Sands Of The Kalahari (1965)

When a private plane carrying four passengers in addition to the pilot and co-pilot crashes in the South African desert, it becomes survival of the fittest. It doesn't help that the one passenger (Stuart Whitman) that shows leadership ability is a Neanderthal sociopath. Based on the novel by William Mulvihill and directed by Cy Endfield (ZULU). This is a rather nasty film to sit through. Not because it's not well made but because we can't really warm up to any of the characters who, for the most part, seem rather superficial and unlikable. The normally appealing Susannah York plays a weak willed ninny that her sex would be ashamed of, Nigel Davenport is an opportunistic would be rapist, Harry Andrews is a German who may have been a Nazi, Theodore Bikel is a well intentioned but ineffectual doctor which leaves only the morose Stanley Baker for the audience to root for. The film seems overlong though the film is infused with a sense of menace as a colony of hostile baboons ominously watch the proceedings and why wouldn't they be hostile with Whitman sadistically killing them for no real reason. The wan score is by John Dankworth with Erwin Hiller (I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING) in charge of the Panavision desert vistas with Spain partially subbing for South Africa. Effective yes, but unpleasant.