An odd sort of movie, populated by mavericks: directed by John Huston, produced by Darryl F Zanuck, co-written by Patrick Leigh Fremor, starring Errol Flynn (top billed) and Orson Welles. You can almost smell the cigars, whiskey and women that must have been consumed during its making. The topic is not the most obviously commercial and very ahead of its time: Trevor Howard is a staunch elephant conservationist, to such a degree that after a period looking silly trying to get people to sign petitions he takes up arms. This makes it fascinating: the first film about an eco terrorist? It also doesn’t hurt that the film is set in a French African colony as opposed to the usual British ones. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to recommend about the movie.
Howard isn’t quite right in the lead role – but could anyone make it work? Maybe the problem is he’s a bit too glum, brusque and no-nonsense British rather than messianic. (I did get used to him after a while). Juliet Greco is better as the shady waitress who falls under his spell (she’s often changing clothes). The film is part of a sub-genre known as “Zanuck’s girlfriend” – a series of films made by the legendary producer where his woman of the moment was shunted into a role: The Racers, The Egyptian, this one, Crack in the Mirror, The Big Gamble, The Longest Day, Hello Goodbye. But Greco pulls her weight in this one.
Even better than Greco is Errol Flynn, who plays a drunk, the second in his “drunk trilogy” – I can’t imagine it was a hard role for him to play, but he’s very effective regardless. His battered, sad face tells a lifetime of regret and lost opportunity – you wish his part was bigger (despite top billing he’s not on screen for very long and dies 30 minutes before the end). Maybe if Errol had played the lead this would have been a better film.
Structurally the film would have been better of starting with Howard as an eco terrorist rather than having him try to get people sign a petition for the first 25 minutes – it just makes him look silly. And once Howard takes to the hills and is joined by Greco and Flynn the action gets bogged down. Howard doesn’t seem to have much of an idea about what to do. He does a bit of dour Robin Hood stuff – he busts into a ritzy colonial dance (trusty Herbert Lom is on hand as a colonial official) and has a female hunter spanked (bit of misogyny coming through there)… but after that seems to just trudge around the scrub. The Colonial government want to stop him but they don’t want him dead, which makes it unexciting. Then he has a falling out with a black African nationalist who is part o the group – the nationalist and his men then capture and kill some of Howard’s group – then lets him go. Then Greco gets sick so Howard goes to hand her in – and the government accept her, then Howard takes off into the desert. Big deal! They needed to have people wanting Howard dead.
Some effective bits such as Eddie Albert’s initial appearance (his plane crashes, he hops out and starts taking photos) and Errol’s jumping beans, and the location African photography is fascinating. But it’s a damp squib.
Sometimes it’s false too – I didn’t believe Albert flinging away his camera at the end, and the depiction of the African nationalist isn’t very nice – he ends up betraying Howard, he’s always shown in scenes being browbeaten by whites (some guy with a moustache, Albert), his followers are morons.
A beautifully shot mess.
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