Khartoum(Basil Dearden, Eliot Elisofon, 1966) The Middle East has long been a daunting prospect, like the desert terrain that makes up so much of it. If the world's problems stem from an innate tribalism, the most embedded, ancient forms of it come from there for the longest time. And, hey, if they've lasted that long with it, how bad can it be? Pretty bad. Tribalism, in all its forms, be they religious, political, affillial or other origin, comes from the innate need to no longer be alone and gain strength through numbers, while simultaneously separating ourselves into camps or sects, creating that bond of community and distancing ourselves from that "other." "I am this, and 'they' are that." And if "they" are "that" then they are not me. Tribalism simultaneously bonds and divides, whether you're a Muslim (Sunni or Shia) or a Jew (Orthodox or Reform), Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal, Communist, Socialist, "John Bircher" or "Tea Party", Union, Confederate, Army, Navy, Freudian or Jungian, Creationist or Evolutionist, Freemason or Elk, Black Lives Matter and IUPA. "Liberté, égalité, fraternité?" One of these things don't belong with the other. But, seemingly, the world starts to look a bit less complicated when it's "us" versus "them." It makes it a lot easier to not think for ourselves and submit to the dictates of mob rule. How bad can it be? For myself, I subscribe to the Marxist philosophy (Groucho): "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as its member."
Khartoum was written by Robert Ardrey, the author of "African Genesis" and "The Territorial Imperative" and is a somewhat Hollywood-ized version of the Siege of Khartoum in the mid-1880's. At the time Egypt controlled Sudan and the British Empire claimed Egypt as "a protectorate." Muslim extremists, jihadists, followers of Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi and "redeemer" of the Muslim nation, were determined to wrest Sudan from Egyptian rule and set himself up as leader of Sudan and of all the Muslim nations (he eventually did take over Sudan, imposing Shariah law, and eventually dying of typhus six months into his rule*).
When the film starts (in 1883) England is reacting to the killing of 10,000 Egyptian troops by Ahmad's supporters, who are on track to take on the capital of Khartoum. The Prime Minister, William Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) is reluctant to send "boots on the ground," and at an impasse as to how to proceed, not commit and still appease the Queen and the British public. The British foreign secretary (Michael Hordern) suggests an alternative: send in one particular man, Major General Charles George "Chinese" Gordon (Charlton Heston), the former governor of Sudan, whose popularity in Britain is widespread. He is given one task—evacuate the civilians and troops from Khartoum and that is all. He is told that he is going in by himself, without the sanction of the British government, who will deny any knowledge of his efforts if he fails. Gordon, who suffers from hubris, has an impatience with authority other than his own, and a paternalistic leaning toward the people of Sudan based on his past work, agrees to the assignment.
The British politico's know that, Gordon being Gordon, he will overstep his mission, and they want to see what will come of that, without risking British lives and without direct accountability. Gordon, confident, travels to the Sudan.
He is greeted in the Sudan as a hero, and immediately begins organizing the Egyptian forces for defending the city. His is reminded by his aide, Col. John Stewart (Richard Johnson) that he is already overstepping his bounds. But, Gordon pays no heed. He will not "cut and run," he's going to go to the root of the conflict.
The movie-Gordon decides that he must pay a visit to Ahmad (Laurence Olivier) himself. This never happened, and is probably as ludicrous as going to talk to Usama bin Laden over tea.But, it does afford Heston the opportunity to do a couple of scenes with Olivier, who is heavily swathed in a make-up merely a few shades lighter than his "Othello" was, and employs an accent that is high-ly "rimi-NI-scint" of Leo McKern's Clang from Help!**
That aside, the scenes between Heston and Olivier are the highlights of the film, besides the battles that play out impressively in the Ultra-Panavision format (the film was released in Cinerama) and if the two directors can't be said to be especially "impressive" in how they put the film together (Dearden directed the least effective parts of the Ealing horror anthology Dead of Night), at least they fill the screen with detail to take advantage of the widescreen format.
When Ahmad makes it clear to Gordon that he will not stop his jihad until he has prayed in every mosqueall the way through to Constantinople, overrunning cities if he has to, in an effort to solidify his position as the appointed instrument of Mohammad on Earth among the Islamic people. If Gordon has any doubts as to his intentions, he shows Gordon the heads and hands of English (including the war correspondent of The Times) and French who have been slain in his battles. Gordon leaves, alarmed, but not before assuring the self-described Mahdi that, as a religious man, he sees the battle as one between competing Gods.
"Is it not your own ring?"
Gordon, rather than evacuating Khartoum, begins to set up defenses, digging deep trenches between the Mahdi's forces and the city, allowing the Nile itself to fill the trench and create a discouraging moat for the jihadists. At the same time, he arms the city and trains forces in the hopes that he can stay the Sudanese until reinforcements are sent from England, something Gladstone is reluctant to do.
