King Solomon’s Mines

King Solomon’s Mines
Blu-ray
Warner Archive
1950 / 1.37:1
Starring Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger, Richard Carlson
Written by Helen Deutsch
Directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton

Thanks to an extravagant imagination (described by some as “lurid”) and his own experience in the African outback, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines could be enjoyed as a textbook travelogue or escapist fantasy. Published in 1885, it sold 31,000 copies in Britain alone—its popularity would spark a cottage industry of exotic thrill-rides like Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, not to mention the decades of cinematic spin-offs to follow.

Living, breathing dinosaurs weren’t the only unusual thing about those primordial adventures; there were virtually no women to be found—and if they appeared at all, they were relegated to the sidelines. To quote Haggard’s own protagonist, “I can safely say there is not a petticoat in the whole history.”

And to quote King Kong’s Carl Denham, “The public, bless ’em, must have a pretty face.” When Gaumont produced their adaptation of King Solomon’s Mines in 1937, they counted on the pretty face of  golden-haired Anna Lee, who headlined alongside Paul Robeson and Cedric Hardwicke. Lee played Kathy O’Brien, the daughter of an Irish diamond-hunter—but her character, though refreshingly courageous, was more co-star than leading lady.

MGM moved romance to the forefront in their 1950 remake directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton. Deborah Kerr starred as a single-minded Englishwoman named Elizabeth Curtis, and Stewart Granger played Allan Quatermain, a human bloodhound on the trail of his beautiful client’s missing husband.

Though Kerr’s character was invented out of whole cloth by screenwriter Helen Deutsch, Haggard used an explorer named Frederick Selous as the prototype for the larger than life Quatermain. Deutsch scrutinized Haggard’s fictitious adventurer and found some intriguing cracks in our hero’s armor. According to Leonard Cohen, those cracks are “how the light gets in”, and in Deutsch’s hands, the novel’s superhero is brought down to earth.

A self-confessed mercenary whose moral code has deteriorated along with his self esteem, Quatermain has grown to despise himself, he’s a hunter who loves his adopted homeland but hates the tourists who engage in a bloody extension of British imperialism, the man-boys in their spic and span safari outfits and shiny new elephant guns. After Quatermain’s right-hand man is killed thanks to one of those buffoons, the hunter decides to pack it in. The next day he’s given an offer he can’t refuse by a woman no one could refuse.

An English rose in bell-shaped skirt and petticoats, Elizabeth Curtis appears fresh from tea in Bedfordshire—but here she is at the door of Quatermain’s cottage, offering a king’s ransom to find… a king’s ransom. But the diamonds are merely a lure—she’s more interested in finding her lost husband—a man who went searching for Solomon’s treasure and dropped off the face of the earth. Quatermain, thinking of the son he left behind in England, grudgingly accepts the money and the presence of a woman on the safari.

Whether it’s the search for a Golden Fleece, a witch’s broomstick, or a diamond mine, the hero or heroine of any quest usually discovers themselves too—these odysseys are tests of character, not scavenger hunts. As for Elizabeth and Quatermain, their search for diamonds and husbands is forgotten once they’ve found each other. Their courtship blossoms against some of the most glamorous backdrops ever afforded a Hollywood romance.

The movie was shot over four months in Uganda, the Belgian Congo, and Kenya—though parts of the film’s suspenseful finale were staged in Carlsbad Caverns and New Mexico. Bennett and Marton direct in a workmanlike fashion that satisfies our appetite for a good story well told, but it’s Robert Surtees who feeds our senses—he won an Oscar for his troubles, probably not just for his transcendent cinematography but getting it done in 157 degree heat.

Richard Carlson co-stars in the thankless role of Elizabeth’s affable brother—he seems to exist to explain his sister’s mood swings—but the real supporting cast is made up of Africa’s finest, the lions, leopards, and gazelles. These glorious creatures aren’t there just for their beauty and danger, they’re matchmakers complicit in Elizabeth and Quatermain’s romance—each stampede is another reason for Granger to embrace Kerr (as if he needed one).

All the action is accomplished under a blazing sun with brave actors and even braver stunt people—though mention must be made of one particularly startling special effect; the African actor Siriaque who has a pivotal role as the mysterious Umbopa: rail thin, elegantly tailored, and as tall as a Magnolia tree, he’s a Giacometti sculpture come to life. Siriaque’s gentle nature is camouflage for his real identity and he embodies the movie’s central mystery—his noble appearance is the key.

King Solomon’s Mines has finally arrived on Blu ray and its beauty matches the African plains and Deborah Kerr in all her khaki grandeur (perhaps Surtees’s greatest subject). Warner Archive has gone light on the extras (a short contemporaneous promotional film and trailer) but in the case of King Solomon’s Mines, the movie is treasure enough.

Here’s John Landis on King Solomon’s Mines: