Dark of the Sun (1968)

What a great film from the past!! This stuff actually happened back then! Really raw and more brutal than the film depicts! Brings back memories too! Great characters and story,

Excellent but not for kids.

Good movie. Interesting plot and action. As usual yvette is her whiney self. She cant seem to get away from the baby doll roll. That and the fact she got higher billing than james brown i guess was reflective of the time.

I saw this movie three times the first week of release in San Francisco and there was never shots of alligators or the other scenes mentioned in other reviews. Maybe those things were in a pre-release or test screening version, but not in the first run release. I'm very happy about this. I was worried that the actual release print was tampered with. But it wasn't. In the theater this movie has the most excruciating suspense scenes ever done, as well as the most intense action scenes. Those Simbas still scare the hell out of me. The movie has never looked sharper with great color timing. Rod Taylor told me that this version of the movie was still too violent for audiences at that time and the studio pulled the movie after a a few weeks. I tried to re-unite Rod Taylor and Jim Brown for an audio-book production in 2004. I got Rod Taylor, but Jim Brown didn't want to do it, so I got another actor for Brown's part. I talked a lot with Rod about this movie. When Rod was about to leave the studio I said to him, "Oh, one more thing, Rod. My favorite line of yours in any movie is 'Put the swastica back on. You've earned it." Rod said, "Yeah, that was great with Peter Carsten. Good luck with your project." To sum up; this is the exact theatrical cut of the most suspenseful action, 'men on a mission' movie every made.

From Wilbur Smith's classic story of uprising and strife in the Belgian Congo, "Last Train from Katanga", this movie is as dark as the title implies. No doubt, Mr. Smith had some heartache over Adrian Spies' screenplay - a script that was truly one of the first up-and-coming forms of political correctness (very different from the book). Jack Cardiff provides a spectacular vista to the warfare that most people find repugnant and would like to ignore - the war of the soldiers of fortune. Rod Taylor and Jim Brown provide a wonderful sounding board for the politics behind their endeavor - Brown was just making his move from a brilliant football career to acting - and it shows (a flag on the play!). Fresh from "The Dirty Dozen", Brown - who portrays Sgt. "Ruffo" - improved considerably as his acting career progressed. Yvette Mimieux is a welcome relief as the beautiful eye-candy in a world of stark carnage and suffering. Kenneth More provides his gift of refined British appeal as the troubled Dr. Wreid. Peter Carsten plays the hardened career soldier who takes Taylor's character, Bruce Curry, to task. Leading a train into the heart of the Congo, Captain Bruce Curry and his band of mercenaries seek to rescue the inhabitants of an isolated village surrounded by rebel Simbas - oh, and a cache of diamonds secured in their vault. This theme is supported by the eerie tempo of the great soundtrack by Jacques Loussier and the wonderful cinema vistas that one would expect from Jack Cardiff. One of my personal favorites, this is probably not for anyone who isn't weened off of Disney! Currently, this is only available on VHS tape. It would really shine on DVD. SPECIAL EDIT: It's here, just released by Warner Brothers and announced on June 7, 2011 - the remastered DVD!

Dark of the Sun is part of the "mercenary tri-fecta" movies ever made, the original Dogs of War and The Wild Geese, and is a must own and excellent movies for young and old men alike! Brilliant!

