The story of native tribesmen who move towards Mombasa, getting drawn info the world of ivory smuggling.The story of native tribesmen who move towards Mombasa, getting drawn info the world of ivory smuggling.The story of native tribesmen who move towards Mombasa, getting drawn info the world of ivory smuggling.
- Wood
- (as Howard Marion Crawford)
- Colonel Ryan
- (as R. Stuart Lindsell)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOpening credits: The events and characters portrayed in this film are wholly fictitious.
- GoofsWhen the poachers are hunting the elephants, a kookaburra call is clearly heard. Kookaburras are only found in Australia, a continent thousands of miles east of Zanzibar.
- Quotes
Mary Payton: Don't you understand what all this is doing to innocent African tribes?
Lawyer Dhofar: Perhaps I do. Perhaps I do not. But, but Mrs. Payton don't you think you are being a little, to put it delicately, starry-eyed about these so-called innocent tribes? Oh. come, Mrs. Payton, we must be realists. The world cannot wait for civilisation to catch up with the primitive black man.
Mary Payton: For one thing, this ivory business is destroying a fine, pastoral people, the Golanas; turning them into slum savages.
Lawyer Dhofar: But Mrs. Payton, in Africa, that is what the black man is doomed to be - a slum savage. Oh, it is regrettable but inevitable. Perhaps you conveniently forget your Industrial Revolution and what it did to your people?
Lawyer Dhofar: Africa, Mr Payton, is having its own industrial revolution. And no sentimental heart-burning is going to stop it.
Lawyer Dhofar: But you, speaking as an African...
Lawyer Dhofar: I am not an African. A Phoenician, perhaps; a Persian even - but not an African.
Bob Payton: I'm proud to call myself an East African.
Lawyer Dhofar: It is easy for a conqueror to be magnanimous. You are not an African, Mr. Payton. What are your inmost thoughts at this moment? Because I talk to you as man to man. Aren't they "I'd like to smack this little wog on the kisser?" Or something like that? I am a barrister-at-law, Mr Payton, a graduate of the Sorbonne but out here, my home, I am a wog. A munt. A nigger, even. And you ask me to sympathise with you in perpetuating that? I'm all for a change, Mr Payton, and if because of it the picturesque Golanas disappear, it's just too bad. That is the right expression, isn't it?
Lawyer Dhofar: But please forgive me. You must have so many missionary activities to occupy you, I must not detain you any longer.
Bob Payton: Now look here...
Lawyer Dhofar: In this cynical world, it is indeed charming to meet an idealist. Best of luck to you, Mrs Payton. Mr Payton, may you cure the growing pains of Africa.
Bob Payton: [now outside the office] Phew, that didn't go according to plan.
- ConnectionsFollows Ivory Hunter (1951)
I have no idea why these Bob Payton yarns were so popular at the time. It can't have been the magnetic charisma of Anthony Steel, the actor playing the game warden character. He simply doesn't have any. Neither does he have any chemistry whatsoever with his onscreen wife, Mary. He also manages to have his acting pants pulled down, by Edric O'Connor, who plays Ushingo, the chief of the local Galana tribe. O'Connor is quite exceptional in the role and clearly was no amateur performer.
The dramatic content focusses on illegal ivory poaching and smuggling (the I suspect, real life footage of an elephant being hunted and killed for its tusks is jarring) which as mentioned earlier still plagues our world and especially the elephant populations of the planet. A sub-story deals with the Galana's tribal lands being affected by soil erosion, with the resulting effect of younger tribal members drifting off towards the city and both its attractions and associated social problems.
Harry Watt, a regular Ealing director, specialised in both raising socially aware issues in his films, whilst making said films overseas. I direct interested readers towards his 1959 offering made in Australia, The Siege of Pinchgut, which is definitely NOT your typical crooks versus cops siege movie.
In WOZ, Watt is less successful in laying down a coherent narrative and sustaining a pacy delivery supplemented by a good deal of suspense. Things do pick up in the third act, where I found the constant back projections and use of inserted documentary stock footage, rather entertaining, but probably not for the right reasons. It was also amusing watching Mary Payton thundering through the African plain lands punishing this ancient 4 wheel drive truck, come personnel carrier.
This is by no means a flawless film. But Watt and his script writers, obviously had a handle on some of the big issues affecting the African continent in the 50's. Come the second decade of the 21st century and folks, they still haven't been resolved.
- spookyrat1
- Jan 6, 2019
Details
- Runtime1 hour 24 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1
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