Sands of the Kalahari

As you can read from others here, "Sands of the Kalahari" is one of those movies that if you saw it as a kid you're likely not to have forgotten it. It's also a good movie if you like to look at lots of shots of the desert (think: the beginning of "Planet of the Apes" [1968]) and people sweating. The plot concerns a small group of people that crash their plane in a remote area of South African desert. No one comes looking for them, so how are they going to get out? One is a woman, the rest all men. You can guess that things get tense and then mean. It make matters worse there's a nasty bunch of baboons living nearby and they look hungry. Why this has never come to video I don't know. The last place I saw it was on A&E some nine years ago. It was shot in Panavision, so it should be letterboxed. It was a Paramount film, so maybe if enough request to them are made it'll eventually come out on DVD.

Sands of the Kalahari sounds as if it is based on a book by Wilbur Smith, but actually it isn't. It features a top-drawer cast, some blazing African location photography, and a genuinely exciting storyline about survival in the wilderness.

The story deals with a plane crash. The survivors find themselves in the middle of the Kalahari desert, close to a barren, rocky outcrop inhabited by baboons. They manage to make a shelter in the rocks and await rescue, but after a while it becomes clear that no-one is coming to look for them. Tensions begin to rise, and various characters react in various ways: Stuart Whitman's character becomes more and more like the savage, primitive monkeys; Nigel Davenport finds himself sexually craving for one of the ladies in the party; Susannah York becomes increasingly flirtatious; Harry Andrews scientifically toils away trying to come up with a rational escape plan; Stanley Baker just deals with the situation in a quietly courageous way.

The film is very exciting. You get to know the characters quite well, and you find yourself considering their plight very seriously and pondering on how you would cope in similar circumstances. The unpredictable nature of Whitman's character and Davenport's character means that you are always on your guard, expecting the unexpected. This is a really good little film, generally forgotten now but well worth seeking out. If you get the chance to view it... do!

... 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 had no idea this movie was from Stanley Baker and Cy Endfield, the producer/director team responsible for 1963's Zulu. It makes sense though, as both are above-average adventure movies with an emphasis on character as well as action. Slightly similar to Five Came Back perhaps, only with baboons instead of natives, but otherwise 100% original and entertaining.

The plot is simple enough. A plane crash lands in the desert, where survivors are forced not only to deal with hunger and the elements, but a pack of angry baboons who don't like trespassers. The Discovery Channel likes to remind us we're all just animals. Stuart Whitman confirms it in the performance of his life, playing a man determined to survive, at any cost, an almost psychotic Cornel Wilde from Naked Prey.

Great locations, good camera work, and some of the best primate performances ever put on screen. One look at the Kalahari baboons, and you'll remember Cujo was just a sick doggie.

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