H. Rider Haggard

  • She (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2022) In the realm of bad movies, She is in a class of its own. Despite the title, it’s far from an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s classic adventure novel. Taking the barest essentials of the novel’s plot, it recasts everything in a strange bazaar-market future of warring tribes, mutant powers and episodic sequences. Featuring a trio of characters named Tom, Dick and Hari (that’s right!), it has a protagonist go through various adventures to find his missing sister, accompanied by his best buddy and the formidable queen named She. The film places much emphasis on Sandahl Bergman as She, clearly trying to associate itself with her breakout role as Valeria in Conan the Barbarian. It’s a wise choice—she’s one of the most interesting elements in a film that generally doesn’t quite know what to do with its actors. Of course, She doesn’t quite know what to do period—the film feels like a feverish jumble of unrelated sequences, occasionally dipping in the supernatural, the comic, the dramatic or the plain nonsensical. Every ten minutes, it’s off to a weird new post-apocalyptic group with crucial narrative tissue omitted from the final results. Some of the episodes are actually fun—it’s hard to resist the utter lunacy of David Traylor during the bridge sequence—but the post-apocalyptic nature of the film feels like an excuse to go shoot whatever and wherever, with barns being as good as palaces and industrial plants as backdrops. None of this is handled with any coherency, wit or skill: it’s just one thing after another until the film gets bored and has the heroes complete their quests. Curiously enough, the film is an early piece of juvenilia from director Avi Nesher, who ended up helming far better Israeli movies. At least Bergman looks good—although I slightly prefer Quin Kessler in a minor role. She is a terrible film by almost all standards, but it manages to get viewers involved by sheer dint of not knowing what’s going to happen next: By throwing elementary screenwriting structure and conventions in the trash, the film escapes moment-to-moment predictability and gets to that elusive “so bad it’s good” quality. I’m probably, as dismaying as that sounds, going to watch this again at some time in the far future—and whenever I do, I’ll try to catch it in the original English because, from reading about the film, it feels as if the dialogue was “improved” (i.e.: normalized to something less awful) in the French dub. The good news, I suppose, is that this 1984 version of She has and will forever retain its very distinctive quality away from its source novel. This may not necessarily be a mark of quality, but at least it’s something.

  • King Solomon’s Mines (1950)

    King Solomon’s Mines (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) Anyone watching a 1950s MGM Technicolor adventure film and expecting a sensitive, respectful take on its African setting is not going to have a good time—much like its 1937 film forebearer and 1885 original H Rider Haggard novel, this is a straight-up adventure in the time of colonialism, with buried treasure and hostile natives. (Although this, like the previous film, does add a female character—and an excuse to see Deborah Kerr in the jungle.)  Largely shot on location and meant as a big MGM spectacle, this version of King Solomon’s Mines generally delivers on its premise, even if this premise can be repugnant to modern audiences (I really could have done without the elephant shooting, for one thing). There’s some spark to the relationship between the two lead characters, with Kerr playing opposite Stewart Granger as Allan Quatermain. The nature landscape photography alone can be spectacular. You’ll have to ignore some heavy-duty colonialism along the way, though, especially considering how this version minimizes some of the more heroic African characters. While this King Solomon’s Mines is, as a whole, slightly better than the earlier film version, it’s still not quite satisfying—with the underwhelming ending not helping with the dissatisfaction.

  • King Solomon’s Mines (1937)

    King Solomon’s Mines (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2019) As much as the stench of colonialism is strong in this first version of King Solomon’s Mines, it’s actually kind of fascinating to see such an unabashed African adventure at an early stage of cinema. Partially filmed on location, this film rather faithfully adapts H. Rider Haggard’s adventure novel with all the means available to big-budget cinema at the time. The plot elements are all well worn (all the way to natives being impressed at an eclipse, and a volcano-fuelled final escape) but it’s not impossible to suspend exasperation considering the age of the material. Black actor/singer Paul Robeson has an unusually high-profile role here as an exile chieftain coming back to take the throne—he even gets to sing the film’s final moments. Cedric Hardwicke is also compelling at lead adventurer Allan Quartermain, heading deep in Africa to find hidden treasure. There is still a bit of a kick to King Solomon’s Mines —a basic watchability to the result that transcends time and very different assumptions about how to portray Africa on-screen. It could have been much, much worse.