KHARTOUM (1966)

In the 1880s, a Muslim who calls himself the Mahdi (the Expected One) has risen out of the sands and is engaged in a Holy War against any, Muslims or Christians, who stand in the way of his attempt to conquer the Middle East. The British try to stop the the Mahdi and his forces in Sudan before they can get to Cairo, but their first attempt leads to total failure. Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) doesn't want to lose face again, but he is forced into sending General Gordon (Charlton Heston, pictured), a well-liked former Sudan governor, to Khartoum to, if nothing else, get the British out before the Mahdi conducts his promised massacres. He's to be given no official help so that if he fails, he'll be blamed, not the government. Gordon is arrogant and a bit of a mystic (so we're told) and strong in his religious beliefs, so he is some ways a Christian mirror image of the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier). Colonel Stewart (Richard Johnson) is sent as his assistant (and to keep an eye on Gordon for Gladstone); the two are wary of each other for a while but soon develop a mutual respect. Gordon arranges a meeting with the Mahdi, but to no avail, and with England not fully prepared to bail Gordon out with military help, Gordon must make a decision about leaving while there is still time or remaining with the other Sudanese and facing death.

You can see the seeds here of an attempt to make another LAWRENCE OF ARABIA—desert vistas, heroic diplomats, people of the Middle East, culture clash. But, though this is fairly engrossing, it falls short of LAWRENCE in at least two areas: 1) Basil Dearden, the director, is no David Lean; though he's certainly a competent filmmaker, there's little epic feel or stylistic visuals to capture the imagination or the eye; 2) the protagonist [Spoiler] ultimately fails in his quest, even failing to save his own associates from the fury of the uprising. In real life, Gordon was held up as a heroic figure, but the movie's end is pretty much just tragic and dispiriting. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but it does seem like a bad way to end a movie that wants to be a blockbuster. The acting is also not quite on a par with LAWRENCE. Heston is his usual stoic self, not boring but not especially compelling. Olivier, in distracting brownface (or as I like say, duskyface) is unrecognizable and a bit hammy. Much better are Richard Johnson as Stewart, who provides the emotional key to the movie, and old reliable Ralph Richardson as Gladstone. Standouts in smaller roles include Peter Arne and Alexander Knox. The battle scenes are well-staged, but the overuse of obvious wire-tripping of horses becomes unsettling. According to IMDb trivia, many horses had to be killed after suffering stunt injuries. If not a movie I'm eager to re-watch, it is certainly worth a viewing. [TCM]