King Solomon’s Mines (1950)
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King Solomon’s Mines Movie Review
King Solomon’s Mines is a 1950 adventure film directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton and starring Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger. It is a solid, but problematic adaptation.
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“Any woman who wants to traipse through the jungle
must have something the matter with her“
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Adventurer Allan Quatermain leads an expedition into uncharted African territory in an attempt to locate an explorer who went missing during his search for the fabled diamond mines of King Solomon. Based on the classic H. Rider Haggard novel from the nineteenth century that ushered the beginning of the Lost World fiction, the movie is very unfaithful to its iconic source material. The broad strokes are there, but overall it could and should have been more faithful.
There are some good and some bad changes from the book. The one truly positive addition to the plot was its female character and the feminist overtones that she brought to the table. I actually found the romance to be pretty good and some of the lines spoken between the two were suitably playful and funny, reminiscent of screwball comedies of yesteryear. The romantic subplot added a lot of charm to the picture.
Deborah Kerr was excellent in the role of Elizabeth. She was always endlessly likable and personable and in this movie she softened both the tone of the movie and its highly unlikable protagonist. Allan is very well developed and faithful to his literary counterpart. Stewart Granger was very charismatic and memorable in the role and the two shared great chemistry.
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My issue with the supporting characters is that they were ridiculously sidelined and thus quite forgettable, though the inclusion of real African men and women in the film’s cast was wonderful as they employed authentic tribes from the regions of Congo, Uganda and Kenya. The movie could have used better characterization for these people, but at least they were present and the movie was surprisingly not racist at all in the depiction of their cultures.
Another highlight in King Solomon’s Mines is the cinematography. It was rightfully honored with an Academy Award. The movie being shot on actual location led to so much authenticity and real natural beauty. This is how real movies once looked without all the extensive CGI nonsense. The result is a wonderful look into the African wilderness that was stunning in Technicolor.
However, the typically outdated approach at depicting all of the region’s animals and landscapes made the film seem like a nature documentary more so than a feature movie at times. These sequences were fun and charming, but again they must have been much more inspired and powerful back in the fifties than now when we can see nature documentaries everywhere.
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But the main problem here was the pacing. It was ridiculously slow for what was supposed to be a rousing adventure flick, resulting in a lot of tedium. The editing did not deserve an Oscar as it was very messy. The film’s structure is all wrong as the story isn’t as smooth as it was in the book and the final section with the titular mines came more as an afterthought than as a real plot point as it arrived way too late in the game. The movie had solid dialogue, but it needed a much better script and more pronounced genre elements.
1950’s King Solomon’s Mines is a solid adaptation of the eponymous book that is inherently flawed in some of the bad decisions that the filmmakers made in adapting it. The addition of Deborah Kerr was wonderful as it led to more feminist overtones and a romance that was rather charming. The Oscar-winning Technicolor cinematography was an absolute delight to witness. The film being shot on actual location made it look astonishing. But the structural problem with the titular mines appearing ridiculously late in the game and the pacing being way too slow for what was supposed to be a rousing adventure were the main issues that prevented the film from achieving greatness.
My Rating – 3.5
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#1. What other movies were nominated for Best Picture in 1950?
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