chall-5

This is not a good movie. In fact it's so bad, one wonders why it was made. James Mason is a bored painter... who gives an appropriately boring performance. Helen Mirren is supposed to be a naive young girl, but she's too old for the part and comes across as mildly retarded.

The rest of the cast consists of character actors who were apparently directed to overact as much as possible.

There's also a repetitive music score which does nothing to help.

The scenery is beautiful, but that's not enough. Perhaps the nudity was considered ground-breaking back then, but the movie is just indecipherable today.

I really love this movie. It has an intelligent script with none of the goofy inconsistencies that make most African trek movies so awful. And for once the safari does not include a bad guy who tries to sabotage everything.

All the actors are good, but I think this may be Stewart Granger's best role. He gives real feeling to the "burned out" safari guide character and is totally believable. A young Richard Carlson and Deborah Kerr perform well too.

It's based on an H. Rider Haggard story, but improves on the book by simplifying the climax so it'll fit in a movie. For once the movie re-write is actually better than the book it's based on.

But what is most surprising about this movie is how real everything is. When they show natives, they are actually African tribes. When they need Watusi's, they film in Watusi-land! Even the animal scenes fit smoothly into the flow. You NEVER get the feeling that the stars are in a studio and some African footage has been spliced in behind them.

The adventure builds to an exciting and believable climax, so you won't be disappointed. I think this may be the best such safari-trek movie ever.

As other reviewers have noted, the HBO Marlowe series consists of two different sequences. Shows 1-5 have great music, and a fine supporting cast as well as some novel plots. "The King is Yellow" is perhaps the best. Boothe is an excellent Marlowe and the period cars and sets are top notch.

The second sequence, shows 6-11 lack the music and some of the production values present in the earlier episodes. Too bad. But the scripts and Boothe are still good.

All 11 shows are now out as a 3-DVD boxed set for $20-$30 bucks from Gold Hill Entertainment. Video quality on the first 5 is not up to snuff, but this set is still worth having just to see Powers Boothe as Marlowe.