Rampage ** (1963, Robert Mitchum, Elsa Martinelli, Jack Hawkins, Sabu) – Classic Movie Review 8192

‘The screen’s mightiest excitements go on the rampage!’ Director Phil Karlson’s undistinguished, old-fashioned 1963 movie Rampage is an everyday tale of big game hunting and romantic rivalry. It stars Jack Hawkins and Robert Mitchum as British big game hunter Otto Abbot and American trapper Harry Stanton battling over an unstable Hawkins’s lover Anna (Elsa Martinelli) whom Mitchum fancies. They are in Malaysia supposed to be hunting for a rare breed of panther to bring back for a German zoo.

This melodramatic, rather dim colonial Malaysia jungle romantic adventure, adapted by Robert I Holt and Marguerite Roberts from the 1961 novel by Alan Caillou, starts okay but has a drawn-out middle section and an absurd conclusion. On the other hand, it is only 98 minutes long.

Sabu (1924–1963).

A middle-aged-looking Sabu (in his penultimate film released on 9 October in the year he died of heart attack on 2 December 1963, aged only 39) joins the big-name big-guns in their frolics as Talib.

Karlson’s a good director and does what he can with what is on offer, and Rampage comes complete with Harold Lipstein’s Technicolor location shooting (in Hawaii and San Diego Zoo, California) and a rousing Elmer Bernstein score.

Also in the cast are Emile Genest, Stefan Schnabel, David Cadiente, Cely Carillo, Sylva Koscina and John Keaka.

Hawkins wrote in his autobiography that Mitchum drank 49 glasses of rum before dinner.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8192

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