MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Zulu (1964, 138 minutes)
The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, at a time when the sun never set on the British Empire, gets off to a disastrous start for the English forces in South Africa. Twelve-hundred British troops are massacred at Islandlwana by a Zulu force of 20 thousand, armed with nothing more than traditional assegais (spears) and cowhide shields. What chance will the tiny supply depot and field hospital at Rorke’s Drift have with a contingent of fewer than 150 men, able-bodied and otherwise, against such overwhelming numbers?
Lt. John Chard (Stanley Baker) of the Royal Engineers, sent to the area to build a log bridge over a river, encounters Lt. Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine in his first leading role), returning from the dry, rolling grasslands in full military dress (red tunic, white helmet and grey cape with black trim). African porters carry his afternoon kill of one small antelope and one jaguar for the officers’ mess that evening. With a Zulu attack imminent, Chard assumes command of the 24th Foot, since his commission predates Bromhead’s by three months. “Oh well,” sighs Bromhead, “I suppose there are such things as gifted amateurs.”
A pair of Swedish missionaries, Mr. Witt (Jack Hawkins) and his daughter, Margareta, have fled from the kraal of Zulu King Cetshwayo, one of Witt’s parishioners, to warn the troops at Rorke’s Drift and to evacuate the hospital’s occupants. “Mr. Chard, I am ready to take away the sick and wounded. Please supply the wagons,” barks Witt to the regiment’s new commanding officer. “Mr. Witt, I don’t suppose you hold the Queen’s commission,” says Chard. “Then allow a Queen’s officer to give orders to her soldiers.”
When Chard issues arms to the sick and wounded and reveals plans to defend the outpost instead of retreating into the hills, Witt loses control. “You will all be killed like those this morning, and now even the sick in their beds!” Chard patiently explains to the reverend, “I don’t think so, Mr. Witt. The Army doesn’t like more than one disaster in a day.” Bromhead adds in an upper-crust sotto voce, “Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.”
“When I have the impertinence to climb into your pulpit and deliver a sermon, Mr. Witt, then you can tell me my duty,” says Chard. “I am a man of peace, sir,” retorts Witt, as Chard orders a wall to be built out of heavy grain sacks as a last line of defense against a Zulu attack.
As the officers receive orders to stand their ground, Chard grumbles, “I wonder what military genius thought that one up, somebody’s son and heir who got a commission before he learned how to shave?” “I rather fancy he’s nobody’s son and heir now,” answers Bromhead, as drums thunder in the distance.
