Guns at Batasi

This is a brilliant representation of a classic Regimental Sergeant Major, and shows the classic values that should continue to thrive (and sadly don't) in our military of today.

Over the top? Yes... a little...but show me a TRUE RSM who isn't. Such men really existed... and they were a source of inspiration, guidance and customs and traditions for many.

Well done by Sir Richard.

From what I've heard, he spent a year preparing for this role by understudying real RSMs at the RSM-prep school in Sandhurst.

I've used this film as a training aid when teaching leadership to young soldiers - and I continue to enjoy it today.

In 1957 with the independence of the Gold Coast renamed Ghana as a new nation, the various colonial powers were getting shed of their colonies as World War II left them unable to hold on. If you looked at a map of the world the year before you would see in Africa the various colonial entities depicted in the same color as the power holding on. By the end of the Sixties you can see Africa as color coded without reference to a mother country.

This phenomenon started for the British when they left India to her own devices in 1947. It started with Ghana in 1957 and Guns At Batasi starts as a scene being repeated over and over in Africa, British regular army forces packing up and turning their military installations over to the new African armies of whatever country they were in.

But there's a bad political situation brewing here. The Africans that the British have turned the country over to are now being threatened themselves by a military coup. As RSM Richard Attenborough and his mates are just enjoying some last hours at their Sergeant's Mess, wounded Captain Earl Cameron seeks refuge. His lieutenant Errol John is part of the new government and he wants Cameron as a war prisoner.

There's a bit of racist attitude in Attenborough and his peers, but they have been in Africa for years and know the temper of the people. A great deal more so than Lady MP Flora Robson who knew Errol John as a student in London and feels she can reason with him. She gets disabused of that notion rather fast.

It's a delicate political situation that Attenborough doesn't need reminding of. Still he shows some good initiative in his response.

Guns At Batasi is a snapshot in time of the changing face of Africa. And even more interesting is the fact that the film was shot in the United Kingdom without setting foot in Africa. The producers could get away with it because most of the film takes place in and around the sergeant's mess. And Africa was replete with Batasi like incidents to make location shooting not a good idea.

Although he's backed by a superb cast which also includes Jack Hawkins as the local army commander and Cecil Parker as the former colonial administrator of the area, Guns At Batasi is the film of Richard Attenborough. He really does become the spit and polish, all army RSM. It is said that the high non-commissioned officers really run the army in an country and with people like Attenborough you can believe it.

Errol John is wonderful in his role as well. A few years earlier this was a part earmarked for Sidney Poitier, but now many black players were getting their due. John should have had a great career.

Guns At Batasi is a great film about the declining days of the British colonial empire. This was when the sun was finally setting.

I first saw 'Guns At Batasi' several times in its butchered for television version shown mostly on late-night TV, a pan-&-scan version which also deprived the film of its Cinemascope format. But I just saw the DVD which reproduces the original Cinemascope (and which includes an entertaining commentary track by John Leyton who plays Pte. Wilkes in the film) which let's us see 'Guns At Batasi' to its deserved advantage.

It's a splendid character study of a British Army Regimental Sergeant Major set in an absorbing - and rather accurately prophetic - plot of a post-colonial African revolution.

After Richard Attenborough, properly dominant as the thoroughly professional, no-nonsense Regimental Sergeant Major, the almost uniformly solid casting gives us nice turns by the four sergeants, Leyton as Pte. Wilkes, Flora Robson as the gullible MP keen to believe her ilk's pie-in-the-sky Marxisant p.c. propaganda, Errol John as the African rebel officer, and the always splendid Jack Hawkins as Lt. Col. Deal (an apt name considering the part his character fulfils in the story). Teenaged Mia Farrow has a small role (her first in cinema, I think) as a events-stranded UN secretary who shares a mutual lust interest with Leyton's Pte. Wilkes (Farrow's scenes were re-shoots owing to the originally-cast Britt Ekland's desertion from the filming to fly to her then-paramour Peter Sellers' side while he was working in the U.S.). The writing is very good and, as I said, prescient in view of the continuing undeserved credibility placed in chiefly venal Third World leaders by Western politicians, media, and p.c. types; Guillermin's direction is sure-handed; and production design and cinematography - some very good B&W work here aided by capable lighting - are a cut or two above workmanlike.

Though shot entirely at England's Pinewood Studios on a rather low budget, the strong script and fine acting raise 'Guns At Batasi' to the level of a minor classic well worth appreciating.

I discovered this film, quite by chance, whilst looking through the early evening schedules for BBC1. Billed in the newspaper as a "Second World War drama" it is anything but, actually being set in early '60s East Africa just after countries like Kenya achieved independence from Britain. Richard Attenborough is splendid as the RSM who worships "spit and polish" as much as he does HM The Queen. (Odd to think she's still on the throne and "reigning" over the same but very much changed realm.) Attenborough's characterisation of the type of man who ran the British Army is spot on. Are such men still with us? Flora Robson also gives a entirely believable performance as the naive and opinionated Labour MP. We know such women are still amongst us. The supporting cast of actors portraying the sergeants and reluctant conscript give this film great credibility. Mia Farrow is an unexpected guest and we can only envy Wilkie for getting his wicked way. Jack Hawkins, as ever, gives a stock performance as the officer who remains stiff upper-lipped in the face of adversity. Altogether an unexpected treat.

I enjoyed this film considerably. The production values were nice, the acting good, and it had a good sense of humor I wasn't expecting. The Sergeant Major's character was obviously clichéd, but they rounded him out enough to save him from being a mediocre character. There are some really nice touches in the script, and many of them are humorous. I though that the wounded captain's collapse just as he's giving himself up to his African countrymen is a bit coincidental, but dramatically speaking, he needs to be kept in the mess hall. And for what it's worth, and although I've never been a big fan of hers, Mia Farrow has never looked hotter.