Call of the Tame

The Lion. Africa is for the Africans; Connecticut is for people who can afford it. That's the moral of this movie, and it doesn't make much sense. But then the movie wasn't meant to make sense; it was meant to make money. It has one major star (William Holden), one good actor (Trevor Howard), one competent director (Jack Cardiff, who did Sons and Lovers), infinitudes of the usual fauna and some spectacular shots of Mount Kenya. It also has a portly, natty, sophisticated Hollywood lion named Zamba, who looks as though he came from F.A.O. Schwarz and waddles like a middle-aged millionaire stuffed with Chateaubriand and Trancopal--what's more, while on location in Kenya he nibbled daintily on breast of chicken and disdainfully refused to associate with those poor, backward, underdeveloped African lions.

Unfortunately, the picture also has a plot that attempts to solve--now really, fellows--a five-sided triangle: 1) mama (Capucine), 2) papa (Holden), 3) a great white hunter (Howard), 4) mama's darling (Pamela Franklin), 5) mama's darling's darling (Zamba). The great white hunter lures mama and her darling to his farm in Kenya, and for awhile mama really enjoys the back to nature bit. But when the kid falls in love with a lion, mama figures they have both gone too far back to nature, and ought to go back to the States. So she summons papa, and pretty soon all three of them go back to Connecticut. The hunter goes back to his wart hogs, and what's more he goes smiling. He seems to appreciate at last that there are boars--and bores.

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