Where No Vultures Fly | |
---|---|
Directed by | Harry Watt |
Written by | W. P. Lipscomb Leslie Norman Ralph Smart |
Based on | story by Harry Watt |
Produced by | Michael Balcon |
Starring | Anthony Steel Dinah Sheridan |
Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
Edited by | Jack Harris Gordon Stone |
Music by | Alan Rawsthorne |
Production companies | Ealing Studios African Film Productions |
Distributed by | General Film Distributors |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 107 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom South Africa |
Language | English |
Box office | £152,000 [1] |
Where No Vultures Fly is a 1951 British adventure film directed by Harry Watt and starring Anthony Steel and Dinah Sheridan. It was released under the title Ivory Hunter in the United States. [2] The film was inspired by the work of the conservationist Mervyn Cowie. [3] The film's opening credits state that "the characters in this film are imaginary, but the story is based on the recent struggle of Mervyn Cowie to form the National Parks of Kenya." [4] [5] The title Where No Vultures Fly denotes areas where there are no dead animals. [2] A sequel, West of Zanzibar , was released in 1954. [6]
The film is set in East Africa near the boundary between Kenya and Tanzania. The story follows the early days of game warden Bob Payton (Anthony Steel) in his establishment of a 1000 square mile wildlife reserve. He is horrified by the destruction of wild animals by ivory hunters. He establishes a wildlife sanctuary. He is attacked by wild animals and must contend with a villainous ivory poacher (Harold Warrender). [2] [3]
When he confronts the ivory poacher in a remote area one night the poacher's native accomplices spear him in the leg and run off. As a leopard is about to attack the injured Payton one of his own native helpers comes to his rescue. The poacher meets a fatal end when his jeep is chased over a cliff by a rhinoceros.
Actor | Role |
---|---|
Anthony Steel | Bob Payton |
Dinah Sheridan | Mary Payton |
Harold Warrender | Mannering |
Meredith Edwards | Gwyl |
William Simons | Tim Payton |
Orlando Martins | M'Kwongi |
Where No Vultures Fly was one of a series of "expeditionary films" Harry Watt made, like The Overlanders, where he would find the story from visiting a location. "These expeditionary films are really journalistic jobs", he wrote later. "You get sent out to a country by the studio, stay as long as you can without being fired and a story generally crops up." [7]
Watt got the idea of the film after a chance remark from a game warden in Tanganyika. He was shooting zebras and when Watt wondered if it was necessary, the warden remarked that Watt "talk like Mervyn Cowie". This prompted the director to track down Cowie in Nairobi, who inspired the story. [7]
W. P. Lipscomb wrote the script based on Harry Watt's original idea. Ralph Smart worked on it. According to Leslie Norman "the script was turned down generally, so I went in and added a bit which made them accept it." [8]
The film was a co-production between Ealing and South Africa's African Films, with half the financing coming from South Africa. (Africa Films was a South African theatre chain.) [9] [10]
Dinah Sheridan flew to Kenya at the end of November 1950 for a four-month shoot. [11] Watt took a full unit to Africa and based it at Amboseli, south of Nairobi. They built a complete village of huts for the crew to live in. [7]
Anthony Steel contracted malaria during filming on location in Kenya. [12]
The film was selected for the 1951 Royal Command Performance, over other contenders such as A Place in the Sun and Outcast of the Islands , becoming the last one during the reign of George VI. [13] [14]
Variety praised the photography but felt the film had been given "false value by the Command selection". [15]
It was the second most popular film at the British box office in 1952. [16] [17] It also made $800,000 in the US, which was considered strong at the time for a British film. [18] It made Anthony Steel a star of British cinema. [19]
In 1957, the film and its sequel were listed among the seventeen most popular films the Rank organisation ever released in the US. [20]
John Edward Boulting and Roy Alfred Clarence Boulting, known collectively as the Boulting brothers, were English filmmakers and identical twins who became known for their series of satirical comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. They produced many of their films through their own production company, Charter Film Productions, which they founded in 1937.
Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch was an English-Australian actor of theatre, film and radio.
John Edward Hawkins, CBE was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. One of the most popular British film stars of the 1950s, he was known for his portrayal of military men.
Nairobi National Park is a national park in Kenya that was established in 1946 about 7 km (4.3 mi) south of Nairobi. It is fenced on three sides, whereas the open southern boundary allows migrating wildlife to move between the park and the adjacent Kitengela plains. Herbivores gather in the park during the dry season. Nairobi National Park is negatively affected by increasing human and livestock populations, changing land use and poaching of wildlife. Despite its proximity to the city and its relative small size, it boasts a large and varied wildlife population, and is one of Kenya's most successful rhinoceros sanctuaries.
The Wooden Horse is a 1950 British World War II war film directed by Jack Lee and starring Leo Genn, David Tomlinson and Anthony Steel. It is based on the book of the same name by Eric Williams, who also wrote the screenplay.
Harold Thomas Gregson, known professionally as John Gregson, was an English actor of stage, television and film, with 40 credited film roles. He was best known for his crime drama and comedy roles.
Phyllis Hannah Murray-Hill, known professionally as Phyllis Calvert, was an English film, stage and television actress. She was one of the leading stars of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s such as The Man in Grey (1943) and was one of the most popular movie stars in Britain in the 1940s. She continued her acting career for another 50 years.
Betty Evelyn Box was a prolific British film producer, usually credited as Betty E. Box.
Dinah Sheridan was an English actress with a career spanning seven decades. She was best known for the films Genevieve (1953) and The Railway Children (1970), the long-running BBC comedy series Don't Wait Up (1983–1990), and for her distinguished theatre career in London's West End.
Michael Joseph Anderson Sr was an English film and television director. His career spanned nearly 50 years across three countries, working at various times in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. His most critically and commercially successful works include the World War II film The Dam Busters (1955), the dystopian sci-fi film Logan's Run (1976), and the comedy adventure epic Around the World in 80 Days (1956), which won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Picture.
William Inglis Lindon Travers was a British actor, screenwriter, director and animal rights activist. Before his show business career, he served in the British Army with Gurkha and special forces units.
Anthony Maitland Steel was a British actor and singer who appeared in British war films of the 1950s such as The Wooden Horse (1950) and Where No Vultures Fly (1951). He was also known for his tumultuous marriage to Anita Ekberg.
Leslie Armande Norman was an English post-war film director, producer and editor who also worked extensively on 1960s television series later in his career.
The Planter's Wife is a 1952 British war drama film directed by Ken Annakin, and starring Claudette Colbert, Jack Hawkins and Anthony Steel. It is set against the backdrop of the Malayan Emergency and focuses on a rubber planter and his neighbours who are fending off a campaign of sustained attacks by Communist insurgents while also struggling to save their marriage.
Raymond Egerton Harry Watt was a Scottish documentary and feature film director, who began his career working for John Grierson and Robert Flaherty.
The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan is a 1953 British musical drama film dramatisation of the collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan. Librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, portrayed by Robert Morley and Maurice Evans, co-wrote fourteen extraordinarily successful comic operas, later referred to as the Savoy Operas, which continue to be popular today.
The Master of Ballantrae is a 1953 British Technicolor adventure film starring Errol Flynn and Roger Livesey. It is a loose and highly truncated adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson 1889 novel of the same name. In eighteenth century Scotland, two sons of a laird clash over the family estate and a lady. It was the last film directed by William Keighley.
Mervyn Hugh Cowie, was a conservationist who pioneered wildlife protection and the development of tourism throughout East Africa.
Men of Two Worlds is a 1946 British Technicolor drama film directed by Thorold Dickinson and starring Phyllis Calvert, Eric Portman and Robert Adams. The screenplay concerns an African music student who returns home to battle a witch doctor for control over his tribe.
For the 1928 film starring Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter, see West of Zanzibar