the story's grim ending by replacing the mass execution with speeches about brotherhood by Parker and Hunter--speeches that contain impeccable sentiments but seem strangely out of place on the eve of a hanging.

The meat of the film, however, is the chase. Disney dug up some fine period rolling stock and set it racing madly along a stretch of the antiquated Tallulah Falls Railroad in northern Georgia. The epic sight of the bright-colored, majestic eight-wheelers, belching smoke and spinning their drivers, is enough to make moviegoers thoroughly dissatisfied with the pallid diesel streamliners of today.

The Catered Affair (MGM) is another Bronx cheer, more affectionate than derisive, for the marital problems of the lower middle class. Like the Oscar-winning Marty (TIME, April 18, 1955), the film was originally a TV play by Paddy Chayefsky, the troubadour of the tenements, and it has much the same shirtsleeved intimacy and gamy humor.

Like most Chayefsky plots, the story of Affair is thin. Debbie Reynolds and her schoolteacher beau (Rod Taylor) plan a quiet, quick marriage in order to take advantage of a free auto trip to California for their honeymoon. Her careworn parents (Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine) agree--until the neighbor start talking ("Why so sudden? Is she in trouble?"). Then the parents meet their prospective in-laws, who relate, down to the last insufferable penny, how many thousands they spent in properly marrying off their own daughters. Bette Davis digs in her heels, insists that Debbie get a marriage as splendid as The Bronx can afford. Father Borgnine, a taxi driver, seeing the savings of 15 years vanish in an orgy of limousines, caviar and wedding receptions, roars like a wounded bull elephant. Debbie's best friend .blubbers her tragedy--with her husband unemployed, she cannot afford the matron of honor's gown. Appalled by these developments, Debbie and her fellow revert to Plan 1. They get married quietly; Father Borgnine is free to invest his nest egg in a taxi, and Bette Davis becomes rather suddenly and magically reconciled to a life she hates.

Despite the skimpiness of plot, Adapter Gore Vidal has kept Chayefsky's sharply observed vignettes of Bronx life. Oscar-winning Actor Borgnine, probably the most resourceful character man in films, has no difficulty appearing older than Bette Davis (actually he is 39; she is 48), and his anguish as the hard-earned dollars are squandered is so real it hurts. The Bronx locutions are sometimes too much for Actress Davis, but, as always, she has power to spare in her performance. Barry Fitzgerald, as a crotchety uncle, hams it up and seems to be looking expectantly in each scene for the arrival of the rest of the Abbey Players.

The film's biggest surprise is Debbie Reynolds. Scrubbed of her starlet enamel, she emerges as an engaging young girl with Actors' Studio overtones--a Hollywood butterfly turned into an authentic urban grub.

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