Todestrommeln am großen Fluß

There's something appealing about low-budget British thrillers of the early '60s. Despite the lack of action they always seem to contain worthy scripts, strong acting and enough twists and turns in the plot to stay interesting. DEATH DRUMS ALONG THE RIVER is no exception. The film itself is based on a character created by top krimi writer Edgar Wallace in his book Sanders of the River. Inspector Sanders is a hard-nosed, no-nonsense river policeman whose job is to keep things quiet at his station in Africa. Of course the location of the film means that we get plenty of appealing backdrops to the story and a wider variety of nationalities than you might expect from a more typical British-set movie. The plot is fairly simplistic and tends to drag out the most minute detail into a ten minute subplot with lots of talky static moments. Yet the script is interesting, giving life to some larger-than-life characters and there's a whodunit angle to keep the audience guessing.

Richard Todd takes the role of Sanders and makes it his own. Sanders isn't a very approachable or appealing hero in the same way, say, James Bond is. Instead he tends to keep himself to himself and doesn't take action unless he needs to. Todd puts in an accordingly subtle performance. The story includes some light comedy relief in the form of an officer in Sanders' command who is always put down by Sanders and comes across as slightly stupid. This doesn't really make Sanders a very likable character though, instead he seems quite selfish and unfeeling.

The script offers some nice characterisations. The best is Bill Brewers as vagabond Pearson who may or may not be the villain. With his familiar face and bear-like manner, Brewers is a delight in the role and it's just a shame he isn't more predominant – instead his character is pretty extraneous to the central plot. German Euro-crumpet Marianne Koch is on hand as the female lead, Doctor Jung, but she doesn't have a lot to do other than romance with Sanders. The film offers the minimum of suspense and a couple of nice moments (the stand-off at the native funeral) but the lack of action hurts. Despite being book-ended by two good chases (the opening police hunt and the closing speedboat race) the middle of the film drags a little and cries out for some incident. This isn't a bad film but it could have been so much more had it been a little livelier.

Richard Todd and his first appearance as Inspector Harry Sanders

It's a good thing that Edgar Wallace also wrote adventure novels set in Africa (Sanders vom Strom), which meant that under his name you could not only make horror crime novels, but also adventure films that had just become fashionable. The Briton Harry Alan Towers produced the film in South Africa, Constantin Film took over the distribution and was able to attract 1.5 million visitors (source: InsideKino) to West German cinemas.

Harry Sanders (Richard Todd) is faced with mysterious cases of diamond smuggling. He soon realizes that Dr. Schneider (Walter Rilla) has something to do with it. It's a good thing that the tough inspector meets the attractive doctor Inge Jung (Marianne Koch), who is about to take up a position in the jungle clinic. The two of them learn from Assistant Dr. Weiss (Albert Lieven), nurse Marlene (blonde as always: Vivi Bach) and the bright Jim Hunter (Robert Arden). Will the mystery of the diamonds be solved?

Wild animals, beautiful landscape shots, but the tension is a bit lacking. Director Lawrence Huntington probably still met the audience taste of the time. And Richard Todd (1919-2009), who fought as a soldier in the Normandy landings, was able to return in "Sanders und das Schiff des Todes."

Death Drums Along the River is directed by Lawrence Huntingdon who also co-writes the screenplay with Harry Alan Towers and Nicolas Roeg. It stars Richard Todd, Marianne Koch, Albert Lieven and Walter Rilla. A Techniscope/Technicolor production, music is by Sidney Torch and cinematography by Robert Huke.

Out of "Big Ben Films", the story is suggested by Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River. Filmed on location in South Africa, plot revolves around Todd as Inspector Harry Sanders, who takes up the case when a policeman is killed in pursuit of a man who pocketed a small pouch at the docks. His investigation leads him to a suspicious clinic and pretty soon he is mired in diamond smuggling and other murky goings on.

Well it reads as a good old fashioned detective mystery, swathed in African locales and a chance for mucho sweaty perils that a dashing hero has to overcome. Sadly it's none of those things, for this is utterly dull and lifeless. Film just plays out as a number of talky scenes wrapped around the odd moment of detective work. There's never any flow to the narrative, atmosphere is absent and the acting away from the reliable (even if he is on auto-pilot) Todd is decidedly poor. I swear at one point the humans are out acted by a Crocodile! While the climax is tepid and certainly not worth having sat through 75 minutes of bad film making. It's not even recommended for visuals since the colour photography is flat and the Techniscope rarely livens locations.

Even though it amazingly spawned a sequel of sorts the following year, Coast of Skeletons, this is a poor movie all told, and this even before the PC brigade have a chance to chew over the dated attitudes to race and sex… 3/10

Edgar Wallace had been popular screen fodder for decades, but this seems to be the first adaptation of his work to hit the big screen in Technicolor, presumably in order to make another James Bond out of district commissioner Sanders. (Ian Fleming had already published a series of articles for 'The Sunday Times' called The Diamond Smugglers', which could easily as served as a title for this.)

The presence of Walter Rilla alerts us to the fact this is a German-British co-production (and German heroine Marianne Koch arrives by Lufthansa while the villain uses a luger). Unlike most European films set below the Equator - which always seem wholly devoid of creepy-crawlies - this film actually acknowledges the inhospitable presence of snakes and crocodiles.

Richard Todd is Sanders, a British police officer in an African colony that will soon become independent. He greets Dr. Marianne Koch, who's going to work at Walter Rilla's clinic. Sparks fly during the trip up the broad river, but Todd is interested in finding a local lowlife. When they reach the village, there's a funeral for the man, but Todd insists on opening the coffin, which is filled with dirt.

It's based on the same Edgar Wallace story as 1935's SANDERS OF THE RIVER, but it's certainly aware that thirty years have passed. It's a nice little movie, shot on the Universal back lot, but with plenty of African footage interpolated into its length, and the mystery is decently handled.

The director, Lawrence Huntington, directed his first film in 1930s, but he had never gotten out of the British Bs. Starting in 1954, he was much more active directing television. He would direct one movie after this one and die in 1968, age 68.