Jack Cardiff (DP on films like A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, and The African Queen) directs this action/adventure film – also known as “The Mercenaries” (same year actually as Corbucci’s film of the same name- The Mercenary). Like Corbucci’s film it is a nihilistic film about greed with a pretty callous approach to human life—this is about diamonds and cutthroat politics
Shot in Jamaica and used quite well as a backdrop (falsely advertised as being shot in the Congo itself- where the film is set)
Movie reunited Rod Taylor with Yvette Mimieux (his shirt off and her pants tight) from The Time Machine in 1960
The simple plot is set in the first five minutes (three days in hostile territory on a train to recover diamonds and people)—sort of a Dirty Dozen (Jim Brown here as Taylor’s right-hand man) ragtag group on a suicidal mission—there’s an evil German who they have to work with, a liquored up doctor, a scared French guy—this thing is not new- they’ve been doing before Dirty Dozen to The Great Escape and Hatari! – international cast here – Taylor is Australian—both he and Brown are good here
In many ways just a western set in modern times—violent
Being a mercenary is an interesting way of saying all governments are corrupt—again not different from what Corbucci was doing—not surprising that Tarantino is an admirer of this film – apparently used some music from this for Inglourious Basterds and even coaxed Taylor out of retirement to play Churchill
Recommend but not terribly close to the top 10 of 1968—closer to the fringe
You typed “film of the” twice in the first paragraph.
@Malith- thank you– fixed it I think
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