Fortune in Diamonds (1951) User Reviews

Not a bad South African western for its time

[Marlburian · 5/10 · 18 February 2006]

Fred Harvey's comments says it all really. It's a bit of a film noir, given that three of the four main protagonists are unlikeable, up against it and with little future (and this includes Jack Hawkins, who at least starts the film off with a stiff upper lip but then degenerates). The feeling of pessimism was accentuated by the photography itself appearing dark, and seeing it on TV didn't do justice to some of the panoramic outside shots.

It wasn't all that clear what distance Hawkins had to travel at the beginning of the film to escape the British, but despite looking very tired he made it to civilisation; so it wasn't entirely convincing that he needed to mount an expedition costing more than £200 and necessitating an ox-drawn wagon to retrieve the diamonds; one would have thought that having made it one way in a distressed condition he could have made it back by himself, with just a couple of pack mules for his provisions - but then he wouldn't have needed to recruit his disparate accomplices to fall out with, so there would have been less of a plot.

Moody South African Western

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 5 November 2019]

A bleak cross between 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' and 'Scott of the Antarctic' enhanced by superb location work by veteran cameraman Ossie Morris; combining the inhospitable terrain of the latter (oppressively hot rather than bitterly cold) with the squabbling amongst a small, ill-matched group searching for treasure of the former.

black and white adventure

[hotspur95 · 5/10 · 25 August 2004]

This film was a bit like King Solomons mines at the beginning but not as exciting. Then it turned into a whodunnit towards the end although it was fairly predictable.

Was watchable as an 'afternoon and its raining outside' sort of movie although there are lots of other old black and white films I like more.

Interesting as it was set in a pre-apartheid South Africa and what was fine in 1951 ie being very dismissive and arrogant with black people is very far from OK today.

My mum spent most of it trying to remember the name of the lead - Jack Hawkins it was though :)

Unexciting lost treasure tale

[lorenellroy · 1 September 2004]

This is , to all intents and purposes , a Western although set in post Boer War South Africa rather than in the American West . The year is 1901 and the Boer War is over -two Boer soldiers , Brandt (Jack Hawkins ) and Hendrik ( Peter Hammond ) are returning home when Brandt stumbles across a body with a fortune in diamonds on his person

He conceals the treasure -fearing he may be waylaid by the British and on returninbg home finds his fiancee is now married to the worthless Clive Hunter (Dennis Price ) a former British officer now scrounging a bare existence from petty crime and card sharping . Brandt organises an expedition to locate the diamonds -Hendrik and Hunter go along as does the saloon owner " Dominic " who is funding the venture

Bitter rivalries soon break out and one of the party fails to return -it is believed he was murdered and the last section of the movie turns on who did the deed .

The plot has overtones of the vastly superior " The Treasure of the Sierra Madre " in its highlighting of the conflict between expedition members but is too limply directed and staged to really develop this in any striking way

All the actors did better work and the whole enterprise seems tired and under budgetted

Just about passable time filler on a rainy afternoon when you dont feel like doing much beyond slumping in front of the television set

From the gloomy austerity of post - war Britain - a gloomy austere picture

[ianlouisiana · 5/10 · 8 November 2008]

A poor - quality print shown on FilmFour the other night did this movie no good at all.Even in it's pristine 1951 form it was not much more than a"programmer" although Ossie Morris's photography lifted it slightly out of the rut.Jack Hawkins played a decent chap(although a Boer) and Dennis Price a cad.Gregoire Aslan - born to play bartenders, suspicious foreigners or club owners in British'B' pictures right up to the late 60s - has a decent sized part as a suspicious foreign bar tender/club owner. Blacks - -where they appear at all - are shown as idle,subservient and feckless.There is no sense that the movie is in fact set in their country. In other words,"The Adventurers"(a misnomer if there ever was one)is a product of its time.Think Festival of Britain,the death of King George VIth,the Korean War.All events receding into history along with the attitudes expressed in this movie set at the turn of the 20th Century but made fifty years later at a time when in fact very little had changed in South Africa since the time of the Boers. A sub Graham Greene tale of thwarted love creates little of a stir.Dennis Price looks bored with the whole thing and Jack Hawkins has "The Cruel Sea" just around the corner. It is to be hoped that a few weeks away from the gloom and austerity of post - war Britain gave the cast heart for better things to come. Certainly "The Adventurers " was a nadir that most of them happily escaped from.

Rather dull British western

[malcolmgsw · 3/10 · 12 July 2017]

This is a really plodding British western set at the time of the Boer war. Very little action occurs and when it does it is too little and too late and set in an extremely dark mine shaft. Dennis Price features but is murdered off screen half way through. Bernard Lee is the policeman to whom Peter Hammond slowly recounts the story in flashback.

Dull adventures in South Africa

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 18 May 2017]

THE ADVENTURERS is a low budget British adventure film set in South Africa, which is about the only appealing quality it has. Otherwise the film uses dated film stock and a predictable storyline that lacks life and motive despite the exotic locales. Jack Hawkins has the best role in it, playing a bearded, hulking brute of a man who hides a fortune in diamonds while abroad and later assembles a team of ne'er-do-wells to go back and retrieve it. Dennis Price has one of those scummy roles that he always used to play so well and Hawkins is reliably entertaining, but the film as a whole has a slow pace and a predictable outcome that makes it a struggle to sit through.

Excellent adventure movie

[billzweig · 10/10 · 26 October 2022]

Hard for me to understand why so many week ratings. This film has all that makes a good movie and a good adventure story. Great black and white photography shot on location in South Africa, excellent British actors (Jack Hawkins, Dennis Price, Bernard Lee), good story...and as of 2022 this 72 years old film does not at all appear dated and had lost nothing of its original power - unless you expect robotic monsters, flaming explosions, sub-second cuts and gallons of blood.

And this is not only an adventure in Africa, but the slowly unfolding story of human duplicity, greed and even a tragic romantic triangle.

The Adventurers

[henry8-3 · 5/10 · 5 November 2019]

On returning from the Boer war Jack Hawkins finds a body holding a cash of diamonds. With a few dodgy characters along - Price etc heads back to find them, with the group all getting a touch of the Sierra Madres with each other.

Quite interesting piece focussing at its best on the double dealing going on between the characters. Hawkins is as solid as ever and Price his usual sneaky self.

Diamond Fever, instead of Gold.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 21 March 2024]

What a good surprise, this adventure flick, which looks like a western, and produced by the UK film industry, in a period, before the mid sixties, when the British dared to provide many adventure films, most of the time as good as the US ones. The same concerning the war films. Because after the late sixties, they totally abandonned the genre to focus only on social and - from time to time - crime features. Back to this one, Jack Hawkins is perfect in this role, as also is Dennis Price. Splendid settings and solid script enhance the efficiency of this David Mc Donald's film. Notice that this director also made another adventure film taking also place in South Africa : DIAMOND CITY, also spaking of diamonds. I don't remember if those two features are alike or not, I will review this latest in a few weeks. This movie maybe lacks of action scenes but prefers focusing on characters. Good climax. Ald David Mc Donald's most known film will remain CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.