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This 1953 film has a setting of safari land Africa and includes mega stars Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, and Clark Gable in a setting to match. Where the film really delivers is the setting itself, and it almost serves like a documentary of local culture and mores as well as wildlife scenes that you just couldn't get now as things have become more confined there. Clark Gable plays Vic, who gives safari’s and collects animals for zoos internationally. The first lovely to show up is Kelly, played by Ava Gardner, a jet setter who came to meet a big wheel maharishi for a safari, but upon arrival she finds he canceled due to a sudden set of problems back home in India. She will take the next boat back in a couple of days, but in the meanwhile she makes her presence felt with Vic and his friends as a buddy type, good to hang out with, but he at this point doesn't see her as a paramour. In the meantime, another husband and wife client shows up, Linda played by Grace Kelly and her young British nice guy somewhat nerdy scientist husband Donald who wants to see gorillas. Vic within the initial meeting with Linda and her husband seems entranced by her stunning good looks, and her conservative, prim and proper veneer only seems to add to the intrigue. From here the film really heats up. Linda’s husband Donald has jungle fever and needs to stay in bed until he hopefully recovers for the safari, and she decides to take a walk to get familiar with the area, and you just don’t take a stroll in these parts. When Vic hears of this from Kelly, he asks her why she didn't stop him, and immediately runs out to find her with an armed local In the meantime, Linda’s stroll starts to get ominous when there is a lion at a kill nearby and a loose rhino and there is no way for her to defend herself if and when in any of these scenarios if they suddenly make a turn towards her. As she stumbles towards the side of a rivulet, there is a huge black panther on a tree branch looking right at her poised to take a leap. The question with regards to this and other scenes in the movie is how they even filmed this stuff? Vic arrives just in time to see the event and rifles the panther, just as it readied for the leap. He takes the shaken Linda by the hand and doesn't say anything as they both catch their collective breaths. As they begin to walk back, she stops and leans against a tree branch by the open field and the body language as she rests back against the brand and position of her shoulders with a slight lean towards Vic gives away an attraction or really a pull she has towards him that is just sheer and indeed she is as mesmerized by him as she is by her. What is so great about this little scene in the movie is how telling non verbal communication can sometimes be and this movie and this seen does it in mint fashion. Complicating these feelings further is her own strong conservative style that goes against the idea of roaming romantically, which she metaphorically was doing by this walk in the wilds in the first place. As the plot proceeds, the question is should all this be resisted, she is married to a reasonable chap and then there is also Kelly who has her own designs of Vic, as she is rebounding from old wounds on the romantic playing field. As in turns out though, nobody in this film are wimps, neither Vic himself, the nerdy husband Donald, Kelly and Linda all have a a good degree of handle and hardiness for the rough dangerous terrain and the safarian's as well as the leader of the safari are up all up to speed that way. As the movie progresses the Ava Gardner character of Kelly shows that she also has her own good mettle and can contend aptly with the wilds, the wilds which now include the fires of romance and still unknown direction that these fires will take. You could not make this movie now, in that the wildlife would be more so chased into sanctuaries and you wouldn't be able to depict the local natives as accurately as they were then. The scenes in this movie are almost always at least bordering on the incredible, and you get not only Grace Kelly at her best but also Ava Gardner who is no consolation prize. T D
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movies, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Africa, safaris, culture,
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