King Solomon's Mines (1950)

. . . did not start in the 21st Century. KING SOLOMON'S MINES, a 1950 flick, documents that the Watusi Clique was resolving such disputes at least as early as the 1800s through their gyrations on the dance floor. While the two contestants making up the final pairing here may be wielding some sort of flimsy ceremonial "spears" not unlike the artifacts used during the Olympic "sport" of rhythmic gymnastics, the only implied scoring move apparently came out so lame in every "take" that it was cut from the final print of this film for being too trivial of a detail to include. Overall, the choreography of KING SOLOMON'S MINES leaves a lot of room for improvement. Featuring repetitious drumming, drab and hot-looking bulky costumes, as well as stiff almost geriatric "moves," these period movers and shakers would not make it out of the preliminary round of any present-day competition. However, since KING SOLOMON'S MINES also features the very real-looking extermination of many of Today's endangered or extinct critters of Africa (where this flick was shot), it's liable to hold a lot of historical interest for Wildlife lovers.

This is a run-of-the-mill Hollywood production where the emphasis is on the colourful trip to inner Africa. The most interesting parts are clearly the tribes choreographies and the safari shots, which makes King Solomon's Mines OK as family entertainment, but makes the movie dull on the action side.With the difficulty to shoot on location most of the scenes it was a real challenge to do better than this flat continuity of talky scenes interspersed with beautiful shots of the African wildlife and local people. The story results quite boring: being a family movie it can't stem away from its clean line and thus you are only waiting for the prize in the title to materialise. And even then it is far from climactic since most of the movie has long before been let to tell a African story of its own.

The setting: East Africa, 1897. Macho safari guide and hunter Alan Quatermain (Stewart Granger), offered a generous down payment of five thousand pounds, reluctantly decides to assist Elizabeth Curtis (Deborah Kerr) in finding her missing husband. But Quatermain is not confident that a woman can undertake what will be a perilous journey into the interior. Mr. Curtis had left his home several years earlier in order to find King Solomon's diamond mines in darkest (uncharted) Africa. Why Mrs. Curtis wants to find him is that she takes on some responsibility because of her less-than-decent treatment of him. She tells Quatermain that she is independently wealthy, unlike her husband, and that she still loves him (!). She even has a hand-drawn map of Curtis' trek. Yet these types of movies, where the wife is trying to find her long-lost beau, send a signal that you just know the missing dude isn't going to be worth it. So the movie develops into a love story between the two leads. Accompanying the two is Mrs. Curtis' loyal brother John (Richard Carlson). A key player is seven-foot tall and lean Umbopa (Siriaque) of the Watusi tribe. After fifty minutes of the movie have passed, he joins the expedition out of nowhere. Unassuming for most of the film's remainder, he has a significant moment at the end. By the way, the indigenous cultures are treated with deference, and the natives get significant screen time.We see many wonderful wild animals, including elephants, rhinos, lions, and leopards. But the expedition is fraught with all kinds of difficult situations: dangerous snakes (black Mamba, cobra, and others), an unfriendly native tribe, and a massive stampede of zebras, giraffes and gazelles. Then there are unpredictable bearers who later desert, stealing much of the supplies. Despite the setting of the story, it is nice to see that our hero Quatermain shuns the indiscriminate shooting of animals. Africa is a beautiful place, but one has to be tough to live there. After learning about the fate of Curtis, our heroes are trapped in a cave-mine without food. At the denouement there is an exciting three-minute duel between two men: a usurper of the tribal throne and the legitimate king. This clash really is not much different than that of a USA western setting with two dudes fighting it out, one good and one bad. If the bad guy wins, then it will be an undesirable ending for the few survivors of the expedition.This movie is an enjoyable adventure story with tense situations, and is nicely edited and acted throughout. Although Deborah Kerr is often frightened and has nightmares, remember that she is supposed to be proper and unsuspecting of a safari's hardships. The photography is magnificent! On-location shooting is always a plus, even if supplemented by such places as California and New Mexico. But there is no stock footage in this feature! Yes, Africa is the real star. In its day the film must have been a real eye-opener.

King Solomon's Mines (1950 MGM) starring Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr is the greatest movie about modern day Africa ever filmed, even though it was set in 1898.It shows the grandeur and perfect culture (and satisfaction) of the local natives....it is not about politics or social revolution, to it's credit.This movie is about how beautiful, how perfect Africa at the Equator level, but elevated to heights which make it comfortable ("It's like England," states Deborah Kerr!), and about the fact that Africa is where all civilization and human origins occurred.It is still the perfect place to live, and this movie shows that.Hooray! The story is a dumb Hollywood version of much more intelligent (but discarded) version of the story written by H. Rider Haggard.Too expensive to film the Haggard story, so Hollywood in 1950 made a love story out of it, and who cares? The movie still came out perfect, perfect, perfect, and people should see it and reverence it.Hollywood does the best it can with modest resources, especially mental and intellectual resources.This movie turned out good.I loved it. Screen it often. You should also.------- Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Com and choose "Tex Allen" "resume" for contact information, movie credits, and biographical information about Tex Allen. He has reviewed more than 42 movies posted on WWW.IMDb.Com (the world's largest movie information database, owned by Amazon.Com) as of January 2011. These include: 1. Alfie (1966) 29 July 2009 2. Alien (1979) 24 July 2009 3. All the Loving Couples (1969) 17 January 2011 4. All the President's Men (1976) 16 November 2010 5. American Graffiti (1973) 22 November 2010 6. Animal House (1978) 16 August 2009 7. Bullitt (1968) 23 July 2009 8. Captain Kidd (1945) 28 July 2009 9. Child Bride (1938) 24 September 2009 10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 22 September 2010 11. Destination Moon (1950) 17 January 2011 12. Detour (1945) 19 November 2010 13. Die Hard 2 (1990) 23 December 2010 14. The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) 19 November 2010 15. Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) 26 July 2009 16. King Solomon's Mines (1950) 1 December 2010 17. Knute Rockne All American (1940) 2 November 2010 18. Claire's Knee (1970) 15 August 2009 19. Melody Ranch (1940) 10 November 2010 20. Morning Glory (1933) 19 November 2010 21. Mush and Milk (1933) 17 January 2011 22. New Moon (1940) 3 November 2010 23. Pinocchio (1940) 6 November 2010 24. R2PC: Road to Park City (2000) 19 November 2010 25. Salt (2010) 24 August 2010 26. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) 21 January 2011 27. Sunset Blvd. (1950) 1 December 2010 28. The Forgotten Village (1941) 21 January 2011 29. The Great Dictator (1940) 1 November 2010 30. The King's Speech (2010) 19 January 2011 31. The Last Emperor (1987) 20 January 2011 32. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) 9 January 2011 Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen. Tex Allen's email address is [email protected] Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments" (paste this address into your URL Browser)