Beyond Mombasa

As Hollywood produced films about Africa now had to be shot in Africa for realism's sake since King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen I suppose that Cornel Wilde and Donna Reed were grateful for the safari adventure they got courtesy of Columbia Pictures for filming Beyond Mombasa. The location shooting in Mombasa and in the rest of what was then Kenya colony is this film's biggest asset.

Wilde is in Africa having been sent for by his brother who even made hotel reservations in Mombasa for him. Upon arrival he finds kindly missionary Leo Genn and his anthropologist niece Reed breaking the bad news about his brother's death at the hands of a revived cult of the Leopard. Wilde thinks it might have been the very real Mau Maus, but Genn says it's the leopard crowd.

Determined to get to the bottom of things, Wilde goes with Genn and Reed into the interior of Kenya, Beyond Mombasa to find where his brother might have found uranium. Their guide is another partner of the brother Christopher Lee and they're to join yet a third partner Ron Randell near the mine.

I can't say any more lest I spoil a most ridiculous plot turn. All I can say is that one of the cast has truly gone native.

I suppose a good safari is a good enough reason to be in one stinker of a movie.

Cornel Wilde is quite good in this colorful adventure movie, which though brings nothing exceptional in film history. The director George Marshall has always been a good chain film maker, showing a talent that never declined. If you like this kind of. Movies produced, shot on locations, and certainly not on a Hollywood lot, you won't be deceived. Donna Reed is flaming in this exotic plot, where action sequences and suspense are not absent, and neither drama elements. Christopher Lee's presence is quite surprising in this American movie; I did not expect that, but this picture is co produced between American and British.

The same year and basically the same plot-line of Terence Young's SAFARI, where a scoundrel safari guide romances a lovely sophisticated woman by having nothing in common but both being attractive...

And the fact he also has a revenge-driven ulterior motive, in this case his brother having been murdered, BEYOND MOMBASA is slightly edgier since Cornel Wilde's overall rogue attitude are far more intriguing than Victor Mature's...

However, ingenue Donna Reed is so set in her upper-class ways, there's no real suspense to the polar opposites hooking up... and there's the far-too-friendly missionary Leo Genn with a predictably hidden agenda alongside a handsome throwaway British sidekick in Ron Randall, and future Hammer star Christopher Lee as Wilde's opposing hunter-maverick, who, sadly, doesn't come to much...

What really works is Cornell Wilde's performance despite otherwise adventurously famous director George Marshall... using plenty of superimposed wildlife footage while mostly filming in a British movie studio (same as DUEL IN THE JUNGLE)... never completely backing his effective (even when dead drunk) intensity throughout.

Rough around the edges matt campbell (wilde) heads to africa to meet up with his brother, but finds out that the brother has already met a tragic end. At the hands of the locals. Maybe. And this is also during the mau mau rebellion, which was actually still going on while this film was being made. Check out the details on wikipedia dot org. Even more suspicious is that his brother had recently found a mine, and asked matt to help him process it. But there are two others in the partnership, and matt doesn't know who to trust. Co-stars donna reed as ann; reed had just won her oscar for "eternity", but this was still two years before her big television show. Whenever christopher lee is involved, we know there will be evil and tragedy somewhere in the film! Except for one little plothole near the end, it's mostly good. One has to wonder why ann didn't speak to the natives in their own tongue to explain what was going on. But otherwise, pretty good stuff. Directed by george marshall. He also did destry rides again and how the west was won.

It could have been worse. As it is, at least some of the actors are excellent, especially Christopher Lee as the only elegant mermber of the party, a dashing French hunter in Africa leading the others into the depths of the jungle to solve the mystery of Cornel Wilde's brother's mysterious death. Cornel Wilde himself appears to be a somewhat rowdy Canadian, and it takes some time for Donna Reed to find any charm in that drunken buccaneer. Leo Genn appears to be a somewhat sanctimonious missionary, but he is too good and placid to be true, and he never made the seminary. There is one more interested party in the treasure hunt, but most interesting are the natives and their behaviour, especially their music - the trumpeteer Eddie Calvert has a guest performance in this colourful safari film, where you also see all kinds of other animals, the hippopotami and the crocodiles being the most impressive seconded by giraffes, and of course there is a tame chimpanzee.

It's not a bad film, there is some excitement and charm to it, the jungle environments are terrific with their hidden dangers, and it's not too long. It's an entertainment with a fresh and nice dialogue, that at least should leave you happy and content afterwards when the curtain has fallen on the exotic drama of how an African sect could be manipulated out of the jungle.