KILLERS OF KILIMANJARO sent durable if fading star Robert Taylor and his most frequent director, journeyman Richard Thorpe, to East Africa for this 1959 adventure. Taylor handles the assignment professionally without breaking a sweat, and fortunately Thorpe had a good cinematographer to do justice to the wildlife encounters. Otherwise, it’s no feather in his cap, due to a lame script, mediocre editing, wan second leads and while there are oodles of action over the 91 minutes it’s sloppy and unconvincing. The ads bellowed a challenge with SEE! SINISTER ASSAULT OF THE DEADLY CROCODILES! RUTHLESS TERROR OF THE SLAVE TRADERS! BULL ELEPHANT ATTACK! FLAMED-HAIRED BEAUTY!  But patrons in the States only shelled out $600,000, 158th place for the year. ‘Killers‘ competed with four more Africa-set actioners in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, Watusi, Timbuktu and a remake of Tarzan, the Ape Man. The first of those was pretty good and holds a solid rep. This, like the others, is just a trivia stumper. *

Bob hoping that’s a TV series on the horizon, Tony mulling lyrics for “What Kind Of Fool Am I?”

1880. Can-do American engineer ‘Robert Adamson’ (Taylor) arrives in colonial-contested eastern Africa to build a railroad whose construction has been halted by a number of elements including fierce tribes and the power of Arab slave traders. One obstacle after another doesn’t keep cool and determined Adamson from forging forth.

There were great difficulties laying tracks across the hazard-heavy landscapes, not least a famous pair of man-eating lions who decimated crews. They’re ignored in the cliche-clogged script done by Earl Felton and John Gilling. Adamson/Taylor are saddled with D.O.A. assistants in emotions-challenged Anne Aubrey and wet biscuit Anthony Newley. Aubrey’s there because you have to have “a woman along”, and yes, they manage to include a scene where she takes a bath (cue bare shoulders & teased cleavage), while Newley is tasked with weak, tiresomely inserted comedy relief as a dork named ‘Hooky Hook’. Veteran supporting players are stuck in likewise cut & paste characters: Grégoire Aslan (cold-eyed slaver), John Dimech (‘charming’ tag-along orphan kid—he was later the ill-fated ‘Daud’ in Lawrence Of Arabia), Martin Benson (sneaky cur), Allan Cuthbertson (gibbering fever-wracked shell), Orlando Martins (tribal chief won over by displays of chloroform and a telescope), a bearded Donald Pleasence (glum steamer captain, warning of perils) and Earl Cameron (witch doctor, shamed and dispatched). Taylor gets to dude-out for the old “stay calm while they test your nards by throwing spears at you” bit. **

Their faces reveal how invested they were in their roles.

Shot around Moshi, Tanzania (then called Tanganyika) and outside Nairobi in Kenya, it at least looks decent, thanks to cameraman Ted Moore (who’d do seven Bond films including the first four Sean’s), getting copious footage of the then-still-teeming wildlife, with crocodiles earning a large amount of coverage. Plus it doesn’t cheat and crib shots from other more notable items like King Solomon’s Mines or Mogambo. Regrettably there is an unfortunate segment showing the shooting of a bull elephant. William Alwyn provided an okay score.

* Richard Thorpe had guided two big hits for Taylor, Ivanhoe and Knights Of The Round Table, as well teaming up for The Crowd Roars, All The Brothers Were Valiant, Quentin Durward, Tip On A Dead Jockey and The House of the Seven Hawks. Taylor’s other ’59 paychecks The Hangman and The House of the Seven Hawks also under-performed. At 48, his big screen career having slipped badly, he lucked out and scored a reprieve on TV that year, starting three seasons of The Detectives.

** Those Tsavo-based homicidal felines had previously been featured in 1953’s Men Against The Sun, a long-forgotten British programmer shot in Kenya and would show up again in 1996 with The Ghost And The Darkness, much grander, a lot more exciting. Catch that one.