Champagne Safari (1954)

Champagne Safari
Directed by Jackson Leighter
Written by Lawrence Klingman
USA/1954
Jackson Leighter Associates
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] As far as I know it bombed. I never made a cent out of it but at one time I did have a print of it which I thought might interest Yasmin (her daughter) when she was old enough to understand it. I suppose I still have it around….somewhere….” — Rita Hayworth, 1973[/box]

Prince Aly Khan, the son of the Aga Khan, and his then wife Rita Hayworth invited her American friends Jackson and Lola Leighter to accompany their party on a trip through the Middle East and Africa.  The trip was about two years after their marriage and was planned as a second honeymoon.  At the end of the trip, Hayworth returned to America alone and despite some later attempts at reconciliation the marriage was over.

Leighter photographed the trip.  The film has the feeling of a home movie, with snippets of Hayworth posing for the camera.  The sights include the Valley of the Kings in Egypt and African Ishmaelis paying tribute to Aly, whose father was regarded “almost as a god”, in Kenya and Tanganyika.  Aly and the Leighters continued on to an animal safari but Hayworth went to pack her belongings.  Hayworth and the Leighters reunited for the ocean voyage back to the U.S.

This is an amateurish movie but might be of interest to Hayworth fans or for its glimpses of the last gasps of colonial Africa (the Mau-Mau rebellion had already begun in Kenya.)

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