The Adventurers

A bleak cross between 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' and 'Scott of the Antarctic' enhanced by superb location work by veteran cameraman Ossie Morris; combining the inhospitable terrain of the latter (oppressively hot rather than bitterly cold) with the squabbling amongst a small, ill-matched group searching for treasure of the former.

Hard for me to understand why so many week ratings. This film has all that makes a good movie and a good adventure story. Great black and white photography shot on location in South Africa, excellent British actors (Jack Hawkins, Dennis Price, Bernard Lee), good story...and as of 2022 this 72 years old film does not at all appear dated and had lost nothing of its original power - unless you expect robotic monsters, flaming explosions, sub-second cuts and gallons of blood.

And this is not only an adventure in Africa, but the slowly unfolding story of human duplicity, greed and even a tragic romantic triangle.

Fred Harvey's comments says it all really. It's a bit of a film noir, given that three of the four main protagonists are unlikeable, up against it and with little future (and this includes Jack Hawkins, who at least starts the film off with a stiff upper lip but then degenerates). The feeling of pessimism was accentuated by the photography itself appearing dark, and seeing it on TV didn't do justice to some of the panoramic outside shots.

It wasn't all that clear what distance Hawkins had to travel at the beginning of the film to escape the British, but despite looking very tired he made it to civilisation; so it wasn't entirely convincing that he needed to mount an expedition costing more than £200 and necessitating an ox-drawn wagon to retrieve the diamonds; one would have thought that having made it one way in a distressed condition he could have made it back by himself, with just a couple of pack mules for his provisions - but then he wouldn't have needed to recruit his disparate accomplices to fall out with, so there would have been less of a plot.

This is , to all intents and purposes , a Western although set in post Boer War South Africa rather than in the American West . The year is 1901 and the Boer War is over -two Boer soldiers , Brandt (Jack Hawkins ) and Hendrik ( Peter Hammond ) are returning home when Brandt stumbles across a body with a fortune in diamonds on his person

He conceals the treasure -fearing he may be waylaid by the British and on returninbg home finds his fiancee is now married to the worthless Clive Hunter (Dennis Price ) a former British officer now scrounging a bare existence from petty crime and card sharping . Brandt organises an expedition to locate the diamonds -Hendrik and Hunter go along as does the saloon owner " Dominic " who is funding the venture

Bitter rivalries soon break out and one of the party fails to return -it is believed he was murdered and the last section of the movie turns on who did the deed .

The plot has overtones of the vastly superior " The Treasure of the Sierra Madre " in its highlighting of the conflict between expedition members but is too limply directed and staged to really develop this in any striking way

All the actors did better work and the whole enterprise seems tired and under budgetted

Just about passable time filler on a rainy afternoon when you dont feel like doing much beyond slumping in front of the television set

What a good surprise, this adventure flick, which looks like a western, and produced by the UK film industry, in a period, before the mid sixties, when the British dared to provide many adventure films, most of the time as good as the US ones. The same concerning the war films. Because after the late sixties, they totally abandonned the genre to focus only on social and - from time to time - crime features. Back to this one, Jack Hawkins is perfect in this role, as also is Dennis Price. Splendid settings and solid script enhance the efficiency of this David Mc Donald's film. Notice that this director also made another adventure film taking also place in South Africa : DIAMOND CITY, also spaking of diamonds. I don't remember if those two features are alike or not, I will review this latest in a few weeks. This movie maybe lacks of action scenes but prefers focusing on characters. Good climax. Ald David Mc Donald's most known film will remain CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.