Safari

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the best hunter in... well, whatever part of the African jungle that the Paramount backlot and the L.A. County Arboretum is supposed to be. He's called it quits. He can smell the War developing in Europe, and he wants to be part of it. Nonetheless, he agrees to one last trip with Count Tullio Carminati and his would-be Countess, Madeleine Carroll. Doug is very professional, but Carminati is high-handed, and Miss Carroll thinks she can use Doug to make Carminati jealous enough to marry her.

It's directed by Edward H. Griffith that somehow takes all the stereotypes of African natives at the time and humanizes them a bit. Fairbanks gives a good, straightforward performance that plays off the action movies he was making in this period, Rupert of Hentzau, and GUNGA DIN and THE CORSICAN BROTHERS. Miss Carroll is playing the serious gold-digger that her Hollywood career had type-cast her as, and Lynn Overman is present, sporting a Scottish accent as Fairbanks' mentor and plot-advancer. It's a well done movie, given the sort of budget that Paramount could spend on a programmer, if not one to advance anyone's career: a paycheck movie for Fairbanks amidst more interesting projects.