After Ben Hur proved such a hit, producers fairly fell over themselves in trying to get Charlton Heston to star in big budget historical epics. Over the next decade he took on the Moors, Boxers, Popes, Frisians and (in this one) the Mahdists. It’s ironic that his biggest success came when he took on Apes in the future.
Gordon’s siege at Khartoum was one of Imperial Britain’s favourite stories, all noble sacrifice and unsuccessful last ditch relief expeditions. Of course it ended in defeat, which is presumably why it took so long to be filmed. (But Rorke’s Drift wasn’t dramatised until 1963 and that was a great victory, so there you go. Maybe producers were turned off a siege story with no obvious female interest – even though in the original draft of Zulu there was a bit more of a romance with the reverend’s daughter. Anyway, what am I talking about Zulu for, back to Khartoum.)
It’s a handsome movie which opens with a spectacular battle sequence, the defeat of Hicks. Zulu only showed a glimpse of Isandlhwana but we get a couple of minutes here. It looks terrific with gorgeous costumes and photography and lots of teaming extras dressed in white against a desert back drop.
Apart from students of British Imperial history in Africa, the people who will get most out of this movie would be fans of Charlton Heston. Heston had this odd thing about his acting at times – a sort of stiff arrogance, if that makes sense. (Remember his swaggering and chatting away to Linda Hamilton in Planet of the Apes). And this totally suits Gordon, who seems to have been this odd combination of visionary, fighting man, honourable politician and Christian nutter.
I found Laurence Olivier a little odd as the Mahdi, but can understand why he was cast. (There was no black Africa with his marquee value – it’s kind of a shame, since it was a terrific role for a black actor to have. Imagine Paul Robeson!).
Heston wrote in his diaries that the script was the best he had ever read, and one of the only ones that didn’t need work on it before going into production. It’s certainly intelligent work, with history skilfully “telescoped” – the clash between Stewart and Gordon was fictional, but works in the movie because someone’s got to stick it to Gordon; ditto the meetings between Gordon and the Mahdi. (George MacDonald Fraser argued this didn’t involve the distortion of history of, say, Elizabeth I meeting Mary Queen of Scots because Gordon and the Mahdi corresponded during the siege). I don’t think it’s that awesome, though. Maybe Heston was swept up in enthusiasm for the work of Robert Ardrey, who held a bit of cache in Hollywood with his dual anthropological career.
The conflict is necessarily simplified, though in favour of Gordon who in real life dithered a bit more – Gordon turns up, the Mahdi says he intends to kill everyone, Gordon wants to take all the Egyptians out of there. The film bogs down around the middle mark – it all becomes about Johnson running off to London to get help then coming back again, and then leaving again… and can’t come up with anything for Gordon to do in Khartoum apart from some chats with Johnny Sekka’s comic servant. Why not invent a love interest? Gordon is far too passive.
As even Heston himself pointed out, the film isn’t particularly well directed. It’s not badly directed - Basil Dearden does a competent job - but the terrific possibilities inherent in a siege story – getting weaker, cut off, surrounded by hostile forces… these are missed. It’s all too tranquil in Khartoum; none of the Egyptians or Sudanese who live there are given any personality. (The only scene of real excitement is when Stewart’s boat is ambushed.)
Occasionally there are some allusions to Lawrence of Arabia – scenes of Gordon travelling across the desert with his servant, Gordon having to execute a friend – but Dearden is no Lean.
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