Killers of Kilimanjaro

ROBERT TAYLOR nearing the end of his career was still making robust adventure films and fitting the roles as well as he did earlier in time. Here he's the safari leader assigned to building a railroad and dealing with treacherous convicts and restless natives while venturing to take a trip through dangerous Watusha territory.

There's plenty of colorful location scenery to create a vivid picture of the long trek and the usual number of obstacles thrown into his path before he and his group reach their destination. It's a story that borrows heavily from the outline of "King Solomon's Mines" without delving into the background of its characters but just directed in routine adventure style by director Richard Thorpe, who had once guided Taylor through several of his MGM films in the old days.

ANTHONY NEWLEY lends breezy support as Taylor's bumbling assistant but the accent is not on the supporting cast of humans but the many African animals that are viewed along the way. Along for the search for her father is pretty ANNE AUBREY in a purely decorative role.

Summing up: Routine safari adventure is enhanced by some handsome location photography and the many wild animals spotted during the trek.

Robert Taylor is in Africa to build a railroad to Lake Tanganyika. Problems arise when a group of Germans also arrive to build a railroad and a local baddie decides to do what he can to sabotage Taylor's efforts.

"Killers of Kilamanjaro" is not a bad film at all. It has some handsome cinematography that is far better than the average Tarzan film. However, it also is amazingly ordinary despite this--and features characters that are pretty bland and one-dimensional.

You know the film will have problems when you see that Robert Taylor is cast in the lead. Now he was a fine actor and I like his films (that's why I watched it) BUT it's all about him trying to build a railroad for the British in Africa and Taylor is about as British as Bratwurst! This casting just didn't make sense to me--and I am sure the audiences felt the same. As for the rest, they weren't bad but had an amazing capacity for ordinariness--most likely because the script was just okay. Films like "King Solomon's Mines" (not the abomination with Richard Chamberlain) make this look pretty dull by comparison.

This British-made safari adventure is yet another outing from Warwick Films (which would eventually evolve into Eon Productions with the James Bond series); although the title itself is meaningless, the plot awfully thin and the budget evidently restrained, the end results are quite pleasant and handsome to look at (despite the panning-and-scanning from the original 'Scope ratio). American Robert Taylor fills in the required "fading Hollywood star" spot for added marquee' value, while fetching redhead Anne Aubrey and amiably clumsy Anthony Newley – both reunited from the same team's THE BANDIT OF ZHOBE (1959; a screening of which, coincidentally, also came about for me on the same day I acquired this one!) are the proverbial young up-and-coming stars. While Taylor is ostensibly a railroad engineer accompanying Aubrey to seek out her long-lost father and fiancée (Allan Cuthbertson) in dangerous Warusha country, there is hardly a train in sight throughout the film but instead as much actual animal footage as their (limited) resources could buy. The cast is rounded-up by a would-be villainous Gregoire Aslan, his spunky son played by our very own John Dimech, (who joins Taylor's expedition and, bizarrely, orders the African porters around in his native Maltese tongue for a while but then swaps for what sounds like gibberish passing for authentic Swahili!), Martin Benson (as a treacherous head porter), Martin Boddey (as a rival German railroad engineer) and, very early on, Donald Pleasence as a ship's captain. It was amusing for me to watch Dimech sharing scenes with Newley and Pleasence since both these two stalwarts would themselves come to Malta – in the late 1960s (controversially) and early 1980s (obscurely, although I did manage to catch a glimpse of him drinking at the bar of a local Band Club) respectively!

Taylor, an engineer, has been nominated for completing the first African railroad, to run from Mombasa to Lake Victoria in East Africa...

Taylor ends his journey with his sidekick, Anthony Newley (providing a sort of Sancho Panza character) and comes up with a young English girl (the red-haired Anne Aubrey) who is attempting to find her lost father and her fiancé who have disappeared in the jungle...

Though warned of the obstacles of the journey, Aubrey insists on going along, and soon falls in love with Taylor... Aubrey discovers that her father is dead and that her fiancé has become an alcoholic, but, of course, Taylor repays the two losses...

Gregoire Aslan portrays the magnificent enemy, an Arab slaver who wants to get the railroad to make easier the transportation of his slaves...

Photographed in Tanganyka and England with fascinating shots of a variety of wildlife, "Killers of Kilimanjaro" is an old-fashioned safari adventure full of action and wild animals...

A British adventure; A story set during German colonial rule of Tanganyika in 19th Century East Africa. It is about an American engineer who arrives in the Mount Kilimanjaro region to finish building a railroad but he is consistently beset by hostile natives and wild beasts. This film was inspired by the story of the Tsavo maneating lions recounted in the African Bush Adventures by J.A. Hunter and Daniel P. Mannix. This is a colourful action adventure with some moments of mild suspense and specks of good humour and features wildlife in attractive locations in Moshi, Tanganyika. Robert Taylor plays the indefatigable hero with panache and grace, faced with an assortment of tribulations, including wild animals, cannibals, slave traders. Anne Aubrey plays a rather bland love interest providing no real spark and so it relies on the landscape and exotic culture for diversion. Maltese actor John Dimech ("Lawrence of Arabia") gives delightful support as a young Arab boy. The story is straightforward, depicting indigenous races as unenlightened, merciless or plain greedy, and Anthony Newley is portrayed as an emasculated Brit who regains some self-respect. The romance is underplayed which gives it a monotone feel. All in all, it is a film that progresses to a hectic pace though it has some old-fashioned morals.