Starring Rod Taylor, Jim Brown, Yvette Mimieux, Peter Carsten, Kenneth More, André Morell, Olivier Despax, Guy Deghy, Bloke Modisane, Calvin Lockhart, Alan Gifford, David Bauer
Directed by Jack Cardiff
Expectations: High, I’ve heard great things. This is a favorite of Scorsese and Tarantino as well.
The second movie this week that features a crazy ex-Nazi! I swear I didn’t plan it this way. Unlike Crawlspace though, Dark of the Sun is a lot more than just a crazy ex-Nazi film. It oozes style, machismo and gritty violence. Tarantino is a big fan of this one and after watching it, it’s no secret why. It’s remarkable that a film like this could even be made by a major studio in 1968, and as such feels a lot more like a big budget B-picture than a traditional studio film.
Rod Taylor and Jim Brown play a pair of mercenaries hired to take a steam train deep into the volatile Congo in order to rescue a town full of trapped European settlers… and $50 million in diamonds! They assemble a small force for the mission, a simple three-day job that requires with crackerjack timing if they are to avoid massive casualties. That’s ain’t the way it’s goin’ down for our steel-willed heroes though, is it?