The Seekers

Thanks to the UK Talking Pictures Channel I watched this early bit of film absurdity from 1954's Pinewood Studios. Jack Hawkins is miscast and Glynis Johns is utterly wasted in the ' wife ' role. I am also bemused by the certification. On the BBFC site it was given a 15 certificate back in the 1980's, an ' A ' Certificate back on its original release, which is correct as I have looked it up in film magazines of the period. This site gives it a ' U ' certificate which means a person under 16 can see it alone, whereas an ' A ' would have meant accompanied by an adult, and is probably wrong. Apparently it is a non PC film, but it is certainly offensive in having a Maori young woman who does an erotic dance worthy of Brigitte Bardot. This is blatantly a ' Male gaze ' film with all sexist references intact. Kenneth Williams adds hilarity to the film, straining himself to act straight and failing. One sequence is a ' Carry On in New Zealand ' with a violent romp with a semi naked Maori warrior. Its violence was misjudged and badly directed. Despite criticisms which could go on forever it is fun to watch, but I doubt if that was the intention back in 1954. I give it a 4 for Kenneth Williams in a miscast role, but endearing.

There are some nice locations in this film that are captured in strikingly vibrant colour with effective camera movement and angles. It is, however, not a very well written film, with a dull romance, stereotype characters and some unwelcoming ideas about colonisation. The visual side of the film keeps it moderately engaging, with good costumes and sets, and a few extra sparks are added in by Kenneth Williams, in an early pre-Carry On role. It becomes sillier and lamer as the film progresses, and some of the music choices are awfully unfitting, but the film does still have a small share of virtues nevertheless.

In 1821, among the first British sailors to set foot on New Zealand, Phillip Wayne (Jack Hawkins) , a British Naval Officer , along with Paddy Clarke (Noel Purcell) , as they step on New Zeeland's shore and they go into trouble when accidentally walk on sacred Maori burial ground ; Wayne , subsequently , befriends a Maori tribe's chief and falls for his spouse . On his return to England, Wayne's captain asks him to bring ashore a chest full of silk, possibly without being detected by the Customs agents . Then , Phillip accidentally involved in trafficking native shrunken heads that can fetch high prices on the illegal market . Later on, he marries in England to his fiancée Marion Southey (Glynis Johns) . They must continually uproot themselves and migrate New Zealand . As Wayne and his wife return to New Zealand with a small group of followers to settle . There they struggle to take their own farm and wind up fighting against natives .They found the most exotic wilderness that man has ever known ¡Actually filmed in New Zealand ¡. All the strange customs of a forgotten people !

This one deals with a rip-roaring saga of pioneers attempting to forge new frontiers in 19th-Century New Zealand against all odds ; packing adventures , feats , thrills and some creepy scenes about shrunken heads of Maori Warriors . Beautiful , colorfully shot , often moving epic drama about immigrants in New Zealand during XIX Century around a handful of settlers who have to carry out a hard coexistence with the savage,cannibal, warlike Maoríes , and it won't be easy. An uncertain attempt to match the sweep and power of the American Wagon-Train or Covered-Wagon epics set in the Far West , here Maorí people doing the marauding Injuns Indians bit and the English colonists standing-in for the settlers and cowboys . Being a very British and very colonial saga in similar style to ¨Zulu¨ by Cry Endfield , ¨Zulu Dawn¨ by Douglas Hickcock , ¨Untamed¨ by Henry King , ¨The sundowners¨ by Fred Zinnemann ; based on the novel ¨The seekers¨ by John Guthrie and nicely adapted from the book and screenplay by William Fairchild . Well acted by all , as Jack Hawkins gives a decent acting as seaman Phillip Wayne who sets foot on New Zealand where he befriends a Maori tribe , being arrested and condemned for smuggling ; he is well accompanied by Glynis Johns , Noel Purcell , Kenneth Williams and Ian Fleming , not to be confused with the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming.