I came to this movie after reading Stephen Vagg's recent biography entitled ROD TAYLOR: AN AUSSIE IN HOLLYWOOD. (My review of this terrific book is also here on Amazon.) Mr. Vagg wrote so glowingly about the film - and despite my being a Rod Taylor fan I had somehow missed seeing this. So I ordered the new Warner Brothers DVD release of it - a "Remastered Edition." Unfortunately, as with so many other WB releases, there are no chapter stops, no extras, no commentaries, no audio options. While the image is in letterbox format and the images vibrantly clear and the audio excellent - it is obvious that this is a butchered version of what was originally a very much more violent film. I thought that "Remastered Edition" was somewhat equivalent to a "Restored Edition." No such luck. And I hate it when scenes are censored and cut out! What true film lover doesn't? Especially a film such as this which has attained a "cult status." I never saw the complete film. But based on quotations in the Vagg bio from Quentin Tarantino - who absolutely loves this movie - mention is made of at least one scene missing from this DVD release - and that is "the hacking deaths, the feeding of nuns to alligators" according to QT. Having just watched the film, there are brief scenes of nuns being caught in the clutches of the bad guys - but no direct scene containing alligators as alluded to by QT. Ergo, my guess is that this "Remastered Edition" has, itself, been "hacked to death." SPOILER ALERT: Even the finish of the fierce, finish fight between Taylor and actor Peter Carsten's s.o.b. (the Swastika-wearing bad-guy) seems to have several yards of frames missing. Again, I have not seen the film in its entirety - but it seems to me that what Taylor really does to Carsten is far worse than what we are shown. Indeed, he most probably does what the Jim Brown character earlier in the film says his people used to do to their enemies in order to gain their courage and intelligence. I'm sure you get my drift. So - having just seen the film for the first time - it is definitely a terrific film with several magnificent set pieces. The action scenes - despite obvious cuts - are powerful. Cinematography is top-shelf. The music score is perfect, even if somewhat imitative of Ennio Morricone - but then again, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Jack Cardiff's direction shows the signs of a true artist. Rod Taylor, Jim Brown, Kenneth More, Peter Carsten, Yvette Mimieux (despite a small part with a love scene twixt her and Taylor ending up on the cutting room floor) all fit their parts perfectly. According to Rod Taylor as quoted in Vagg's fabulous biography of the actor, Taylor was offered to test for the part of James Bond by "Cubby" Broccoli well before Sean Connery stepped into 007's shoes and slept in his many beds. When I had first read this I quite honestly couldn't picture Rod Taylor in the part. But having just seen DARK OF THE SUN I have revised my opinion. He would have been sensational as Bond! He is tough and fierce and in other scenes of the film very touching and also very humorous. He was truly - as QT and Stephen Vagg in his bio assert - the Russell Crowe of his day, both actors being Aussies. And Crowe himself would have been a beautifully brutal and brilliant Bond. SPOILER ALERT again: I must admit that the ending of this film somewhat disappointed me. According to the Vagg bio, Taylor himself devised the ending as shown in the film. In the original, Taylor's character goes off into the sunset with his Weena-from-the-Past. In the finished film he allows himself to be put under arrest for killing the badass. As I say, I was disappointed in the conclusion. However - I daresay that if the final fight had NOT been toned-down as to its violence and HAD the Taylor character done to Carsten's character what I think he MUST have done...then the ending makes much more sense and instead of being somewhat of a letdown, would and should have been as bold and brave as it undoubtedly actually was. But this is really only possible, I think, if the brutality of the finish-fight had remained as brutal, as animalistic, as it apparently once actually was. Someone in their own review likens this film to Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS and the similarity is very much there. Instead of a boat, there is a train, etc. But "The horror, the horror" of Conrad's novel and its eventual filmic incarnation as APOCALYPSE NOW in likewise at the heart of this film. But it is a pity that having the film finally out on DVD, it is NOT the full film. What there is of it is, in the words of Quentin Tarantino, "an immense film." What a damn shame, though, that that immensity was compromised by a curtailed cut of a most unique film experience. Still-and-all, this is one helluva movie!

I received the Blu-ray copy of this very fine, dramatic movie from Amazon, just before Christmas, having pre-ordered it when I saw that it was getting a Blu-ray release. Up until now I had seen it only in butchered & savagely edited & censored form on TV, or on not very good DVD. It was released in Australia under the title of " The Mercenaries " in 1968, however I did not see it at the the theatre as I was in the Army, on my first tour of Vietnam. The Blu-ray release is a revelation. The clarity is outstanding & the colours are so rich & natural & true-to-life. All of the actors, save for Yvette Mimieux, give outstanding performances & Rod Taylor is particularly outstanding. It seem as if the lead role was written for him. I have given it only four stars for two reasons: I think Yvette Mimieux is out of place in the movie. Her character does nothing for the story or the narrative & her acting is practically non-existent. As good looking as she is, she should not have been in the movie. The second reason for four out of five stars is the politically correct ending, which detracts from the credibility of the movie as a whole. I also listened to the commentary on the Blu-ray & although the commentators say that this is all that was filmed, I disagree as there are events & scenes in the Blu-ray version & the other versions that are not explained. All in all though, I endorse this Blu-ray version of this fine movie & hope that at long last, this movie gets the recognition that is long overdue. You will not regret buying it. Dennis Moore, AUSTRALIA.