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.

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 screenplay follows the British version by Robert Stevenson but the screenwriter Helen Deutsch changed the plot, as introducing a female character, the brotherhood relationship for matrimonial relation and eliminating the fantastic elements. Two English actors starred, Stewart Granger as the famous Allan Quatermain and Deborah Kerr as Elizabeth Curtis, hiring the great white hunter and accompanied by her brother John performed by Richard Carlson. At the time was announced as starring Errol Flynn , though he renounced for performing 'Kim' by Victor Saville. The safari led by Stewart Granger set out in search for her husband and the king Salomon's treasure mines. The brave hunter and the elegant lady become fast friends, confronting risks and danger in search of legendary diamonds mines.The African native is played by a real Watusi ethnic, Sinaque, reclaiming his rights over throne.In 1937 version was the supreme role performed by the singer Paul Robeson who proved his singing faculties.

The filming started in Africa 1949, running time five months. The crew travelled by hundred miles in planes and trucks across Kenia, Uganda, Congo Belgian, Lagoon Victory, Falls of Murchisin and north of lagoon Tanganika where live the Watusi. Polished and coloristic production design by the veteran Cedric Gibbons. Heat and ills affected the crew and main actors but Deborah Kerr surprised for her resistance. There had confronting between Stewart Granger and Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton directed the second unity. Then, Metro Goldwyn Mayer dismissed Compton and Marton finished the picture. It was nominated for best movie and won Academy Award for cinematography by Robert Surtees and edition. Had several take-out with no use and later Metro Goldwyn Mayer utilized for its follow-up.

The picture is followed by a sequel, rapidly made, created with excess footage previous, titled 'Watusi'(1959) by Kurt Neumann with George Montgomery and David Farrar. An inferior version directed by J.Lee Thompson(1985) with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone; and a TV adaptation directed by Steven Boyum with Patrick Swayze and Alison Doody, among others.

I saw this film when I was ten years old and its impact was deep and lasting. It stemmed less from the story or the acting of the principals as from the environment and context of the film, set as it was in east Africa. I believe this film to be one of the first to be shot virtually entirely on location in Africa, and the results are stunning. Shots of stampedes that are clearly not drawn from stock footage are awesome, but even more gripping are the scenes of the Masai and Kikuyu tribespeople, playing themselves and doing so absolutely unselfconsciously. The tribal dancing of these magnificent people is moving (and at times terrifying). I understand that in filming them it was terrifying for cast and crew as well, for the spearthrowing got out of hand, at one point driving Deborah Kerr up a tree! In any case, this version of "King Solomon's Mines" is one for the ages.

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.