The subject of Zulu Dawn is the Battle of Islandlhwana wherein some 1,500 redcoats were slaughtered by 16 times their number of Zulu warriors led by legendary chief Cetshwayo.
The subject of Zulu Dawn is the Battle of Islandlhwana wherein some 1,500 redcoats were slaughtered by 16 times their number of Zulu warriors led by legendary chief Cetshwayo.
The film is, in fact, a sort of ‘prequel’ to the 1964 picture Zulu, which dealt with an heroic stand at Rorke’s Drift by a small band of British soldiers in 1879.
The action sequences are superbly handled, as are the scenes in which the men and material are assembled and manoeuvered. For sheer scope and numbers of people being manipulated for the cameras, Zulu Dawn is positively DeMillesque in scale.
Such banality as there is is, thankfully, confined to the expositional sequences which are quickly gotten out of the way to allow the army to get on the march.
Zulu Dawn
UK
Production
Lamitas/Samarkand. Director Douglas Hickox; Producer Nate Kohn; Screenplay Cy Enfield, Anthony Storey; Camera Ousama Rawi; Editor Malcolm Cook; Music Elmer Bernstein; Art Director John Rosewarne
Crew
(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1979. Running time: 117 MIN.
With
Burt Lancaster
Peter O'Toole
Simon Ward
John Mills
Nigel Davenport
Denholm Elliott
