Ostensibly a sequel to Where Vultures Fly this doesn't feel like one, despite the same star, director, continent, and producer. It feels different in tone - the first time was a family story about saving animals in a park, this one is about looking after black Africans who are being lured into ivory trafficking.
Anthony Steel is back but it's less pleasant to see him worrying about humans than animals especially when he expresses concern like they're animals - he doesn't like them being tempted by big city ways.
Ealing were full of lefties, Harry Watt was a socialist - so there are monologues from a black African how blacks get blamed for things and the whites made it hard, and also a monologue from an Indian lawyer about how he's treated like a piece of shit. These are effective and good on a British movie for including them in the script but... they're kind of undercut by the fact that the Indian is shown to be the head baddy, and he does tempt the black people and the blacks rise up to liberate themselves from the Arabs, and the black does what Steel says.
They just should've cut the wisdom out of it, it only makes the film seem more racist because the filmmakers are conscious of it. And when Steel goes "I'm a proud East African" it seems silly. I mean maybe if there had been a good Indian and a bad white, just to even it out...
It doesn't help that Steel's wife, here played by Sheila Sims, is such a racist whiner - she loathes the Indian, and whinges the blacks don't appreciate what they do.
It feels strange that park ranger Steel is going on this mission to bust ivory traffickers. Really they should have made this a prequel and dropped the wife and kid - they serve no function in the story (why not have them threatened?). It could've been how he met his wife, before he was a park ranger or something.
On the sunnyside there is some spectacular colour photography of Africa - the hippos, and coastlines and boats. Steel's bland doggedness suits this sort of role. Sims isn't very good but the other support cast is strong.
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