Inevitably, time works against Gordon and when the Nile recedes, his moat dries up and the city is overwhelmed by 100,000 jihadists in an assault from the front and from the Nile. Accounts vary, but Gordon was killed in the attack—the movie's version of it has Gordon dying as a martyr as was presented in the painting by George W. Joy—the first of quite a few spears that Charlton Heston would take throughout the rest of his career.
The film was relatively successful and earned Ardrey an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay. Heston, who had hoped for better known British directors—like Lewis Gilbert, Guy Hamilton, or Guy Green—to oversee the project, was only relatively satisfied with the results. What Khartoum does do, no matter the results of the film, is to provide a bit of historical perspective in light of recent events in history. There is nothing new under the sun, even the one that beats down on the desert. These conflicts will arise as long as humans insist on creating borders, imaginary or otherwise, to emphasize what divides us, rather than what unites us. You'd think in a desert, one of Nature's harshest environments, there'd be more of a collective effort to conquer it, rather than each other. إن الله لا يغير ما بقوم حتى يغيروا ما بأنفسهم
On the technical side, it is interesting to note that Khartoum was the last film photographed in "Ultra-Panavision 70" until Quentin Tarantino made The Hateful Eight 49 years later. So, Khartoum still holds the title of being the last good film photographed in Ultra-Panavision and making the format worth it.
Frank McCarthy's key art for Khartoum featuring one version with Olivier and the other without.
This was part of a series of reviews of the ASUW Film series back in the '70's. Except for some punctuation, I haven't changed anything from the way it was presented, giving the kid I was back in the '70's a break. Any stray thoughts and updates I've included with the inevitable asterisked post-scripts.
The Haunting*(Robert Wise, 1963)Robert Wise, who directed The Haunting is a supreme craftsman of film. he was formerly a film editor, one of the men who pasted Citizen Kane together, in fact, and thus knows how to compose his shots to make interesting stretches of film. He knows how to manipulate an audience, how to shock, how to fool. He can direct your attention to what he wants you to see. He is also quite adept at using special effects, thus he can pull off such projects as The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, The Andromeda Strain, andThe Haunting. However, when it came to characterization, Wise usually falls flat on his face,** as was evident in West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and Two People. So, what you have in Robert Wise is the perfect disaster-movie director, and he fulfilled that label when he directed The Hindenburglast year. I can guarantee that your spine will be pleasantly chilled by The Haunting.
Unlike Rosemary's Baby, The Haunting does take place in odd, creepy surroundings--The Olde Hill House--and you have such things as a creaky metal circular stairway, convenient for a suicide, whispering corridors. Take a brooding mansion, some brutal situations, and some brutish ghosts and one quakingly susceptible person and you have the formula for this type of gothic. Whether its successful or not depends on whether the director can stir them up to make them a) original, which is unlikely, or b) scary, which you can do in a myriad number of ways, cinematically. Although The Haunting is not really the former, it is certainly the latter, so you might want to take a spare hand along Saturday night to clutch.
Maybe not. You see, there's a situation where....well, I'm not going to give it away. Find out for yourself, and...sleep well Saturday night.
Broadcast on KCMU-FM on October 22 and 23rd, 1976. My criticism of Wise's ability with actors is unfair and untrue. He tended to cast talented actors when he could, and The Haunting is full of them--Richard Johnson, Claire Bloom, and Julie Harris, along with Russ Tamblyn (from West Side Story) and Lois Maxwell. The Haunting still holds up as a chilling film, and it's because of the way Wise (and scenarist Nelson Gidding) set the movie up with a prologue outlining the sad history of the elegant but dreerily off-kilter chiaroscuro of "Hill House," lovingly photographed with an eye towards the odd angle and moving attention to the side of the frame. The one section I still recall vividly is the long camera lift going up the circular stairs preceding a suicide victim's climb, then their feet dropping into frame, and Wise then double-timing back down those stairs. It just creeps you out and prepares you for further shocks in other rooms.
Wise shoots in widescreen black-and-white, all the better to photograph shadows in, and cranks up the sound design of the creaks, moans, whispers and poundings reverberating down the corridors. Wise wracks nerves expertly, and manipulates the audience, pushing the cliched tropes of The Old Dark House as far as they can go, while also suggesting horrors, rather than throwing them in your face (as is the current para-norm). The planning and execution make one ill at ease, as if the way the film is shot suggests that the very milieu of the movie is haunted and not normal. Plus, Wise (originally an editor) is the master of the shock-cut, both the set-up and the splice. Wise could do anything, in any genre, and was one of the great craftsmen of the American cinema.
* Not to be confused with the inadequate 1999 remake produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Jan de Bont. Those two thought you could create the same creepiness in vivid color and with digital effects....pffft...Kids!
