Sands of the Kalahari

Lord of the Baboons.

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

Getting back to nature in the Namibian desert

A small group of people decide to take a charter flight from Windhoek to Johannesburg but, unfortunately, find themselves stuck in the Kalahari Desert, miles from nowhere. Will any of them make it out alive?

"Sands of the Kalahari” (1965) was released three weeks before “Flight of the Phoenix" and could be viewed as the British version. Don’t get me wrong, they’re based on two different books and so have totally different stories, but the setting is very similar. One obvious difference is that “Sands” includes a female in the cast, the lovely Susannah York as Grace Munkton.

Even though both movies are desert survival adventures, they’re just as much dramas since the setting is stationary and there's very little opportunity for action, except an occasional confrontation. The “action” is the tension between the people and corresponding psychological warfare.

Here, the pilot Sturdevan (Nigel Davenport) immediately surfaces as the alpha male, but O’Brien (Stuart Whitman) soon takes that spot, for reasons you’ll see. Grace is naturally attracted to him while the other males become increasingly leery of the, let’s say, ignoble side of his “survivalist” spirit.

While you can’t help but admire O’Brien in ways, it’s Bain who rises as the reluctant hero (Stanley Baker). Nevertheless, this has to be Whitman’s most memorable role with an unforgettable climax, which was ripped off by “Day of the Animals” a dozen years later.

I suppose “Flight of the Phoenix” is the superior film, but this one’s not far off.

It runs 1 hour, 59 minutes, and was shot not far from the South Atlantic coast of Namibia in Swakopmund, which is roughly 200 miles west of Windhoek. Studio stuff was done in Shepperton Studios, which is located just southwest of London.

GRADE: A-