As Minas do Rei Salomão

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.

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.

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.

When this production was mounted for Stewart Granger, with Deborah Kerr and Richard Carlson as his co-stars, no one could have imagined how imitated, influential and important the film would become. It has an epic quality about it that is earned by African on-site locales, fine cinematography and direction of the film, and the discovery-aspect of the narrative as the participants learn along about a fascinating continent and its people with the viewers. H. Rider Haggard's venerable novel find to b a curious mixture of Victorian angst, adventure, romance, mystery evoked by an expedition storyline. The fine acting by Stewart Granger as Alan Quartermain the white hunter, Deborah Kerr as a woman seeking her missing husband, Richard Carlson as her brother, and Hugo Haas as a back-sliding villain works exceptionally to increase the believability of the film. The simplest incident on this dangerous expedition--sitting down in the wrong place, turning over a leaf, wearing the wrong weight or textile of garment, cutting one's hair, hearing a sound, anything--can trigger a learning or a dangerous experience... This was a lavish MGM production, with participation by legendary artists and technicians such as Cedric Gibbons as art director, Edwin B. Willis as set decorator, Robert Surtees as cinematographer, Douglas Shearer in charge of sound and many others. But the real star of the film apart from the actors is Andrew Marton and Compton Bennett's realization of Helen Deutsch's interesting modernization of the original novel. Wjite hunter Alan Quartermain does not really care to live any longer; he has just seen one of his best "boys" die in a hunting accident, having been hired to please a bloodthirsty imperial's whim to kill wildlife; and Deborah Kerr comes along just then in need of a guide, trying to convince herself that she still cares about the cold husband who disappeared in search of a fabled treasure, the gold mines of King Solomon of Israel.. Obviously the two are ready to fall in love during the dangerous search for her lost mate, one that takes them into unknown country, among dangerous tribes, and into adventures that include helping a deposed seven-foot-tall monarch regain his throne by a rite of combat, incidentally saving their lives in the process. The most exciting sequence in the film is a grass fire that causes animals to stampede toward the expedition, who must taken shelter crouched low behind a makeshift low barrier; it has been imitated, never duplicated, and was later used in several other films. The film is occasionally leisurely, never dull; its makers play with time very intelligently. For once, the viewer gets the sense in a film of an arduous trek, of time passing, time for changes to happen and motivations for the same. The actors are grand, especially the mature intelligent leads; all-in-all, this simple storyline in the right hands was turned into what is all-but-universally acknowledge to be a classic adventure-romance.

I remember the movie played in our little town's premier theatre to considerable fanfare— See Darkest Africa As It Really Is in Dramatic Technicolor!— you know, that sort of thing. In fact it was a treat to see all the wild animals and fearsome natives, plus an exciting adventure story. I expect MGM made back its expenses and then some.

Of course, that was before TV brought the world into living rooms everywhere. The movie may have lost that long ago novelty, but it's still a good story set in what was then colonial Africa, with a first-rate cast, including the exotic Umbopa, the prince in exile. Then there's that thundering stampede whose mighty numbers still impress.

Like many reviewers, I cringe now at the elephant kill. I'm sure I didn't at the time, but then this ecological type change reflects a newer awareness, and one I think for the better. Actually, Quartermain (Stewart) is also bothered by big game kills, one reason he's ready to give up his hunting safaris.

Happily, Stewart's persuasive as the experienced white man, while Kerr does nicely as the British gentlewoman able to adapt her well-bred ways. (However, MGM, ever the glamour studio, refuses to de-glamorize her no matter how rough the going). I do feel a little sorry for tag-along John (Carlson) who, nevertheless, hangs in there. On the other hand, I'm still curious about the van Brun (Haas) role. Was that episode in the book or was it added to diversify and perhaps pad the storyline.

No, those old promotionals about Africa in Color wouldn't work now. But the movie's still an eyeful with a good adventure yarn and a fine cast, and those are film features that do endure.