This is How Movies Should Be Made

A lot of fun.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

At the time this film was made Gaumont British were really pushing the boat out in an attempt to break the American market.Sadly they failed and became insolvent in the recession of 1938,allowing Rank to buy their assets.The film has a strong cast,not least,Paul Robeson,who had to come to England to get top billing.Whilst the production may look dated now,it was state of the art at the time.Sydney Fairbrothers performance must be the most chilling committed to film.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES is a fairly typical historical adventure flick of the 1930s, this one's a British outing based on the novel of the same name by H. Rider Haggard. It's a well-mounted little movie involving a fated exploration party in deepest, darkest Africa, where the explorers encounter an ancient civilisation and some life-or-death peril. What follows is short and snappy, with lots of larger-than-life characters and a fairly authentic setting.

In reviewing people of color in film in chronological order for Black History Month, we're now in 1937 when once again-like the last two of his I reviewed-Paul Robeson is involved in a movie that takes place in a jungle with several tribal natives. Among them are Robert Adams and Ecco Homo Toto, both of whom previously appeared with Robeson in Song of Freedom. Anyway, the singer/actor is traveling with several Caucasian explorers like Allan Quatermain (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), Kathy O'Brien (Anna Lee), and her father, Patric (Arthur Sinclair). As usual, Robeson provides many compelling moments whenever singing especially when up a mountain that provides echos. Things don't really pick up until the last 30 minutes but if you don't mind some of the exposition that comes before that, you won't be bored. So on that note, this version of King Solomon's Mines is worth a look. P.S. The director is one Robert Stevenson who was married to Ms. Lee at the time and would later provide Walt Disney with some of his most successful live action features of which one of those, Mary Poppins, would get Stevenson his only Oscar nomination.

This is a rousing adventure story that has only a few flaws that keep it from an even higher score--amazingly good for a film that has somehow been allowed to slip into the public domain! The film begins with a really dumb girl (Anna Lee) and her even dumber father (Arthur Sinclair) hitching a ride along with the famous Allan Quartermain (Cedric Hardwicke) as he goes to meet a client. It seems that Quartermain's exploits as a great white hunter are legendary, though he seems a pretty likable guy who really is so unlike the two Irish idiots he happened upon. By the way, I have absolutely nothing against the Irish--it's just that the characters really overdo the 'I'm Irish' bit through the first part of the film.Along the way, they happen upon a dying man and his co-traveler (Paul Robson) and they learn about some sort of treasure of King Solomon's mines. Almost instantly, the father takes off in search of the treasure--even though it's blinking insane to travel through unknown African territory and through deserts to do this---alone!!! And, it turns out his daughter is also an idiot, as soon she steals one of Quartermain's wagons and sets off in search of her father and the treasure. Oddly, Quartermain's client who has hired him for a safari (Roland Young) decides that he and Quartermain should follow her and try to save her from herself. I say they should have just let her die and then celebrated with some pie...but that wouldn't make a very interesting movie, would it?! Eventually, their insanely difficult journey brings them to a strange land where there really is an honest-to-goodness treasure. But, they have to battle the tribesmen AND nature to get the treasure and, hopefully, find the idiots and save them from themselves.Overall, this is a really good African adventures story because the natives really do appear to be Africans, the scenery sure looks like Africa and there is no trace of the usual stock shots of animals from Asia or South America like you'd usually see in the countless low-budget films set in Africa that were the rage from the 1930s-50s. And, the story and acting are quite good, though I was a bit surprised to see Hardwicke as an action-hero--he's got a lovely voice and was a good actor, but 'macho' is not normally a word I'd associate with him! About the only problem with the film is all of Paul Robeson's gratuitous singing. Yes, he has a wonderful voice in the film, but the songs seemed irrelevant to the plot and were simply tossed in because he had a great voice. Also, oddly, his first song sure sounded a lot like a re-working of "Old Man River"--a song he made famous on Broadway and film in "Showboat" (1936).