The British film industry had some success making movies in Australia and East Africa but floundered in South Africa, with this and Diamond City. This is better than that second film but is still disappointing. The location footage is interesting, but it's in black and white and the story is incredibly uninvolving.
It's a version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with various people getting greedy looking for diamonds just after the Second Boer War. There's Boer Jack Hawkins, another younger Boer (Peter Hammond), slimy Dennis Price and shifty Gregoire Aslan.
They stuffed the story - it feels like one character too many (I'm guessing they didn't want Madre's three). If they wanted four really they should have brought along the Siobhan McKenna character - Hawkins' ex who married Price. She would've provided great conflict, with Hammond as the "good guy" and Aslan dumped. But having a woman along was probably too much for these filmmakers.
Hawkins and Price are good. McKenna is wasted. There's some good photography. But the pace is slow and the action slack.
Ugh. So frustrating. If you're going to rip off Sierra Madre just do it. Don't try to make changes that lessen it.
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