This week’s pick is yet another African adventure. Zoltan Korda (Sahara) directs the 1939 version of The Four Feathers based on the novel by A.E.W. Mason, which is one of the greatest redemption stories set during the Sudanese campaign to reclaim the region ten years after the death of General Gordon and the siege of Khartoum.

Both Zoltan and his brother Alexander (the Ridley and Tony Scott of their day) direct with amazing precision and deliver a fantastic period piece. The cast are John Clements (Harry Faversham), Ralph Richardson (Capt. John Durrance), June Duprez (Ethne Burroughs), Donald Gray (Lt. Peter Burroughs), Jack Allen (Lt. Willoughby), Frederick Culley (Dr. Sutton), and C. Aubrey Smith (General Burroughs).

The story begins in 1895 where after ten years, a British expeditionary force is sent to reclaim the Sudan and to avenge the death of General Charles Gordon who was killed by a Muslim army which is now led by the Kalifa (John Laurie). Lt. Harry Faversham (Clements) comes from a long line of military men in his family and joined the Surrey Regiment which has been chosen to lead the expedition along with General Sir Herbert Kitchener’s Anglo-Egyptian army.

This week’s pick is the classic 1966 British colonial film Khartoum directed by Basil Dearden and written by Robert Ardrey. Charlton Heston stars as famed British General Charles “Chinese” Gordon who defended the ancient city against Muslim extremists in 1884-85 Africa. The film also stars Sir Laurence Olivier (The Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmed), Ralph Richardson (Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone), Richard Johnson (Col. J.D.H. Stewart), and Nigel Green (General Garnet Wolseley).

Khartoum is a thundering epic made when epics were the norm in Hollywood. After the success of Lawrence of Arabia, the studio system was looking for another fantastic story which would have the same effect as David Lean’s masterpiece had done. The events surrounding the siege of Khartoum are not widely known however, it was an incident which sparked controversy throughout the British Empire in the late nineteenth century, and threatened the stability of a region which is still plagued to this day by internal conflict.

The film opens with sweeping photography and music which helps to set the stage for a grand story of chivalry and adventure. After years of British rule trying to control various warlords and bandits, an Egyptian army which is poorly armed and trained is led by a Col. William Hicks whose army has marched from Egypt in order to pursue rebels under the command of The Mahdi (Olivier), a religious figure who believes himself to be “the expected one of Mohammad”.