Special mention for the brilliant Cinematography in shining Technicolor by Geoffrey Unsworth , shot on location in New Zealand , Whakatane, Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand and Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK . Atmospheric and evocative score from William Alwyn and musical conductor by usual Muir Matheson . This motion picture titled ¨The seekers¨ or ¨Land of fury¨ was uneven but professionally directed by Ken Annakin, containing its exciting momnets . Annakin had an amazingly diverse early career, including as a trainee income tax inspector in Hull during the Depression. His feature debut, Holiday Camp (1947), was a comedy about a Cockney family on vacation. It was made for the Rank Organization and was a modest success, spawning three sequels, all of which he directed. He worked steadily thereafter, mainly in light comedies. One of his more atypical films was the dark thriller Across the bridge (1957) starred by Rod Steiger , based on a Graham Greene story about a wealthy businessman who embezzles a million dollars from his company, kills a man who resembles him and steals his identity so he can escape to Mexico . In the 1960s he specialized in turning out all-star, splashy, big-budget European/American co-productions, shot on the Continent . Ken was an expert on successful Wartime genre and Adventure genre as ¨The new adventures of Pippi Longstockings¨, ¨Pirate movie¨ , ¨Paper tiger¨, ¨The fifth Musketeer¨ , ¨Call of the wild¨, ¨The Swiss family Robinson¨, ¨Land of fury¨, ¨The Sword and the Rose¨, ¨The story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men¨, ¨Cheaper to keep her¨, ¨Third man on the mountain¨ , ¨Those magnificent men in their flying machines ¨, ¨Those daring young men and their jaunty jalopies¨ , ¨The fifth musketeer¨. He was one of the directors of the epic World War II spectacle as ¨The Longest day¨(1962) and went on ¨Battle of the Bulge (1965), both of which were financial--if not exactly critical- successful. His final film was Genghis Khan: The Story of a Lifetime (2010), a film that was started in 1992 under Annakin's direction but never completed. Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable but dated colonial /adventure movie .

This was Ranks effort to keep audiences in cinemas when audiences sat in front of their new tvs.It is a mishmash of a story hampered further by the miscasting of Jack Hawkins and Kenneth Williams.Some good location shots.

I give it an "8" for historical interest as the first colour feature filmed in my country of New Zealand, even though I haven't seen it yet (I have a copy ordered).

This film is available (legally) on DVD in Australia in a two-movie pack with another Jack Hawkins film "The Planter's wife". You can order it from www.ebay.com.au (for only ten Australian dollars!!!). Is also advertised on www.ebay.com in the States from another Australian source.

"The Seekers" is an important film historically in New Zealand where I live, because it's the first colour feature filmed here and one of the handful of international productions before the 1970's explicitly set here and it features several prominent indigenous Maori actors including acclaimed opera singer Inia Te Wiata who went on to perform at Covent Garden in London.

No doubt the comments posted by others above are valid re-the racist colonialist attitudes etc. After all, at the time this film was made, in 1954, the only features made here in New Zealand were directed by foreigners such as the British Annakin. We had to wait until the 1960s before a feature by a New Zealander. And even white New Zealanders in this period shared such colonialist attitudes and saw themselves s carrying white civilization to the "barbarous Pacific." No doubt some humour can be found if, like me, you enjoy marveling at the dated heroic poses often found in these British films made at the fag-end of Empire when Britannia hadn't quite yet waived the rules...At least this production has some Maori cast members- most Hollywood films set in New Zealand of this period use Mexicans or Asians to stand in for the indigenous Maori people (see below).

Other major international productions filmed or set in New Zealand in this period include "Green Dolphin Street" (director Victor Saville, 1947; starring Lana Turner and Van Heflin) about an Englishman thwarted in love who seeks redemption in exile in New Zealand, which won an Oscar for Best Special Effects for its earthquake scenes; "Until They Sail" (director Robert Wise, 1957; starring Paul Newman, Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine, Sandra Dee and Piper Laurie) about GIs romancing New Zealand girls during the war; and "Two Loves" (director Charles Walters, 1961; starring Jack Hawkins again, Shirley MacLaine and Laurence Harvey) in which Shirley Maclaine is an idealistic young American immigrant school teacher amongst the impoverished Maoris battling (and in love with) the cynical Harvey and the set-in-his ways school inspector Hawkins. All the Maori roles seem to be played by Asians or Mexicans. This is also the case on "Green Dolphin Street" where all the Maoris seem to be played by Mexicans (apparently that one was filmed on a Hollywood lot).

A late entrant in the "British films with a New Zealand connection" genre is the entertaining "Mr Forbush and the Penguins" (aka "Cry of the Penguins") 1971 (starring John Hurt and Hayley Mills) based on a New Zealand novel. Esteemed English thespian Joss Ackland wins the all-time award for "worst foreign attempt at a New Zealand accent" in his cameo as a Kiwi official at the High Commission in London (has to be heard to be believed!!!).