The Worst Film Ever

Really Surprised!

A lot of fun.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This remarkably silly, hackneyed adventure movie takes hilarious liberties with its source material, an uplifting account of two nuns' mission to bring modern medicine to the Congo. By the time it reached the screen, it had Susan Hayward as a headstrong young nurse, and Bob Mitchum as a treasure-hunter escorting her through Bakuba country. The script is unbelievably clunky, with Mitchum having to translate all the Congolese dialects into English for Hayward! Haha, how rubbish! Fans of Walter Slezak won't be surprised to find him playing a slimy, greedy, reptilian, overweight villain, albeit this time in a safari suit.Hathaway mixes hard-won documentary-style footage with alarmingly transparent studio crap as Hayward wins over natives with her "big magic" (I'm going to ask my GP for some "big magic" the next time I see him) and Mitchum acts like an insensitive oaf over her dead husband, just because she won't immediately sleep with him. Needless to say, they can't recreate the magic of their only other teaming: the previous year's 'The Lusty Men'. In fact, this is more like a dry run for Hathaway's confusing, über-dreadful, greed-is-bad yawnfest 'Garden of Evil'. There's the odd concession to classy entertainment – a few spectacular location shots and a nice tour of a makeshift hospital, seen through a dozen veils – but that's about all. The set-up is laboured, the situations as artificial as the environment, the resolution laboured and rushed. The film's calling cards and its wildcards are wasted with startling profligacy. Cult character actor Timothy Carey has about a minute's screen-time. Even the mighty Mitchum is lacklustre, injecting just a few moments of the requisite cynicism before going back to counting the zeroes on his cheque. For Mitchum completists (like me) only.(1.5 out of 4)

I voted for the magnificent scenery, as the entire movie was filmed on location in Africa with Robert Mitchum and Susan Hayward. The film script was based on facts; witch doctors and leopard men are still functioning in various parts of Africa. According to some experts and anthropologists, the witch doctors in Kenya and Tanzania have a profound effect on locals and they can cast spells and even cause death to other people.This Superbly photographed film was directed by the veteran director Henry Hathaway. This is one of the last films by Susan Hayward before she died of cancer. Robert Mitchum shines as an animal trapper and hunter (better than his role in RAMPAGE). It is worth watching if it ever appear on DVD format.

Lonni Douglas (Robert Mitchum) is a trapper working in Africa around the turn of the 20th Century. He captures large, exotic animals that he then sells to zoos around the world. His partner, Huysman (Walter Slezak), who is more the type to stay in the "office" and supervise, has an ulterior motive--he believes there is gold in "them thar" hills. So Douglas has been searching for the gold for years. There is only one place left to look--a remote area far up the Congo, inhabited by a tribe hostile to white men. When nurse Ellen Burton (Susan Hayward) arrives as an assistant for a doctor in a village neighboring the remote one, however, Huysman sees it as the perfect opportunity, with a benevolent "false front" presented to the tribes-people, for Douglas to take her up the Congo and search for the source of the gold.Based on a novel by Louise A. Stinetorf, director Henry Hathaway and screenwriters Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts created a genre-spanning feast for the eyes, ears and mind in White Witch Doctor. The film combines adventure, suspense, romance, drama, intentional and unintentional humor, and an almost documentary-like travelogue through Africa.The Technicolor cinematography is fantastic, and a great choice as we are treated to various African cultures in traditional dress, occasionally performing traditional dances and other ceremonies, throughout the film. I don't know a lot of background information on the film, but I would bet that some shots were filmed as documentary material in Africa. Possibly, some was stock footage.But the heart of the film is Douglas, his relationship to Burton, and an often subtle, mostly subtextual commentary on a clash of cultures, which was far ahead of its time. Both Mitchum an Hayward are fabulous, with Mitchum occasionally approaching an enjoyable camp in his macho swagger and Hayward, in the context of the film and its characters, showing an also ahead-of-its-time underlying strength, intelligence and independence beneath her more stereotypical initial appearance as a beautiful but dependent woman. The script has an effective combination of serious drama with the difficulties of dealing with different cultures as well as a light playfulness.This is a little-known gem of a film that deserves a serious first or second look. A 10 out of 10 from me.

I rather enjoyed this film even though it was a little slow in some places. The cinematography alone should have garnered an Oscar nomination (if it didn't) as the settings in Africa were brilliantly and beautifully photographed. The story revolves around a nurse played by Hayward who goes to Africa to assist a woman doctor in taking care of the sick people there. Susan Hayward plays the nurse and upon arrival meets a businessman played by Robert Mitchum. He thinks she's crazy for staying and she's definitely going to stay! Hayward's and Mitchum's lives become endangered when someone decides to make greed the name of the game. Definitely worth watching and sorry it is not available on video.