Film watch: Zulu

[callmemadam]

My DVD player and recorder broke and had to be replaced. I’m trying to rebuild my film library and have already bagged The Red Shoes, Roman Holiday, The Browning Version (Michael Redgrave) and The Third Man. Yesterday evening I watched Zulu, which I’d recorded because it was so long since I’d seen it. The film was made in 1964 to commemorate the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift in 1879. Oh deary me. I found a little Zulu chanting and dancing goes a very long way. It’s also quite unrealistic, more like cowboys and indians than a genuine battle. Still a good film in its way but I deleted it as I’m unlikely to watch it again.

It's interesting, as the opening credits roll, to see: ‘and introducing Michael Caine’. The film is packed with famous actors, yet whenever new boy Michael Caine is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off him. That’s what’s called star quality; you have it or you don’t and he had it in spades. There’s a family legend that one of my ancestors had ‘a Zulu spear in his foot’, or so my father always said. I’ve no idea whether this story is true nor, if it is, when and where it happened.

Comments

[gwendraith]

Zulu is a great film. I watched it last week! I can't remember which channel but it might have been Film 4. Michael Caine was brilliant in it, real class. I think Stanley Baker falls into that category as well. I loved him in How Green was my Valley, Richard III and Jane Eyre. An handsome and romantic leading man. He died too young, only 47, six years after his very lovely and kind personal assistant, Joyce - my nan's niece. Both from cancer. Joyce was only 40. I remember he paid for Joyce's convalescence in Eastbourne when she was ill. We went to see her there.

[callmemadam]

It was Film 4.

Goodness, what sad stories!

[gwendraith]

I know, I'm full of Sunday cheerfulness ;)