La batalla de Khartoum

This film, which I saw in downtown Detroit when I was eight years old,remains one of my all-time favorites.Its a little talky, a little pretentious, but still grand fun, with exciting battle sequences, wonderful, over the top performances,and a truly stirring, if corny score. Robert Ardrey, notorious theorist of the "territorial imperative",wrote the script, and Basil Dearden directed. Martin Scorsese once listed it among his guilty pleasures.

Heston essays one of his best roles as Charles "Chinese" Gordon, the patriot who thrives on challenge... Gordon becomes a national hero for his exploits in China and his ill-fated defense of Khartoum...

Gordon is a Christian with the Bible constantly under his arm... A national hero who abolished slavery in China... An honest man revered by the British, as well as by the foreigners... A martyr-warrior who ever truly loves the Sudan and cannot, under 'his' God, leave it to the misery and the sickness of which he once cured it...

Gladstone ((Ralph Richardson) decides not to send troops to the trouble area... Instead he will send General Gordon... Gladstone realizes if Gordon is sent to Khartoum and fails to prevent a massacre, it is he who will be blamed; not the Briish government... For heroes are supposed to perform miracles...

En route to Khartoum, Gordon discovers that most of Britain's allies and friends of his former exploits now support the mystic Mahdi... But when Gordon with Col. Stewart (Richard Johnson) finally reach Khartoum, the people give him a warm welcome... They feel their problems must soon be over now that Gordon Pasha has arrived...

Things, however, do not go as planned... Khartoum runs out of food... The Mahdi's men infiltrate the city... And Gordon seek a plan...

Lawrence Olivier is superb as the fanatical Arab leader, Muhammed Ahmed Al Mahdi, the Expected-One... His softly glowing black eyes never blink... His measured voice spreads holy terrors: "I have been instructed by the Lord Mohammed, Peace be upon Him, to worship in the Khartoum mosque. Therefore I must take Khartoum by the sword."

With outstanding color photography, exquisite sets and costumes, "Khartoum" has great moments:

• The bloody and brutal massacre of an entire army in a burning desert...

• The Gordon/Mahdi meeting... The only non-historic element of the film which, in fact, never took place - contributes enormously to the dramatic effect of the motion picture.

• The raid on the Mahdi's own supplies...

• The exodus of all foreigners and Europeans out of the city...

With an Oscar-Nominated script mounted on a grand scale, "Khartoum" is an epic entertainment, a fine and powerful motion picture...

The exploits, the single-handed capacity Gordon Pasha displayed again and again to control large groups of people quite unarmed and alone, is almost magical; quite scary, in fact...

Khartoum tells the story of British general Sir Charles Gordon (Charlton Heston) who accepted the assignment of liberating English citizens and Egyptians from the Sudan city of Khartoum, which was being invaded by The Mahdi (Laurence Olivier) and his Arab forces.

Directed by Basil Dearden and written by Robert Ardrey, Khartoum is an effective historical story piece that has wisely spent its budget to make it looks fabulous. Shot in Ultra Panavision and Technicolor on location in Egypt, it goes without saying that the film needs to be witnessed on the biggest screen available to you. As is normally the way in this type of film, historical accuracies come under scrutiny, to which Khartoum, except for a couple of major character meetings that never happened, is happy to hopefully entertain while it educates. But it's talky, very talky. Which while that works for those who like a touch of political intrigue in their historical epic diet, those more inclined to gorge on action over substance movies are sure to still be hungry come the end. What action there is is excellently choreographed by stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt, and as productions go, Khartoum is lavish and acted with no little skill by a fine cast (Ralph Richardson, Michael Horden & Nigel Green complementing Messrs Heston & Olivier).

But Khartoum is something of an enigma in that it has a lot going for it yet it remains a genre piece that's hard to recommend with confidence. In fact it's very much like another of Heston's historical epic pictures, 55 Days at Peking, in that it has many fans yet is rarely spoke about in genre circles. Of course there's now issues in this day and age as regards races and how they are portrayed, so for the politically correct amongst us, it's probably best to avoid this "touchily topical" period in Heston's career. And while Ardrey's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, one can't help yearning for some more depth given to the lead players, Gordon & The Mahdi, as opposed to expansive conversations involving political machinations back in Blighty. However, its literary value is still very high, which when coupled with the magnificent visual touches (Edward Scaife on cinematography duties) make it a genre piece of note; to the discerning observer that is.

A mixed bag for sure, but it doesn't waste the money afforded it, while it's certainly far better than some of the silly and shallow epics that came our way post 1970. So a cautionary 7/10.

The siege of Khartoum and its loss under General Charles "Chinese" Gordon is one of those epic tales the Victorians loved. Gordon was such a flamboyant character that even Hollywood could not match him. "Khartoum" gives us the Victorian Epic while at the same time the seedier backroom Victorian politics that essentially sent Gordon to his death along with the citizens of Khartoum. Charleton Heston is quite good as Gordon ably giving us the many enigmatic facets of the real man's character. But even that falls short as I think Gordon is too complex a character for any actor. Olivier in black face as the Mahdi may offend the political correctness crowd but his performance is excellent, fair and avoids lapsing into carricature. The physical production is quite impressive with 2nd unit director Yakima Canut staging some very impressive battle scenes. If you want a sequel to this film than I would recommend the original 1930's version of "The Four Feathers" (which stared a very young John Gielgud) which takes place some 10 years after the events of "Khartoum" and centers on the retaking of the Sudan. Interesting to have a "sequel" come 30 years before. There is a TV remake of "The Four Feathers". Avoid it like the plague!

I just now saw this movie on television for the first time. Somehow I missed it in 1966. I have always been interested in "Chinese Gorden" and they seemed to do his character quite well, though somehow I thought he was a "Teatotaler"! What surprised me about the movie was the flat out way it was admitted that his government abandoned him, expected him to do the job with no support, only caring that "people in the street" didn't know what they had done. In 1966, we didn't yet know that governments did such naughty things. In those days we still believed that the government was still the "good guy". That people liked the movie in spite of that amazes me----5 or 10 years later it would have been a "given".