Men Against the Sun

I was looking forward to this British B-movie as it offered something different: an adventure flick shot on location in Kenya, no less, back when it was still a British colony. Sadly, the film is saddled with the most routine storyline ever, with one inept action scene after another failing to ignite the passions in any way, shape, or form.

John Bentley gives a stolid turn as a railway surveyor, attempting to build a railway line through an inhospitable mountain range in Kenya. There are a few problems with the natives to contend with, although some man-eating lions are the chief opponents here. Expect some stock footage of African game, some listless romance with starlet Zena Marshall, and not a whole lot else. The ending is as abrupt as can be and looks like they ran out of either money or film in the camera. I'd recommend skipping this one in favour of something better.

When told of the plans to build a railway from Mombassa to Lake Victoria, hunter John Bentley is skeptical. He is also skeptical when Zena Marshall shows up and says she's a doctor. But as the laborers come from India and the rails are laid, Bentley admits it might work out, and falls in love with Miss Marshall. Then a pair of lions begin to attack the men working in the camps.

It's based on the same series of incidents that inspired 1996's THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS, although it has a much more standard series of plot points. On the plus side, it was shot in Kenya, so there's lots of nice realistic details from the native huts to the mountains.

An opening title tells us the action is set in Mombasa in 1890, but this is only apparent from Zena Marshall's schoolmarmish outfit as a - shock horror! - woman doctor; with whom as usual hero John Bentley falls in love as soon as he's got over his qualms at having a woman along for the ride. (Ho hum...)

The location photography is okay, but the shots of animals extremely poorly integrated with the actors. A rather unlikely bonus, however, is documentarist & film historian Liam O'Leary (billed as Liam O'Laoghaire) playing the local priest.

John Bentley was perhaps Britain's most prolific B feature romantic leading actor in the late 40s and 50s. Never ever a baddie, never* a cop but out to do right (notably as Paul Temple) handsome, well dressed, well-spoken, smooth, charming but rather self deprecating and humorous, he usually got the good-looking girl (in one case a young Dinah Sheridan) however remained at all times a perfect gentleman and decent chap. A man who could be thoroughly relied on to have a light mac - or smart overcoat - he forsakes these and the 20th Century for safari gear, and his London haunts including the inevitable nightclub in furtherance of his enquiries, for an action man role in the 1890s "Colony of Kenya" bush. His challenge is to build the colony's first railway but firstly to deal with the baddies human and animal with the aid of a rifle and decent trusty locals. More challenging perhaps is winning the heart of the young English female doctor he is thrown together with. It is very much in the mould of his London-set quota quickies but very nicely shot on location, terrain and people.

*In 1958/59, obviously prompted by this film, Bentley did a 30 episode TV series "African Patrol", set in Kenya playing a police Inspector. In 1958 he successfully starred as the Captain in a minor American film "Submarine Seahawk"

In 1890s Kenya, colonialists attempt to build a railroad and must traverse the safari but are savaged by lions.

A rare British-Kenyan co-production is an amateurishly made second feature with an ethnographic documentary approach done by director Brendan J. Stafford one of the film's few redeeming features.