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Tag Archives: Rod Taylor
Dark of the Sun
It’s always tempting to start a post about a movie like Dark of the Sun by saying they don’t make them like this any more. I say this about movies a lot, particularly movies from the 1960s and 1970s. But I’m not entirely sure they made many films like this all that often back then either.
Dark of the Sun (aka The Mercenaries) was directed by legendary British cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, and adapted from a 1965 adventure novel by the African-born British writer, Wilbur Smith, not really a regular fixture on my reading list but my late dad loved his books.
The movie stars Rod Taylor as Captain Bruce Curry – in what is commonly agreed to be his best role – as a cynical, tough as nails mercenary. Curry is paid by President Ubi (the wonderful Calvin Lockhart), the sleazy head of a teetering African state, and his fat Belgium mining company overlord, to lead a detachment of local soldiers on a steam train to a remote township and rescue the Europeans surrounded by rebels known as the Simbas.
Curry knows the real mission is to retrieve 50 million dollars in diamonds sitting in the township’s time-locked vault. Ubi needs the diamonds to weapons to fight the rebels. “I’m running out of time Captain,” Ubi tells to Curry.… Read more
Posted in Crime fiction and film from Africa, Heist films, Jim Brown
Tagged "Mad Mike" Hoare, Calvin Lockhart, Charles Taylor, Dark of the Sun (1968), Jack Cardiff, Jacques Loussier, Jim Brown, Kenneth Moore, Opening Wednesday at a Theatre or Drive In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American '70s, Peter Carsten, Rod Taylor, The Last Grenade (1970), The Mercenaries (1968), Wilbur Smith, Wild Geese (1978), Yvette Mimieux
Pulp Friday: Scobie Malone & “our new Errol Flynn”
Something a little different for this week’s Pulp Friday.
I recently watched the 1975 Australian film, Scobie Malone, starring Jack Thompson. Also known as Murder at the Opera House and Helga’s Web, the latter from the title of the 1970 Jon Cleary it is based on, the film was long unavailable until its recent re-release by Umbrella Entertainment.
The plot involves larrikan Sydney homicide detective Sergeant Scobie Malone (Jack Thompson) investigating the murder of a women whose body is found in the Sydney Opera House. In the course of his inquires, Malone discovers the women, Helga (Judy Morris), was a high priced prostitute involved with several important clients, including the Minister for Culture (James Workman), who she was blackmailing, and film director Jack Savannah (Joe Martin).
There are numerous suspects for her death, including the Minister’s snobbish wife and a local criminal going by the wonderful name of Mister Sin (Noel Ferrier). The events leading up to Helga’s death are told in a series of flashbacks. Most of the police work is done by Malone’s hapless offsider (Shane Porteous), leaving the title character to spend most of his screen time having sex with a bewildering variety of women, including nearly all the female inhabitants of the singles only block of flats he lives in.… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian popular culture, Ozsploitation, Pulp Friday
Tagged Helga's Web, Jack Thomspon, James Workman, Jon Clearly, Judy Morris, Movie News, Nobody Runs Forever (1968), Noel Ferrier, Rod Taylor, Scobie Malone (1975), Shane Porteous, The High Commissioner