Dark of the Sun (1968)

Dark Of The Sun is one superior action film showing the difficulties of the African liberation period of the 50s and 60s. A whole continent of nations gained their independence from European powers no longer able to govern. In many places the struggle goes on with different players and different issues. No place was more bloody than the Congo now renamed as the Republic of Zaire.The mineral riches of Africa however are still controlled by the west and nobody wants to lose their investment. Rod Taylor and Jim Brown are a couple of mercenary soldiers who are asked by diamond merchants to retrieve a cache of diamonds from a small town and by the way rescue the people there if you can.The conflict of Taylor and Brown and their motivations are what sets the story going. Taylor is strictly for hire on a cash basis. Brown likes money, but he's from Africa, got a scholarship for an education in the USA and wants to see democracy and stability in his country. They like, but don't quite get the other.Into the mix comes Peter Karsten a former Nazi who proudly wears a swastika necklace that Taylor orders him to can. He's absorbed all the values of the country he formerly served.All of them have to face the rebels who are a bloodthirsty lot. Of all the places that was exploited the former Belgian Congo was far and away the worst. A lot of rage is fueling these people as you'll see in this film.Yvette Mimieux is one of the rescued people and she ignites a lot of sexual tension between all three men. There's also a nice performance from Kenneth More who is an alcoholic doctor in the John Ford tradition.Something Jack Cardiff picked up no doubt from Ford when he took over direction of Young Cassidy. The whole espirit de corps notions among the mercenaries is pure Ford and Taylor's breach of that is also dealt with in the film. What the breach is I won't say, but Taylor had just provocation.Dark Of The Sun holds up well as a portrait of Africa in turmoil in the Sixties. As for the diamond connection, that's still alive and thriving as a viewing of Leonardo DiCaprio's Blood Diamond will show.In fact they really ought to be viewed back to back. Was Jim Brown a bit too optimistic?

Civil war in the Congo is the backdrop for this great adventure flick. Curry(Rod Taylor) is a soldier for hire. Along with his sidekick Ruffo(Jim Brown) they assemble an army to bring a small group of people as well as 50 million in diamonds to safety in only three days. Along with them is Henlein(Perter Carsten) and 40 of his men. After an attack from a U.N. plane they pick up Clair(Yvette Mimieux). Her husband? was killed and she barely escapes with her life. Later adventures involve a chainsaw fight as well as a tense period, while waiting for a safe to open. Simbas attack them and the diamonds as well as rescued people are lost. Curry and Ruffo devise a plan to recover the diamonds which works out. After the diamonds are recovered, Curry goes on a mission to get fuel. While he is away, Henlein kills Ruffo. Curry returns, hunts down Henlein and kills him. After some reflection, he submits to a future court martial proceeding at which time the movie ends.The plot is a straightforward one. If you liked the Dirty Dozen or Von Ryan's Express then this one is for you. What makes this film so great is the intense,brutal action and the characters involved. Rod Taylor doesn't just act his role, he attacks it with flair and style. He is a very capable leading man and he shows it here. He portrays Curry as tough, witty, sometimes brutal, but sometimes humane.Jim Brown plays Ruffo, and while Brown is no great actor, his presence alone fills the screen. Ruffo may be the only true good man in the movie. He doesn't do it for the money but for pride in his country.The polar opposite of Ruffo is Henlein. A former Nazi, he is inhumane. He kills two children(off screen thankfully). He also tries to kill Curry and does kill Ruffo before Curry gives him what he deserves. Peter Carsten plays him to the hilt and the fact that you hate Henlein so much is a testament to Carsten's ability.My only real criticism of the film is Clair. Let me preface all of this by saying that I think Yvette Mimieux is a good actress and awesome to look at but Clair isn't given enough to do. She has a very good scene at a small field hospital where she stands up to Curry and a drunken doctor when a woman needs medical care, but there isn't enough of that type of dialogue for her. She seems relegated to the background for most of the movie. Still, she's a real beauty and I love gazing at her hotness.Lots of other actors make this movie great and I really recommend it. It's gory and brutal but not gratuitously so. The violence is what we'd expect in a civil uprising. To me, it should be considered up there with the best films of the genre.

The movie was well cast with tough Australian born Rod Taylor as the mercenary Captain Curry. Dressed appropriately in his Congo Auxiliary forces uniform right down to the rolex watch so common to special forces personnel in (at that time-late 60's) the Vietnam era. The action is good but sporadic. The conflict over the mission, what each character represented, and the ending are too diverse. The distractions with respect to asides within the movie were not necessary and made the film longer than necessary. The movie would have been better if they did not change the ending used in the Wilbur Smith novel. In the novel (as I recall) Capt. Curry and the the girl (Claire) went to live in Paris with some of the diamonds they recovered.

Take one part Von Ryan's Express, one part Wild Geese, one part The Road Warrior, and one part Dogs Of War and you get a kick butt flick called Dark Of The Sun! I'm at my job and to my great fortune I tuned to TCM Europe and caught this in its entirety, I was pretty blown away. I can just imagine the response the movie going public of 1968 America had, with race riots and MLK Jr's assassination and all, they probably really hated it. The movie depicts what I thought I was going to see in "Guns at Batasi", Africans revolting violently against unarmed Euro White civilians in the heart of Africa. They definitely do not to my knowledge (unless possibly a South African movie), make many movies that show the scenes that this movie presents. White on Black hate, yes those are made, but not the other way around. I was not all that interested in this at first but it definitely got a whole lot better when they get the diamonds, I got off my far away seat and got real close to the TV, the scenes were just totally unexpected. I thought they were going to get away, ala a 1950's Clark Gable/John Wayne adventure (which are great also), but when I saw that caboose get separated and then it started rolling backwards I said, now thats something to watch! It's totally Wild Geese doomsday mission from that point on, except its a a hell of a lot bloodier. BTW, those are my favorite action movies, where all hell breaks loose and the "good guys" take a lot of casualties, much more edge of your seat that way! The only thing that I guess kept this from a restricted rating was at the time they didn't have one yet, this movie may have been a mover to placing ratings on movies because they came out shortly afterward, I mean it's that action and graphic packed. The ending is overlong with it's morality play but it's worth watching just for the town scene when the mission starts to go horribly wrong. Here's a spoiler, a white Afrikaner merc gets captured by the horde and is bent over a pool table without his pants, ummm if thats not hardcore I don't know what is (well, the white nun being raped was right up there also, and the white guy being doused with gasoline while being dragged from a motorcycle was also really brutal). I thought about The Road Warrior when I saw that part of the movie, it was probably inspired by this great unknown action flick, that was probably a little close to the truth on stuff that happened during the Congo's history. 9 of 10 very entertaining for action film viewers.