Golden Ivory

While by no means the cream of the crop of safari adventure flicks such as the earlier Weissmuller Tarzan pictures or Hatari, "White Huntress" has its share of thrills and intrigue with a healthy amount of snake attacks and tribal warfare thrown in. The only real trouble one is bound to run into with this film is its curious lack of anything even remotely resembling a white huntress - no such character or plot twist exists in the film. I rented the DVD expected a jungle girl flick along the lines of the Nyoka vein, and although I was not terribly disappointed by the film I ended up watching, I cannot for the life of me figure out how it ended up with such a ridiculously misleading title. 7/10

Yes, the title is not only misleading but downright inaccurate. Two brothers take an extended family out into the dangerous Masai country in East Africa to make a small settlement and become fast friends with the powerful natives. Along the way a romance develops with the leading man Robert Urquhart( a workmanlike actor and performance) and a young lady whose parents were killed by other natives. We get a lot here with African wildlife playing a fairly significant part and being believably presented. The acting is overall decent and the story not terribly bad. What does all this add up to? A rather banal and bland film. The film did manage to hold my attention enough though, and I was somewhat interested in some of the characters and the story. The final story with the brothers reminded me much of what happens between the two brothers in Lost Horizon. The direction is nothing short of average at its best moments but never descends into amateur hour either.

The USA title of "White Huntress" is way off base. The movie has nothing to do with a white female hunter. The title "Golden Ivory" isn't much better. You don't actually see any ivory either. What the movie does have is some African scenery, and wildlife, a little romance, some natives and a simple story line. There is very little excitement or action even by the standards of 1957. This is a very low budget black and white movie of relatively poor film quality. The purpose of the movie was to make an action adventure movie but it fails on many levels. The story is fairly simple. In 1890 a small band of white settlers set out into the interior of British East Africa with the purpose of establishing a farm. They hire two brothers, seasoned hunters as guides. The brothers real goal is to find a legendary gathering place of elephants and make it rich from the ivory. The two men fall for the same woman, in come some hostile natives, a few wild animals and a man who was searching for gold. It sounds like this could have been a winner but it's just a yawner. There are no big man vs wild animal hunting scenes. They are very plain and simple. The tagline is white woman vs. deadly python. There is no actual fight between woman and snake. This is a very tame and to be honest, boring movie. Like most movies, ignore the action cover art. It has no link to reality. It certainly isn't anywhere near the worst movie I've seen but it's so blah you'll feel like you wasted your time.

"Displaced Australians roaming the range of the east Kenyan outback, their noble brumbies riding hard" this could have been the headline of this flick's advertisement appearing in any country's 1950's newspaper. Richard Urquhart, a Scotish actor and presenter of civil defense bulletins, in real life, finds himself hitching up the oxen of actress Susan Stephen, whose best supporting role came as the once wife of Brit film director Nicholas Roeg. They and a stumbling band of covered wagoners wander across the Kenyan hinterlands. This is Masai country and they make a serviceable stand-in for Apaches as this is a transported Western. Instead of a cattle drive, they are searching for the Blood Butte, a kind of netherworld of dead Masai warriors. Why is never made clear. The countryside is filled with the usual animal terrors including snakes, hyenas and fights between various beasties. This is a tough place, unfit for a white woman, let alone a white huntress, which is nowhere to be found. The one young white gal keeps wandering off into the bush for various reasons none of which are entertaining or meaningful.

"The white man is master" as one of the men utters, is the true message of the African outback: everything must be tamed, made safe for future family outings on Sunday afternoons. The natives, naturally, don't like this message, but as we all know too well, this land is ours for the taking.

"White Huntress" is a tired rip off of the "King Solomon's Mines" routine and a mumble fest of multinational accents. Perhaps, a tad better than swimming in a barrel of hammer head sharks, but not by much.

British western set in Kenya in 1890. Two brothers who are hunters join a caravan inland to Masai country looking for the legendary meeting place of elephants.

It follows the normal western storyline, that is, of a group in search of something (in this case ivory), betrayal and intrigue, a few encounters with animals, someone important dies unexpectedly, and a romance with a young ingenue.

Susan Stephen has a bit of a surprise for the boys in the cinema.