RHINO!

US, 1964, 90 minutes, Colour.
Robert Culp, Harry Guardino, Shirley Eaton,
Directed by Ivan Tors.

Rhino is an action adventure film, Saturday matinee plot and characters, with an environmental message. While it is a film of the 1960s, with serious statements about the extinction of animals, which did not actually happen in the way predicted, it is nevertheless interesting in retrospect given 21st century attitudes towards the saving of animals, especially in Africa.

The plot is fairly straightforward. Robert Culp portrays a scientist who is interested in developing vaccines for the saving of animals, going out into the bush to track down the animals for experiments and for saving them. Harry Guardino portrays a hunter, fairly unscrupulous, trying his best to undermine the efforts of the doctor while still being friendly with him, and flirting with the district nurse, Shirley Eaton, who also has environmental concerns, and is committed to the health of the local people.

Initially, the doctor is threatened by a lion but is saved by the hunter. While they become friends, the hunter is doing deals with local big game hunters and poachers, having a couple of the locals as his on-siders, as they go on expeditions. In order to please the nurse, but also to get his hands on the medical preparations, the hunter agrees to go as guide on an expedition.

This gives the opportunity for the audience to see, 1960s style, a lot of the flora and fauna of Africa.

It also gives the opportunity for the characters to get lost, be in peril in the forests, experience final rescue.

The hunter has something of a conversion, though one wonders about the future. And the nurse goes looking for the two who are lost, shares in the adventures, but the hunter loses her attention and intentions and, of course, she is in love with the doctor.

The film was directed by Ivan Tors, He was best known as a producer of family films, Flipper, Around the World Under the Sea, Namu, the Killer Whale, Island of the Lost, Africa: Texas Style. The films he directed were rather more ordinary, including Zebra in the Kitchen.