Interesting picture based on fictitious events packed with gritty adventure , romance , action , thrills , violence , explosions and spectacular African outdoors. Dealing with a South African gold mine manager discovers a plot hatched by the mine owners and London bankers to flood the mine in order to curb gold production and consequently manipulate its price on the stock markets . There's only one man can stop the complex plan , he's Rod Slater (Roger Moore) the newly appointed General Manager of the Sonderditch gold mine, as he confronts the world's most daring conspiracy against the world's most precious metal. Along the way , he falls in love with the wife (Susannah York) of his nasty boss , Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman). Everything they touch turns to pure excitement!
This colorful film packs adventure , romance , large-scale blow-up , flood , plot-twists , routine script and lots of intrigue for the most part . It's a comfortable mix of adventure, thriller and suspense genre with a love story . Grand-scale adventure/thriller/action yarn about a scheming plot to control price of gold on world market by destroying South African mine , being its central plot adequately depicted on film, where a mining disaster would manipulate in recognized commodity the stock market ; in this case, gold shares . It was based on the non-fiction novel, "The Great Gold Conspiracy" by Wilbur Smith, featuring a plot to flood a gold mine and screenplay by Stanley Price and author Wilbur Smith himself. Stars attractive Roger Moore as a foreman become the chief of a powerful company , a stalwart hero who's duped into a twisted conspiracy carried out by the unscrupulous owners to make a set-up in the international gold market. Being one of four Africa set and shot movies in which Roger Moore performed during the 1970s. The others being : Wild Geese (1978) by Andrew V. McLagen , Shout the devil (1976) also directed by Peter R. Hunt , and The spy who loved me (1977) by Lewis Gilbert . Roger Moore is well accompanied by a notorious cast giving fine acting , such as : Susannah York, Ray Milland, Bradford Dillman, John Gielgud, Tony Beckley , Simon Sabela and brief appearance of Patsy Kensit as a little Girl at Christmas Party , among others.
It displays a rousing and thrilling musical score by classic composer Elmer Bernstein. As well as brilliant and breathtaking cinematography by Ousama Rawi filmed in Panavision. The overlong motion picture was professionally directed by Peter R. Hunt, though it has some flaws and gaps . Hunt was a notorious editor and occasionally filmmaker . Hunt had a long career as a cinematic editor . Having started out in the film industry as a clapper boy , by the 40's he was working in the editing department and by the 50's he was an assistant editor then a fully fledged editor. In 1962 as editor on the first James Bond film , "Dr No" . And shooting some films as ¨Shout at the Devil¨, ¨Gold¨, ¨Gulliver's travels ¨, being his biggest hit the only James Bond film starred by George Lazemby titled ¨ On her Majesty's service secret¨. Rating : 6 , this good adventure/thriller will appeal to Roger Moore fans.
