Independent Films, Film Profiles

Call Me Bwana

Call Me Bwana is a 1963 farce film starring Bob Hope and Anita Ekberg, and directed by Gordon Douglas. It is largely set in Africa. It is the only film made by EON Productions which is not about the Ian Fleming spy character, James Bond and was made by most of the same film crew as Dr. No (film).Bob Hope plays a New York writer who has passed off his uncle's memoirs of explorations in Africa as his own. Hope lives his false reputation as a great white hunter to the point of living in a Manhattan apartment furnished to look like an African safari lodge complete with sound effects records of African fauna. Based on his false reputation as an "Africa Expert", he is recruited by the United States Government and NASA to locate a missing secret space probe before it can be located by hostile forces.Hope's co-stars include Edie Adams and Anita Ekberg playing secret agents. Golfer Arnold Palmer makes a brief cameo, playing a crazy round of golf with Hope—a scene revisited in the film Spies Like Us where Hope makes a cameo appearance and plays golf through a tent. A scene involving an unseen President John F. Kennedy in his famous rocking chair is parodied with his Russian counterpart Nikita Kruschev rocking in a chair that squeaks loudly.