Operation Crossbow(Michael Anderson, 1965) There actually was an "Operation Crossbow" during the second World War of the 20th Century, designed to stop the next generation of weapons the Nazi's were dabbling in, after the costly Battle of Britain and before an anticipated amphibious landing on the shores of Great Britain—the V-1 (or "buzzbombs") and the V-2 rockets (predecessor to both the American and Russian space programs, but designed to deliver explosives and blind destruction). The reality was a bit more mundane than here, which is staged like The Guns of Navarone (the script was initially drafted by Emeric Pressburger of "The Archers") with a team of experts charged with infiltrating the German development complex with a plan to destroy it from without and within. As with so many of these "true stories" of the war, it's only partially true: the threat was real; dealing with it was another matter. The film is comprised of two sections: the administrators of the mission (Richard Johnson, Trevor Howard, John Mills) coming up with various strategies to deal with the pilotless weapons and the recruits (George Peppard, Tom Courtney, and Jeremy Kemp) whose job it is to drop behind enemy lines, pose as dead or missing German engineers and infiltrate the Peenemünde rocket-works, gather information and/or sabotage the facility.
Bunker windows are letter-boxed! Watching a V-1 test—actually the most interesting part of the film.
From the beginning, the mission is sabotaged by a lack of complete intelligence and by infiltrators in the process: one of the missing Germans is missing for a reason—he's wanted for murder and sticks out like a sore thumb to the authorities when he suddenly shows up in plain sight; one of the specialists volunteering to break into the rocket plant is a German spy (Anthony Quayle) who goes back to Germany and runs interference throughout the rest of the film.
"You want us to...what?" Courtney, Kemp and Peppard Operation Crossbow
Then there's Peppard's alias—seems his German has a wife (Sophia Loren) who comes looking for him when she learns that he's suddenly turned up in a German hotel. Well, that complicates things when she discovers the man with her husband's name and identity is a total stranger. She's kept under wraps by a resistance couple (Lili Palmer, Philo Hauser) until the trio can escape the scrutiny of the German authorities.
"Uh...what's she doing here?"
Loren's role is completely unnecessary—and very brief—as there are enough complications with the purloined identities to make things rough going. No, she's there to be confused, wistful, play slightly drunk, and exit, and not too quietly. Oh...and get top billing to bring in the crowds, and to provide the unnecessary (and frankly irrelevant and mislabeled) "love interest"—although it hardly qualifies—for a film that is essentially all-male in character and scope.* While the historically valid "Crossbow" occurs in the skies over London with the various anti-aircraft measures designed to blow the missiles out of the skies or at least knock them off-course, the trio of infiltrators (minus one) get recruited at the vast underground missile complex and begin the process of finding the weaknesses of the weapons (while ironically working to fix them to maintain their cover) and the complex (which they, unironically, intend to destroy).
Peppard and Kemp compare notes on missiles—Peppard has appeared to be beaten up, although that sequence was cut from the film.
The film did not do well at the American box-office, prompting the studio to re-name the film The Great Spy Mission (check out the poster paste-over to the right) upon re-release as they thought the "Crossbow" reference might have confused audiences into thinking it was involving knights and archery (and as the movie-going public was in the midst of being bombarded with everything James Bond...hey, it couldn't hurt). The film, whatever its title, has more in common with The Guns of Navarone than with Bond, although the next year the Bond producers would begin work on You Only Live Twice, which, itself, more resembled Navarone and this film than anything from Fleming's source-novel. Certainly, Crossbow's imagining of Peenemünde has as much basis in reality as a hollowed-out volcano space-command does. And the writers-producers have upped the ante by introducing a new weapon that has come online—the "New York" bomb, that city presumably being the target because, hey, bombing London just isn't enough, especially if you're trying to sell a film to an American audience.
As dumb as that idea is, and the whole puffery of the thing, you do have to give some sort of pointage to a film that had the balls(Spoiler Alert) to kill off two its major stars before the half-way point of the film and eliminate all of its heroes by the film's end. For all the fantasy that the film imparted to the war, it dared to not reward courage but show the indiscriminate horror of war, despite all efforts and good intentions. America was in the midst of the Vietnam war at the time, and despite its trappings of fantasy amidst the threads of the true story, it dared to show the true nihilism of war—in the generation of deliberate destruction, no one gets out alive. Operation Crossbow has real problems as a film, but it dared to not cave in to a happy ending with garlands and celebration, or even of satisfaction with a mission accomplished. It leaves the viewer with a realization of cost towards the noble in the most ignoble of times.
*Not entirely true, that: some of the best scenes involve a German aviatrix, Hannah Reitsch—yes, she did exist—who worked on the project investigating why early test pilots of the V-1 in its planning stages were being killed trying to land the thing. She discovered the V-1's had a tendency to stall and lose all guidance capabilities—not good if you're targeting something.
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