Simba (1955)

Overrated and overhyped

Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

hyped garbage

Despite the noble attempts at even-handedness in handling racial conflicts in 1950s Kenya (Earl Cameron is a commanding presence as a pacifist, educated doctor), "Simba" still has a racist and imperialist point-of-view: most of the black characters indeed are, or are quick to become, "howling savages". If you can overlook that, it's a well-made piece of work, vividly photographed in Eastmancolor and with some tense suspense sequences. **1/2 ouf 4.

This movie has just been issued on an R4 PAL disc available through Australian retailers so it's nice to see a pristine copy of it at last rather than a very well worn Beta tape. It has come in for some unfair criticism as a racist tract which it isn't at all. The good or bad old Colonial days existed, like it or not, and its just anachronistic to apply todays values to life some 50 years ago.The film makes the Mau Mau out to be the villains, the Hamas of their day,and so thought the settlers. Only the most prescient of them saw independence ahead; this is set several years before McMillan's Winds of Change speech. Rank stalwarts Borgade and McKenna give good performances as lovers and besieged farmers and Donald Sinden looks great as the local police chief. View it for what it is. We can't erase history, good or bad, like we can airbrush cigarettes from old photos.

This movie may be accused of racism.Perhaps so.But you could also blame "stagecoach" and a lot of westerns before "broken arrow" as well :the Indians were the villains,just as the natives are here.Let's be serious!It was half a century ago and at the time the writers had not the hindsight we have today.The precedent user saw the movie through the eyes of the 2004 audience obviously the politically correct one.Judging by the rating,there are users who disagree and I'm one of them.First of all,"Simba" is not poorly executed,it has a good screenplay,fine actors (Bogarde and Virginia McKenna),beautiful landscapes...That the Africans should be shown as primitive,cruel and mindless does not prevent some of them from becoming educated and wise:"I studied for six years ,the black doctor says,to save lives ,not to destroy them".Two years later in "something of value" ,Richard Brooks showed a native afraid of thunder!"Simba" is the British forerunner of Richard Brook's work.In "Simba" anyway ,the White are not necessarily the heroes.See how Bogarde refuses to shake hands with the doctor.And the last picture of the movie is a black child's face ,a curious choice for a would be racist flick.

Set in Kenya in the 1950's, this film attempts to portray the conflict between black and white in an even-handed way. But it can't help making the whites the victims and the blacks the villains. One token good black man (a doctor) is hardly sufficient to make up for the superstitious and blood-thirsty mobs that ransack the country killing viciously and without mercy. This film is even more reprehensible given the dreadful events now occurring in Zimbabwe where white farmers are being murdered by black squatters. I'm sure a black African audience would find this film further motivation to hate the arrogant whites. How can we sympathise with a man who insists that the blacks are "children mentally" and with our hero and heroine who insist on calling their native workers "boy"? I've no doubt that the film-makers were sincere in trying to promote a message of peace - but this peace is portrayed as achievable only on the white man's terms.To make things worse the film is poorly made, with clumsy editing from stand-ins for the stars wandering around African locations to close-ups of the real stars with badly rear-projected locations. This constant shuffling becomes so silly that it destroys any chance the film had at credibility. By 1955 we really expect the cast to be on location. This is one dinosaur of a film that should be laid to rest. I'm sure the great Dirk Bogarde was bitterly ashamed of it in later life.