Sands of the Kalahari - Film Review

Sands of the Kalahari features a top-drawer cast, a blazing African location and top-notch photography, and a genuinely exciting storyline about survival in the wilderness.

The film deals with a small plane crashing in the middle of the Kalahari Desert and the pilot and the six passengers including one woman making their way through the sweltering desert and coming across a set of black rocks offering shelter from the blazing heat.

Eventually they come across a family of baboons who are not happy with the presents of their new neighbours. With limited food and water one of the group, big game hunter, Brian O'Brien played by Stuart Whitman starts shooting the baboons so that the food they did find and the water supply would last. He soon realises that along with the baboons his fellow survivors were competition for his survival.

Now the alpha male of the group he has claimed the female played by the beautiful Susannah York, (Grace Monckton), who has become increasingly flirtatious. With the ammo running low for his gun, the only gun in the group, his brute problem to solve the over population of the group is to force fellow survivors into the desert at gunpoint.

Having killed most of the other survivors only Stanley Baker,s character (Mike Bain) along with the woman are left and the ever-watching baboons. When O’Brien fails in a bid to kill Bain, Monckton comes to his aid leaving O’Brian to go into hiding.

One of the survivors is found and soon a rescue helicopter is dispatched to rescue any survivors. Only Monckton and Bair escape in a helicopter. O'Brien, however, aware he will be prosecuted for murder if he returns to civilization, chooses to remain behind.

With O'Brien the sole human in their domain, the baboons become more belligerent. At first, he is able to keep them at bay with his rifle. When he runs out of ammunition, O'Brien brazenly challenges the alpha male to a fight and succeeds in killing him with his bare hands. In the film's final shot, the remaining baboons encircle the lone hunter and ominously amble towards him.