The second highest grossing film of 1950 in USA, trailing only behind Cecil B. DeMille’s SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949), KING SOLOMON’S MINES, for what it is worth, is a supernal Technicolor spectacle that brings to the forefront the biosphere of the African continent and unveils the mystique of its indigenous mankind tribes (namely, the Kipsigi Tribe and the Watussi Tribe in Kenya Colony),

Taking oceanic liberty with H. Rider Haggard’s popular source novel - for example, the female protagonist is purely the scenarist’s invention - Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton’s film (allegedly the latter replaced the former due to some internal discontent among the crew) hews subserviently to Hollywood’s romanticizing trope as if the exotic land itself isn’t a fecund enough soil to keep audience rapt, who are mad keen to spectate a faraway Continent opening up to them for the first time, could they care less of the burning passion between British safari guide Allan Quatermain (Granger) and his demure client Elizabeth Curtis (Kerr), a married British lady looking for her missing husband, presumably lost in his quest for the titular treasure.

That said, Granger and Kerr actually contribute more than what they are allotted to - i.e. the tedious battle of sexes under the backdrop of a terra incognita, their chemistry is torridly felt (and infamously consummated offscreen). Even saddled with a risibly inexplicable hairdo makeover, Kerr’s Ms. Curtis is ravishing to behold, showered in the polychromatic glamor, and a swarthy, husky Granger is well togged up as a proto-Indiana Jones type, not batting an eyelid in the face of whatever adversity, who also diligently utters Kipsigi language as if it is his second nature.

Save for the opening elephant-hunting stunt, which looks callously cruel to today’s optics, KING SOLOMON’S MINES downplays the colonialism influence and largely portrays the white people as rubberneckers rather than interlopers of the tribal affairs, although the major upheaval they witness is the overthrow of a current king by an eligible challenger, which betrays an occidental perception towards the primordial civilization and also works as an implicit harbinger of what will happen once the outside world encroaches upon their territory.

For the continent’s fauna and flora, the film really breaks a sweat to capture them on camera, so are the tribal dances and close-up portraiture of tribespeople’s individual distinction. The stampede sequences are noticeably manipulated into wholeness by post-production. The ensuing thrill is inevitably dented notwithstanding, the crew’s Herculean undertaking and technique bravura remains grandly meritorious and awe-inspiring.

In all fairness, KING SOLOMON’S MINES is less a treasure hunting escapade than a broad travelogue about a foreign land, it contains enough footage to pique your curiosity, but, like most commodities from the Hollywood assembly line, however exquisite it looks, it is lensed through an exoticized, mythicized “white gaze”. There is a mental resistance to truly knowing these strangely donned and extraordinarily looking human beings, any attempt of a deeper communication between two different races is snuffed on the drawing board, why is that? This could be today’s food for thought.

referential entries: John Ford’s MOGAMBO (1953, 6.2/10); Steven Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984, 7.2/10); James Gray’s THE LOST CITY OF Z (2016, 7.7/10).

Title: King Solomon’s Mines

Year: 1950

Genre: Adventure, Action, Romance

Country: USA

Language: English, Zulu

Directors: Compton Bennett, Andrew Marton

Screenwriter: Helen Deutsch

Based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard

Music: Mischa Spoliansky

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Editors: Conrad A. Nervig, Ralph E. Winters

Cast:

Deborah Kerr

Stewart Granger

Richard Carlson

Kimursi

Siriaque

Hugo Haas

Lowell Gilmore

Baziga

Sekaryongo

Rating: 6.8/10