KHARTOUM is a lavish and endearingly old-fashioned retelling of the last days of the famous General Gordon as he held Khartoum against the overwhelming hordes of the Mahdi, a religious fanatic who led an uprising in 19th century Sudan. The film has much of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA about it, with sweeping desert vistas and sand-swept derring-do. It's no classic - there's not quite enough depth to it for that - but fans of historical adventure yarns will find themselves delighted by the film's refreshing unswavering attitude and Charlton Heston's well-judged turn as Gordon, playing him as a man of principle. The film is full of British actors in brown face make up, with Laurence Olivier the sinister Mahdi and a supporting cast replete with familiar faces (including the inevitable foreign-looking likes of George Pastell, Roger Delgado, and Marne Maitland). Richard Johnson and Ralph Richardson supply the requisite stiff upper lips, and if it all feels a little slow and sedate at times, it soon builds to a rousing climax which could well be considered the British Alamo.
Review of Khartoum
