Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Richard Thorpe

Writers:

Earl Felton (screenplay)
John Gilling (screenplay)

Release Date:

11 December 1959 (Finland)

Genre:

Adventure

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Robert Taylor	...	Robert Adamson
Anthony Newley	...	Hooky Hook
Anne Aubrey	...	Jane Carlton
Grégoire Aslan	...	Ben Ahmed
Allan Cuthbertson	...	Sexton
Martin Benson	...	Ali
Orlando Martins	...	Chief
Donald Pleasence	...	Captain
John Dimech	...	Pasha
Martin Boddey	...	Gunther
Earl Cameron	...	Witchdoctor
Harry Baird	...	Boraga
Anthony Jacobs	...	Mustaph

Also Known As:

Adamson of Africa

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (f) (re-rating) | Finland:K-16 | West Germany:12 (nf) (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

Warwick Film Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: In one scene in the village, the native men are dancing. The close shots show Pasha happily bobbing to the music, but the far shots show him motionless.

Movie Connections:

Edited from King Solomon's Mines (1950)

Bob's been working on the railroad

Robert Taylor arrives in Africa to survey a route from Mombasa to Lake Victoria for a railroad. Of course British policy against the slave trade has some of the locals up in arms and the fact that Taylor makes it clear his company will not be permitting the transport of slaves makes him a few enemies, chiefly Gregoire Aslan the big honcho among Arab slave traders.

Taylor's got a friend in the enemy camp though. Young John Dimech came over on the boat with Taylor and he's Aslan's son, recently educated in an English prep school where he's taken in some western ideas. He hitches a ride with Taylor, Anthony Newley and Anne Aubrey on the surveying expedition. Aubrey is along to locate her father and fiancé who've disappeared into the interior.

One of the previous reviewers remarked about the good location photography in East Africa that highlights Killers of Kilimanjaro. It's my contention, expressed elsewhere in other reviews that ever since King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen, phony backlot jungles were just not going to do for the movie going public.

The story is not as good as either of those other films, but Killers of Kilimanjaro is good routine action adventure film and the cast give a good account of themselves. Anthony Newley has some funny moments as Taylor's tenderfoot assistant and Allan Cuthbertson for me stands out in the cast as Aubrey's dissolute fiancé.