King Solomon's Mines (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

To further add to the realism, the music for the film is almost entirely made up of native African rhythms. You'll find no swelling crescendos of strings and percussion as our heroes find themselves in dangerous predicaments. And without such musical cues, modern audiences are apt not to know how harrowing the situations are, the way home audiences aren't sure when to laugh at TV sitcoms if there isn't a laugh track around. If I appear as cynical as Quartermain, so be it.

Anyway, the perils along the journey are many and varied, from hostile tribes of local inhabitants to stampeding herds of zebra, antelope, and elephants. Danger comes from all directions, and except for a rather phony-looking spider early on, it is all quite plausible. Legends of monsters, gods, and terrible animals make the area they're headed for taboo. And the mystery is heightened by the meeting of several mysterious strangers along the way: a quiet, seven-foot outlander named Umbopo (Siriaque), who insists upon coming along with the party, and a suspicious-looking European who introduces himself simply as "Mr. Smith" (Hugo Haas).

"King Solomon's Mines" is a fairly relaxed adventure story by today's standards, and its scenes are allowed to develop naturally rather than being artificially enhanced by the ploys of quick edits, constant motion, and loud music. Not everyone will appreciate the slower pace of yesteryear, but it's a good antidote for more-recent hyperkinetic exercises in sound and action for their own sake. The ending seems abrupt and anticlimactic, but everything that went before it makes it worthwhile. Although the movie is not exactly as I remembered it, it provides its own new rewards.

Video:
The screen size is the usual 1.33:1 we would expect from the video reproduction of a 1.37:1 ratio movie of 1950. The overall image is mostly free of scratches, age spots, and other defects of time, but it is not entirely the sharpest picture I've ever seen from an older film. Whether the slight blur and the small amount of Technicolor fade is due to the condition of the original print or the DVD transfer, I could not say. Oddly, the picture quality improves as the movie goes on, with some close-ups looking crystal clear. But the landscapes remain a tad out of focus most of the time, probably due to the second-unit photography. None of this should spoil one's appreciation of the film because it's so slight; yet with cinematography so good, it's a shame the entire screen image couldn't have looked state-of-the-art.

Audio:
The standard monaural sound of the day is conveyed via Dolby Digital 1.0 mono. It is pretty ordinary, to say the least, but it does its job with a minimum of fuss. There is no noise, no brightness, no edginess to the audio, but there is little dynamic or frequency range, either. Despite the sound's mono handicap, however, it produces a good deal of inner detail in the sounds of the jungle and so on. It works and it's quiet; what more can I say.

Extras:
This is not a film you'll be buying or renting for the bonus materials. The only extra thing available on the disc is a well-worn theatrical trailer. Beyond that, you'll find twenty-six scene selections; English and French spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Moreover, no chapter insert came with the package. Bare bones all the way.

Parting Thoughts:
Viewers expecting another Indiana Jones extravaganza will be sorely disappointed with "King Solomon's Mines." This is not your modern slam-bang action movie filled with near-death cliff-hangers and hairbreadth escapes; but, rather, it's a pure adventure film, with an emphasis on realistic dangers and believable excitement. Steward Granger makes a fine, stalwart hero, and Deborah Kerr a proper, dauntless heroine. The beauties of the African vistas fill in the rest.

---

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---