I didn't have the stamina to see this film to the end. But there are times when the first five minutes are enough to tell you when a film is poorly-made dross.
In this case the acting is wooden, the production values are poor, and the plot is complete hokum. Unfortunately the film isn't even 'so bad it's good'. Put it this way, we have a man going out into the back country of South Africa, the perfect place for an 'unfortunate accident' but the villains decide to bump him off with a rifle shot in the middle of an international airport. When that fails they try putting a bomb in his chauffeur-driven car (obviously an old wreck that was ready for the scrap-heap anyway).
As you can see they're not exactly the sharpest tools in the box. It doesn't help that they are led by Davy Kaye, a pint-sized English comic actor (he is the little guy who greets Lionel Jeffries and gets locked out of the castle in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang') Not exactly a threatening screen presence, and in one scene he even does the 'one-man band' comedy routine I remember from my childhood. The voices of many of the supporting cast are looped (presumably to cover thick "Sarth Efrican" accents).
A curiosity of the casting is Matt Monro. A very fine singer admired by Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett but vastly underrated in his own country, this was his only appearance as an actor. He actually does quite well, he knows not to do too much and doesn't try to overplay the material to make it more 'dramatic' - a mistake made by the sneering, sardonic hero and the snarling pantomime villains.
In this case the acting is wooden, the production values are poor, and the plot is complete hokum. Unfortunately the film isn't even 'so bad it's good'. Put it this way, we have a man going out into the back country of South Africa, the perfect place for an 'unfortunate accident' but the villains decide to bump him off with a rifle shot in the middle of an international airport. When that fails they try putting a bomb in his chauffeur-driven car (obviously an old wreck that was ready for the scrap-heap anyway).
As you can see they're not exactly the sharpest tools in the box. It doesn't help that they are led by Davy Kaye, a pint-sized English comic actor (he is the little guy who greets Lionel Jeffries and gets locked out of the castle in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang') Not exactly a threatening screen presence, and in one scene he even does the 'one-man band' comedy routine I remember from my childhood. The voices of many of the supporting cast are looped (presumably to cover thick "Sarth Efrican" accents).
A curiosity of the casting is Matt Monro. A very fine singer admired by Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett but vastly underrated in his own country, this was his only appearance as an actor. He actually does quite well, he knows not to do too much and doesn't try to overplay the material to make it more 'dramatic' - a mistake made by the sneering, sardonic hero and the snarling pantomime villains.