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King Solomon's Mines (1950)
In directors Compton Bennett's and Andrew Marton's
and MGM's big-budget, melodramatic Technicolored 'safari' romantic-adventure
film into uncharted territory - a third version of H. Rider Haggard's
1885 "novel of love and intrigue in the perilous jungles of
the Dark Continent" - "Actually Filmed in the Savage Heart
of Equatorial Africa!":
[Note: There were two earlier versions: King Solomon's
Mines (1919), and director Robert Stevenson's King Solomon's
Mines (1937, UK) starring Cedric Hardwicke, followed by two other
lesser versions: director J. Lee Thompson's King Solomon's Mines
(1985) (with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone), and a two-part
TV movie/mini-series: King Solomon's Mines (2004) (with Patrick
Swayze and Alison Doody)]:
- the trailer promised: "Sacred Dance of the
Giant Watussi! Mad Charge of the Rogue Elephants! Flight Across
the Burning Sands! Mystery of the Deserted Village! Grotesque Caverns
of the King's Mines! Battle Canoes of the Fighting Masai! Actual
Death Fight of the Pagan Kings! The Spectacular Wild Animal Stampede!"
- the disturbing opening scene of the sport-hunting
slaughter of a wild African elephant (and the death of an African
native porter), by a safari led by disenchanted adventurer-hunter-guide
Allan Quartermain (Stewart Granger)
- the late 1800s mission of the arrogant Quartermain
who was hired (for a large upfront payment of 5,000 pounds) by prim,
determined, red-haired and possibly-widowed Elizabeth Curtis (Deborah
Kerr) and her brother Captain John Goode (Richard Carlson) to search
for Elizabeth's husband who disappeared in the African wilds while
he was searching for the fabled 'King Solomon's Mines' diamond treasure
- the wisdom of Allan Quartermain as he walked along
a jungle path: ("They're no souls in the jungle, sad little
justice and no ethics. In the end you begin to accept it all. You
watch things hunting and being hunted, reproducing, killing and dying,
it's all endless and pointless, except in the end one small pattern
emerges from it all, the only certainty: one is born, one lives for
a time and then one dies, that's all")
- the sudden dangers - Elizabeth's tent being attacked
at night by a spotted leopard (because she left her tent flaps open),
her encounters with snakes, and her crossing of swampy water and
finding herself stepping on top of a deadly crocodile
- the stampede of zebras and giraffes and other wild
animals across the plains set off by a bush fire
- the realistic footage of the Watussi dance of African
natives
- the first shocking discovery of evidence of Elizabeth's
explorer husband who had been searching for the legendary, dazzling
diamond mines - and then the finding of the jewels near her husband's
skeletal bones in a mountain cave (the multi-colored dazzling diamond
treasure was briefly glimpsed, although left behind when the group
became trapped by a large boulder cave-in caused by an evil native
king’s advisor Gagool (Sekaryongo), and the explorers were
forced to escape through a watery passage)
- the 'duel to the death' between tall mysterious native,
dethroned Umbopa (Siriaque) (with a snake tattoo on his stomach)
and the evil King Twala (Baziga), to decide who would rule as the
rightful King of the Watussi tribe, ending with a spear thrown by
Umbopa into Twala's chest to kill him
- the romance that developed between prim but passionate
Elizabeth and cynical Allan, who walked off arm in arm at film's
end
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Safari - Killing of Elephant
(l to r): Elizabeth, John, and Allan Quartermain
Romance Between Allan and Elizabeth
Stepping on a Deadly Crocodile
Watussi African Natives
The Mine's Multi-Colored Treasure
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