"King Solomon's Mines" tells the story of a woman (Deborah Kerr) and her brother (Richard Carlson) who hire a white hunter (Stewart Granger) in central Africa in the late 1800s to track down her missing husband who went in search of the fabled mines.
It should be understood that this classic 1950 adventure film is just that – a realistic adventure film and not an action movie, although there are some brief action scenes, of course. I say "realistic" in the sense that the story is taken seriously; there's no Tarzan or Indiana Jones and practically everything that happens is within the realm of possibility.
The film was shot in central Africa – Congo, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania –with desert scenes shot at Death Valley and nearby Lone Pine, CA, and the cave scenes at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. The locations are incredible, to say the least, but the desert scenes beg the question: What desert did they run into in the jungles of central Africa? The only possible answer is that they went so far south they hit the Kalahari Desert.
Like I said, this is a realistic adventure film (there's a slight romantic subplot but it's hardly worth mentioning). As such, be prepared for a cool hike into remotest Africa and the various fascinating tribes and animals thereof. Some criticize the film for showcasing too many animals, as if it's a zoological tour as much as a story, but the film was shot in 1949 and deepest Africa was still a mystery to the average person outside of Africa, which is why it's known as the "dark continent." Speaking of which, this was before Western Civilization reached (or infected) all the tribes in the interior and so the tribespeople appear authentic. If you were to go there today you'd see them walking around with tennis shoes, jeans and AC/DC shirts.
Speaking of authenticity, the filmmakers made the wise decision to omit a conventional score and utilized percussion-oriented tribal music. This keeps the film from being unnecessarily dated with one of those horrible old-fashioned scores from the period.
As far as the tribespeople go, the towering Watutsi are magnificent and the sequences at their awesome kingdom are a highlight.
Lastly, you have to take into consideration that the story is condensed into a 103-minute time frame and certain segments of the story take much longer than shown, like the cavern sequence or the hike across the desert. The filmmakers obviously didn't want the film to bog down with overlong sequences.
BOTTOM LINE: This is a great film for when you're in the mood for a realistic old-fashioned African adventure without Tarzan, Cheeta or Indiana Jones. Granger stands out as the uber-masculine hunter and Kerr is striking as the adamant redhead, but she's revealed as too weak at times, which isn't cool today.
GRADE: B
