Arenas de Kalahari

... it's been haunting my memory for years.

All I can really remember (I'm 37, I must've seen it when I was 15) is a feeling of the vastness of the desert, the apparent futility of their situation, and an ending that I couldn't ever forget.

I couldn't remember the name, so I did a search in IMDb's 'Plot' category for 'baboons'. And up it came - good old IMDb! How I'd love to see this again, but I guess it'll never end up on DVD, and I'll be lucky to spot it on TV (even here in the UK, where there are dozens of movie channels).

Review: tough, after all this time, but this film - I think - started me off on a lifelong quest for films that DO NOT COP OUT AT THE END. My God, these films are so much more memorable than the rest. If memory serves, the final images in Sands Of The Kalahari are utterly chilling. Top marks to the team behind it. Fingers crossed I get to see it again one day. For impact, I'd put the ending up there with The Vanishing (1988), The Wicker Man and Runaway Train. I think ... hope my memory's not playing tricks on me!

I'm really gratified to find so many other reviewers having good memories of Sands of the Kalahari and feeling as put out as I do that it is not on VHS or DVD. Nor apparently has it been seen in America at least for some time.

This is a tale of survival, but the characters sure don't come out of Swiss Family Robinson. A small plane crashes in the Kalahari desert in South Africa. One woman, Susannah York, and five men. Only one of them Stuart Whitman who is a big game hunter is really trained for the business of survival. The others are products of the ease and comfort of civilization. One of them, Stanley Baker, is badly injured and needs constant nursing by York.

There's a colony of baboons nearby and Whitman starts identifying with them in every sense of the world. He turns on the others, eliminating them one by one except York who he decides will be his savage Eve to his savage Adam.

The injured Baker gradually heals and in the end proves to be the savior for York. I'm not going to say any more, but hopefully TCM or AMC will run this film at some point for American audiences.

Susannah York is beautiful and talented and goes through a gamut of emotions regarding Whitman and their predicament. Stanley Baker is a favorite of mine among British players, he never gave a bad performance in any film I ever saw him in. But the real treat is Whitman. His devolution of character out in that desert was Oscar caliber material and why he wasn't nominated in 1965 is a mystery.

If some American movie channel gets a hold of this film, do not miss it.

Running virtually parallel with "Flight of the Phoenix", "Sands of the Kalahari" rates ahead by a propeller in my opinion thanks mainly to the superb ensemble cast ably led by Stuart Whitman and Stanley Baker. The plot is uncomplicated concerning the survivors of a plane crash deep in the isolated Kalahari who must survive the ravages of the desert, its occupants, and themselves.

Davenport is a particularly nasty thug, the ubiquitous 'Mr Negativity' of a crisis situation, York desperately trying to deflect unwanted attentions, and Bikel offers the calming influence as the man who might be capable of engineering an improbable escape. Not too sure whether it's Whitman or Baker's picture per se, nevertheless, neither seems overshadowed despite Baker's producer credit and regular helmsman Cy Raker Endfield in the director's seat.

Searing heat and parched throats translates to the viewer, it's often tense despite the two hour run-time, and Endfield builds modest suspense out of limited material. Worth a look if you're intrigued by the "stranded" stories watching various personalities disintegrate, or galvanise, under survival stress.

Sands of the Kalahari is directed by Cy Endfield who also adapts the screenplay from the novel of the same name written by William Mulvihill. It stars Stuart Whitman, Stanley Baker, Susannah York, Harry Andrews, Theodore Bikel and Nigel Davenport. Music is by John Dankworth and cinematography by Erwin Hillier.

A raw survivalist thriller that finds a disparate group of people crash land in the deserts of Africa and promptly start to come apart as a group. Cue arguments, attempted rape, killings, animal slaughter, alpha male posturing and Adam and Eve complexes. The allegory is obvious but handled with skill by Endfield, and it all builds with great intensity towards a truly bleak, yet delightfully ambiguous finale. There's some over acting going on and the dialogue can stretch credibility at times, but yes this is a worthy entry in the survivalist hall of fame. 7/10

What a great flick. It's hard to believe that it never received the recognition it fully deserved. Acting is first-rate, the scenery magnificent and the plot hooked you in immediately. The ULTIMATE survival movie!

Stuart Whitman played his role as ultimate survivor to the hilt in probably the most effective role ever in his career.

I would hope that some day Paramount comes to it's senses and releases this on DVD. All fans of this movie should in fact demand no less- let's start lobbying Paramount. Until then, it is an all too rarely seen item on cable movie channels like A&E or AMC.