dbdumonteil
The characters are cardboard : the rough rider ,who has been through it all ,the beautiful heroine who cannot stand this rude guy,her wise uncle, and two sinister-looking guys ,plus the leopard men in the background.At first sight, the principal is a cynical guy who does not even want to attend his own brother's funeral ,but is only in it for the money;of course,as expected , further acquaintance shows actually a brave guy the reluctant heroine will become little by little mad about (and the other way about).Although it's labelled "adventures movie" ,it is actually a whodunit : who killed
the unfortunate brother who discovered uranium in his mine?Every member of the expedition is a suspect .The stupefied expression on the last victim's face is pure thriller.Spoiler:
The most interesting side of this story is religious fanatism :how a man who thinks he serves as the instrument of the wrathful petulant Jehovah of Victorian Sunday schools can awaken the old superstitions of the natives and use their own creed .
However,as there are absolutely no clues, no forerunner, whilst the identity of the culprit is unexpected,it is a rather implausible.Cornell Wilde's African adventures are best appreciated in his own " Naked prey"(1966) ,his extraordinary "most dangerous game" .
bkoganbing
As Hollywood produced films about Africa now had to be shot in Africa for realism's sake since King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen I suppose that Cornel Wilde and Donna Reed were grateful for the safari adventure they got courtesy of Columbia Pictures for filming Beyond Mombasa. The location shooting in Mombasa and in the rest of what was then Kenya colony is this film's biggest asset.Wilde is in Africa having been sent for by his brother who even made hotel reservations in Mombasa for him. Upon arrival he finds kindly missionary Leo Genn and his anthropologist niece Reed breaking the bad news about his brother's death at the hands of a revived cult of the Leopard. Wilde thinks it might have been the very real Mau Maus, but Genn says it's the leopard crowd.Determined to get to the bottom of things, Wilde goes with Genn and Reed into the interior of Kenya, Beyond Mombasa to find where his brother might have found uranium. Their guide is another partner of the brother Christopher Lee and they're to join yet a third partner Ron Randell near the mine. I can't say any more lest I spoil a most ridiculous plot turn. All I can say is that one of the cast has truly gone native.I suppose a good safari is a good enough reason to be in one stinker of a movie.
malcolmgsw
It is not clear exactly who this film was aimed at.Filmed in technicolour in Africa,with interiors in the UK with a largely British cast.The two main leads are American.So maybe this was made for the American as well as the British market.The story is rather strange.It seems to be utilising elements of the then current Mau mau uprising in Kenya and renaming them the Leopard people.Instead of seeking independence they are being led by a dotty English missionary,played by Leo Genn in a very unsatisfactory wig,to protect a uranium mine.In the meantime Wilde and Reed are having a truly tiresome romance.Some good location scenes but that is about all of interest.
MARIO GAUCI
African adventures were constant entertainment fodder throughout the 1950s and beyond, where many a popular star took on the jungle with its wild animals and (often) equally hostile natives; in this case, it was strapping Cornel Wilde – rather ill-at-ease, however, playing a hard-drinking womanizer (especially given the various attempts made on his life by "Leopard Men" already responsible for his brother's death after having stumbled upon a deposit of uranium)! This British-made production (albeit helmed by an American) features yet another stalwart cast – which also includes leading lady Donna Reed (who, as a bookish anthropologist, naturally starts by resenting Wilde's boorishness but eventually cannot resist his directness and obvious virility), Leo Genn (the outwardly benign missionary eventually revealed to be the mastermind behind the Mau Mau-inspired 'reign of terror', driven by a misguided sense of religious and civic duty), Ron Randell (who, as Wilde's brother's business partner, logically has the finger of suspicion pointing at him from the outset) and, in one of his more prominent pre-stardom roles, Christopher Lee (a big-game hunter of Italian descent who, even more unlikely, is played up to be the hero's romantic rival!). The exotic locale supplies characteristic thrills (such as the inevitable cobra attack) and excessive (i.e. mostly irrelevant) local color but, shot by the redoubtable Freddie Young, it invariably pleases the eye (despite the panning-and-scanning involved in the TV-sourced copy I acquired). The obligatory peril-fraught-trek-through-the-jungle (with tension among the protagonists palpable as they seek the lost mine) takes up the latter half of the narrative, culminating in Genn's going berserk and unleashing the "Leopard Men" on his trapped 'companions'
until the other natives rise up against these clandestine forces, since they find their activities giving them a bad name!
AD
