Runtime: 103 minutes
Directed by: Compton Bennett/Andrew Marton
Starring: Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Richard Carlson, Hugo Haas, Kimursi, Siriaque
From: MGM
A movie for Mom. That’s as in my late mother, who passed away on July 25, 2020. I don’t even know how many hundreds of users have followed me since that date, so I’ll be brief: she was sick for all of 2020 due to an illness I won’t mention, except that it was NOT COVID; there wasn’t a worse time for such an illness than a pandemic that hadn’t occurred in a century. That anniversary was why I didn’t see anything on Tuesday; those were bad memories of what she went through the last months of her life.
This version of King Solomon’s Mines was a favorite of hers; more than once I caught her viewing it on TCM. I wish I could give specific answers as to why she had so much love. From presumption and what else she loved (like the Errol Flynn The Adventures of Robin Hood), it must be because it was a fun rousing adventure in a location that can be exotic, with romance that augments all the thrills. It was watched on YouTube… I know, but the legal streams are all in SD for some reason while that YouTube user uploaded the Blu rip from that disc that Warner Archive produced—it’s a Technicolor adventure set & filmed in Africa, so an HD experience seemed obvious to me.
There are some aspects that won’t sit well with a few. The opening features an elephant hunted for sport; if it makes anyone feel better, after this point animals are only killed for food or a lifesaving measure. There’s the whole colonization aspect, not just in the 1897 setting but still in 1950 the governments of “Tanganyika, Uganda Protectorate, Kenya Colony and Protectorate, and Belgian Congo” were thanked. It wasn’t until a decade later that we got the countries of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Much to my relief, women (chiefly, Deborah Kerr’s character) wasn’t a negative stereotype and neither were any of the African tribes on display.
It's not a complex plot: Kerr and her brother pay Allan Quatermain-who has led safaris for 15 years, which would explain why he had a hell of a tan-a LOT of cash as her brother went on a foolhardy adventure to try and find the titular mines, purportedly a literal treasure trove of diamonds. Like I said, it was a rousing adventure that doesn’t have a revolutionary plot (it was based on the H. Rider Haggard novel from 1885, after all) but that doesn’t matter when it was an entertaining story on a continent with all sorts of exotic sights, unique floral & fauna that could be deadly. I enjoyed the characters and the situations they stumbled into.
While I wish this would have been seen while Mom was still alive so I could ask her a few questions about it, this was still a fun time seeing the sort of adventure they don’t quite make anymore. In case anyone was curious, this far eclipses the goofy 1985 King Solomon’s Mines.
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