The original British title, 'Nor the moon by night', proved a little too abstract for US distributors, so they came up with the hopelessly boring 'Elephant Gun'. Big mistake. Who seriously would want to see a film about an elephant gun?
The original title comes from a biblical psalm: 'The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is the shade on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day nor the moon by night.' It doesn't have much to say about the film, but it's one of the best film titles ever, as is the title song.
The plot stands somewhere within the African Hollywood great white tradition - between King Solomon's Mines (redemption through plunder), African Queen (missionary cynicism) and Hatari (zoo capitalism). Of course, the plot centres on the love triangles and power struggles of the whites, with the inscrutable Africans forming a Greek chorus. Even so, it's a riveting drama that grips you from the start. A repressed correspondence bride (Lee) travels to Africa to marry her long-time pen pal (McGoohan), only to find that he is off on African business stuff and she has to deal with his sexy brother (Craig), who picks her up to deliver her to her destination. Along the way love and lust intervenes. Meanwhile, the pen-pal brother is busy falling for the daughter (Stirling) of local game-mafia hood and domestic abuser (Pohlmann).
All in all, it's a good yarn. Made too early to seek British amends for the plundering of African wildlife and resources, but at least the surrounds have become a major tourist destination.
The original title comes from a biblical psalm: 'The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is the shade on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day nor the moon by night.' It doesn't have much to say about the film, but it's one of the best film titles ever, as is the title song.
The plot stands somewhere within the African Hollywood great white tradition - between King Solomon's Mines (redemption through plunder), African Queen (missionary cynicism) and Hatari (zoo capitalism). Of course, the plot centres on the love triangles and power struggles of the whites, with the inscrutable Africans forming a Greek chorus. Even so, it's a riveting drama that grips you from the start. A repressed correspondence bride (Lee) travels to Africa to marry her long-time pen pal (McGoohan), only to find that he is off on African business stuff and she has to deal with his sexy brother (Craig), who picks her up to deliver her to her destination. Along the way love and lust intervenes. Meanwhile, the pen-pal brother is busy falling for the daughter (Stirling) of local game-mafia hood and domestic abuser (Pohlmann).
All in all, it's a good yarn. Made too early to seek British amends for the plundering of African wildlife and resources, but at least the surrounds have become a major tourist destination.