Don't expect to find here a sort of Henry King's UNTAMED or ZULU kind, even if this movie belongs to the South African epic tales list. It is especially a very rare movie which I found ONLY in f...pan and scan and black in white copy, I guess from a 16mm print. It's a South African western with good acting and directing from Georges Sherman,a Hollywood vet. Good time waster.
3 Reviews
South African Western
boblipton23 August 2021
It's the 1830s in South Africa. Stuart Whitman and Ken Scott desert from the British army and take refuge with Raymond Massey as John Brown... I mean Willem Prinsloo, leader of the Boer Great Trek into the Transvaal. There they fight Indians... I mean Zulus, and fall in love with Juliet Prowse.
This is pretty much an A Western, with the Boers substituted for Mormons, or perhaps folks on the Oregon Trail. Ellis W. Carter, who spent much of his career as cinematographer of movies like SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE, shoots some magnificent landscape, and director George Sherman lets you know that he was a fine director of westerns. With Geraldine Fitzgerald, Eduard Franz and Edward Platt.
This is pretty much an A Western, with the Boers substituted for Mormons, or perhaps folks on the Oregon Trail. Ellis W. Carter, who spent much of his career as cinematographer of movies like SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE, shoots some magnificent landscape, and director George Sherman lets you know that he was a fine director of westerns. With Geraldine Fitzgerald, Eduard Franz and Edward Platt.
Fierce? Who's kidding who?
JohnHowardReid17 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Copyright 6 April 1961 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. U.S. release: 26 April 1961. New York opening at neighborhood theaters: 2 August 1961. U.K. release: 26 March 1961. Australian release: August 1961. 91 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Three British army deserters lead a group of Boers into Zulu country.
NOTES: Film debut of Rafer Johnson. Photographed in CinemaScope. Westrex Sound System.
VIEWER'S GUIDE: Not suitable for children.
COMMENT: Dullsville. This "heart" is not so much "fierce" as just plain boring. True, there are at least one or two lively moments and Raymond Massey can always be depended upon to give a solid performance, but most of the other players are little more than excuses to fill up the screen.
The story is not only both dull and seen-it-all-many-times-before routine, but it's tricked out with all the usual stock African fauna footage that we've all been made thoroughly familiar with in so many movies before this entry!
Even normally reliable Vincent Sherman's direction is steadfastly pedestrian from start to finish. His heart was obviously not in it - - and who would blame him?
SYNOPSIS: Three British army deserters lead a group of Boers into Zulu country.
NOTES: Film debut of Rafer Johnson. Photographed in CinemaScope. Westrex Sound System.
VIEWER'S GUIDE: Not suitable for children.
COMMENT: Dullsville. This "heart" is not so much "fierce" as just plain boring. True, there are at least one or two lively moments and Raymond Massey can always be depended upon to give a solid performance, but most of the other players are little more than excuses to fill up the screen.
The story is not only both dull and seen-it-all-many-times-before routine, but it's tricked out with all the usual stock African fauna footage that we've all been made thoroughly familiar with in so many movies before this entry!
Even normally reliable Vincent Sherman's direction is steadfastly pedestrian from start to finish. His heart was obviously not in it - - and who would blame him?
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