Les mines du roi Salomon

This colorful outdoor story is great entertainment and has excellent work by Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr. The spare plot involves a search for a woman's missing husband which leads eventually to a diamond mine in a distant province. The safari braves assorted dangers along the way from wild animals and savage tribesmen, and the film captures the beautiful vistas of the African plains and exotic animals in their natural habitat. Richard Carlson is along as a member of the safari, as are two natives who provide fine characterizations as the plot unfolds. This picture doesn't have a music score but does have instead the drums and chants of the tribesmen that provide an authentic accompaniment to the film. Robert Surtees received an Academy Award for his excellent cinematography for this movie.

Aaron Copland believed great art goes hand in hand with simplicity. This movie is simple and great. I was browsing on the internet when I discovered some reviews of the R-1 DVD which heavily criticize the movie (and not just the DVD). I gave a quick look at IMDb to discover that, quite amazingly to me, the movie has only a 6.8 rating, that it has only been rated by less than a thousand viewers and that many viewer apparently found it boring. Let me just emphasize what should be obvious: this version of 'King Solomon's Mines' is not an action movie. It is probably best described as an invitation to Africa, combined with a reflexion on various aspects of what it means to be human. It many respects, it foreshadows and complements Clint Eastwood's 'White Hunter, Black Heart'.

Let me mention just one striking 'detail': what's going on on screen is SO fascinating that no music has been added to the various sounds emanating from the country or from the music instruments of the African people themselves. This was a daring move, especially at the time, but it enriched the movie enormously.

I will end this quick review with a piece of advice: Your mind should be as free as possible from everyday's life various troubles if you want to enjoy this movie. Pick up a night when you are already rather relaxed, and immerse yourself gently into the atmosphere created by the filmmakers. You won't regret it.

The film follows an excellent hunter (Granger) who is payed to go on a safari to find the lost husband of Deborah Kerr and Richard Carlson. He reluctantly agrees. Along the way they run into different perils. Including many tribes that want the group dead.

The film is very exciting. And you feel for the characters when they come into contact with danger. I wish more action films could make you do that. The performances are the reason behind this. It's too bad that the actors and actresses in the film weren't nominated for Oscars. I doubt they deserved to win, but they deserved to be up.

The script is also very good. It strays away from the book just a little bit. But I have no problem with that because the film, by itself, is very good.

The cinematography and editing are flawless. And they rightly won Oscars. The film was also nominated for Best Picture. It's one of the better adventure films.

This 1950's version of King Solomon's Mines is unusual in a couple ways. First, there's no symphonic music score whatsoever. Film music is typically used to tell us what we as the audience should feel about activity on screen, and also tell us what the characters themselves are supposedly feeling. In this way both audience and characters share the same emotional reactions. Music on film is such a common and natural expectation (or substitute?) for an audience's emotions, that some reviewers here think the movie was bland and boring!

Secondly, the MGM crew of about 30 people and 7 cargo trucks spent months in 1949 filming this on the Dark Continent itself, at locations hundreds of miles from civilization in eastern Africa instead of the usual Hollywood lots. They enlisted the inhabitants of remote villages as actors, asked them to perform communal dances, and took many close-up shots of their faces, hair, headgear, jewelry and body paint. This amounts to some of the most magnificent - and rare - color and sound footage of "old" untouched African culture I've seen.

Not long after this, during the 1950's-1960's these villages gradually became part of the modern world, and by the 1980's, remote tribesmen were filmed as they hunted with spears - wearing "Michael Jackson" t- shirts.

The movie is generally pretty good, but the Africans steal the show.

The wonderful book by H. Rider Haggard "King Salomon's Mines" was beautifully adapted for the screen by Helen Deutsch. The film entirely shot in Africa has a lot going for it in Robert Surtees excellent cinematography. This is a film that is good for viewing by all ages, but young minds will probably will find it more to their taste because of the long trek the three principals take into the unknown.

This film boasts two directors, Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton! The film is set in Africa. At the beginning of the film we watch Allan Quattermain who is guiding a group in a safari and a herd of elephants come near and one is killed. We watch in horror as the others rally around the dead animal in an almost human display of emotions.

Quartermain is contacted by Elizabeth Curtis, a woman that wants to locate her husband who has come to the region in search of the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon's. He is reluctant, but since she meets his price, the excursion is organized. What Mrs. Curtis, or Quartermain, or even the third member of the mission, Jack Goode, don't realize at the outset of the trip is what they are in for! The trek turns into one of the most extraordinary adventures ever filmed. Some of the scenes involving wild animals are incredible. In fact, some of the things this party has to deal with are amazing. Especially impressive is the stampede sequence when one watch in horror how all these wild animals are running amok.

Stewart Granger is Quartermain, the jaded Englishman living in that remote spot. He loves it there and would never go back to his country. Mr. Granger was perfect for this type of film in which he clearly excelled. Deborah Kerr plays the English lady in search for her husband. She sticks out like a sore thumb, but in the end, she proves to have a strength we didn't give her credit for. Ms. Kerr was always a good in whatever she undertook. Richard Carlson makes a good contribution to the film.

The different natives shown in their own habitat add veracity to the movie. The tall Watusi tribe is the most exotic one we have seen in any films of this type.