Cinema: Animal Crackers

Rampage. “The enchantress,” the director of the zoo explains excitedly, “is a magnificent accident of nature, half tiger and half leopard.” But when the great white hunter (Robert Mitchurn) arrives in Malaya to trap this exotic specimen, he encounters an enchantress (Elsa Martinelli) who is patently another breed of cat. Her eyes are brown, her claws are red, her coat was made by Oleg Cassini. As she glides through the jungle, her tail twitches wickedly and Mitchum’s thinning hair stands on end.

On this trip, he tells himself, I am going to bag one enchantress for the zoo and the other one for myself. But before he can bag one for the zoo he must flush the elusive beast; and before he can bag the other one for himself he must somehow elude the vigilance of her mate (Jack Hawkins), another great white hunter and a mean old man besides. “Every animal,” he snarls, “is entitled to kill in order to keep what belongs to him.”

Animal crackers, as Hollywood plays the game, is a pleasant, simple-minded pastime that offers few surprises. This time around, Mitchum & Co. see the usual things (poisonous snakes, charging rhinos, a terribly cute baby elephant), say the usual things (“You’re different from any woman I’ve ever known”), do the usual things (he palavers with suspicious natives, she takes a nude dip in a jungle pool). At one point Mitchum is tempted to do something different. The head boy (Sabu), grinning miscegenially, offers him the use of his wife—”Plenty for two. Is custom.” Is not custom censors approve; so Hero Mitchum, gulping hard, goes slinking off in pursuit of less controversial game.

In the end he bags both of his enchantresses. The one is obviously quite a catch. But what in Southeast Asia is the other one? Is it a tiger? No. A leopard? No. A cross between the two? Nosirree. It’s just a little old jaguar painted purple.