Rampage 1963

A British big-game trophy hunter, Otto Abbot, Jack Hawkins is offered a job by a West German zoo to capture a pair of Malay tigers and a rare leopard-tiger hybrid known as “the Enchantress.” He recruits one of the world’s top trappers for the job, American Harry Stanton, Robert Mitchum. Abbot intends to bring along his longtime young mistress, Ana, Elsa Martinelli is an Italian waif whom he has kept as a ward since she was 14. A rivalry over Ana breaks out between the men, turning the hunt into a test of pride and power as each man tries to prove who is the better “man”—the hunter or the trapper.

Arriving at a destination where they are to recruit an army of beaters to drive the cats into nets, they find the locals uncooperative. Stanton overrules a confrontational Abbot and wins the native chieftain over with a promise that no guns will be used. The truce lasts until the two tigers are captured, with Abbot violating it with an overzealous shot to scare a third tiger off. The trio are left with only a small handful of helpers.

They track the Enchantress to a cave on a mountain top. While Stanton organizes a plan to drive it out an exit hole on the far end, Abbot seeks to prove himself still man enough to hang onto Ana and rashly goes in with a torch. He is mauled and saved by Stanton, who then completes the job.

There is more head-butting between the men on the way home, aggravated by Ana appearing to lean towards Stanton. On a train nearing their destination in Germany, she tells Abbot she’s through with him. Abbot boils over and releases the big cat from its cage in a freight car, leaving Stanton trapped inside with it. Stanton survives, but the big cat leaps from the train upon arrival. An enormous police dragnet is deployed to capture it.

The cat is tracked atop a high building. Both Abbot and Ana are armed with hunting rifles. Abbot seeks to shoot Stanton instead but is mauled to death by the cat, which is slain by Ana. Stanton proposes to Ana—by offering her a “marry-cloth” used to betroth Malay women. She accepts.