The novels of Wilbur Smith have plenty of action, romance, sex, adventure and historical interest, but they often have a South African background, so have been problematic for film producers since the 1960s.
This was presumably thought safe because its set in World War I Zanzibar, and is a cross between Donovan's Reef and The African Queen: Roger Moore and Lee Marvin squabble and bicker as partners in Africa who poach ivory and one up a local German commander. Moore has an affair with Marvin's daughter, Barbara Perkins (beautiful but a bit too old - I felt someone that hot would have gotten married beforehand), then war comes and they team up to sink a German ship.
Smith's original novel was tricky in that it started as a comic romp but then half way through the Germans kill the baby belonging to the lead couple then it gets dark, and all the leads died at the end. They keep the baby killing here (an extremely harrowing sequence) but Moore and Perkins are allowed to live.
Roger Moore is very good - he's perfectly cast, does action and handles the serious stuff too. Marvin does his Marvin thing - he's a charismatic actor and the two are a good odd couple. The material isn't the strongest - the story is kind of all over the place, consisting of sequences rather than a coherent tale (i.e. this is where they meet sequence, this is a raid sequence, this is an aeroplane sequence).
It goes for over two hours, and sorry to be PC but sometimes is a bit racist: the black African characters are just background figures, porters, servants or slave victims; the only time they do much is when soldiers who are depicted as grinning savages kill Perkins baby by tossing it into the fire (I'm not saying such things would never happen but they don't have any decent non savage African characters in this movie, or even someone with three dimensions); also Moore blacks it up for the final attack.
Still there is plenty of action and production value; the final attack on the ship is genuinely exciting; the locations are terrific.
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