Screen/Society--"Hatari!" (Howard Hawks, 1962) | 35mm Screening

HATARI!
(Howard Hawks, 1962, 157 min, USA, English, 35mm)

Rare IB-Technicolor 35mm print!

"If there's one film that crystallizes what critics generally mean when they use the term "Hawksian," it's HATARI!, the director's ambling, good-natured, character-driven late film about a motley crew of safari wranglers led by Sean Mercer (John Wayne) who catch and sell exotic wild animals in the African desert. The film focuses on the bonds formed within a group of men-and in this case, two women-doing daunting physical work in a remote region, and, in perhaps the most Hawksian trait of all, it jettisons plot to fixate almost entirely on the schmoozing and leisure time. Yet in the absence of high stakes, HATARI!relishes in gags and good humor, much of it generated by the arrival of a beautiful Italian photographer (Elsa Martinelli) who forces Sean to come to terms with his past struggles with women. Long and digressive, the film features some of Hawks' most enjoyable scene construction and character building." - Harvard Film Archive

"All in all, one of those rare films that genuinely constitutes a 'late masterpiece'." - Time Out

"This late masterpiece ... transcends every literary value in the book to become a brilliantly entertaining and insightful work of pure cinema." - Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader