Noting the vast number of Zulus shot down in the battle scenes, Cambridge claimed he could see the warriors lining up so one British bullet could take out a bunch of them in a row.....(He supposedly heard the Zulus cry, "Get in line, baby.....save bullets!")
True, it's a strictly by-the-book traditional Rule Britannia epic, steeped in every cliche of its 1960's spectacle filmmaking, but in re-visiting it, we detected no condescension or inherent racism toward the Zulus.........the movie maintains a healthy amount of respect and awe fpr them. Far from the shoot-em-off-the-horses hordes of Indians in American westerns, the film impressively details the Zulus' vast skills at tactical warfare,....not to mention their infinite reserves of strength and courage
Most people remember this movie for its unlikely casting of young Cockney actor Michael Caine as the preening, posh, uppercrust aristocrat, Lt. Bromhead.......in the film's early scenes, we're encouraged to hate this entitled snobbish brat, especially when contrasted with down-to-earth, practical army engineer Lt. Chard (The ever stalwart and sturdy Stanley Baker) But as the titanic battle progresses, Bromhead proves himself Chard's equal as a lionhearted warrior......you can tell this by how much close combat with the Zulus tussles and tangles Caine's wavy golden hair.
We'd also almost forgotten about the brief, opening sideshow provided by the film's father-daughter team of daffy, dysfunctional missionaries, Otto and Marareta Witt...(Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson) Otto's a raving drunk and Margareta's so sexually repressed, the sight of a mass Zulu wedding drives her into an orgasmic panic attack. No wonder Baker can't wait to rid himself of these two deeply disturbed evangelicals before the movie gets down to business......the primal clashes of the Zulu onslaught......
BQ visitors well know how much we value the classic film epics for their wildly profligate use of thousands of real people for crowds and battles........these films couldn't rely on computers to generate their teeming casts.....and 'Zulu' prominently features.....what else, over 800 real Zulus. Director Cy Endfield displays a properly expansive eye in arranging vivid shots of the Zulu army in battle formations.......and we credit him for the remarkable close shots of the fierce hand to hand fighting, which show the Brits and Zulus filled with both valor and terror as they pit bayonet and spear against one another.
In the two hours of non-stop sieges,though, we found the film's most superb action sequence not in the mass fighting, but involving a single soldier, the malingering, lazy lout, Private Henry Hook (James Booth, playing the role that Caine coveted before he was cast as Bromhead) The movie Hook was strictly the screenwriters' flight of fancy,....the real Hook was nothing like the whining, gambling screw-up well played by Booth. When Hook finds himself trapped in the outpost's burning hospital, surrounded by rampaging Zulus, he finally unleashes the simmering, repressed rage you know has been slow boiling deep inside him since the film began......and it's a bummer for the Zulus.
It's a true time capsule movie,of its era, as nothing remotely like it, in content and production technique could ever exist today. (And before we wrap this post up, we dare not forget to mention the thunderous score by John Barry and the performance of Nigel Green as the stiff-as-a-steel-girder Sergeant Bourne, a living embodiment of the British Empire........(Bourne efficiently bayonets Zulus who've already been mesmerized by his unforgiving stare....) We plunge 4 spears into 'Zulu' (****)......and contrary to Godfrey Cambridge, we saw no warriors getting in line to save bullets.....
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