Daily Archives: August 12, 2018

Sands of the Kalahari
Directed by Cy Endfield
Written by Cy Endfield from a novel by William Mulvihill
1965/USA/UK
Joseph M. Schenk Enterprises/Pendennis Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson[/box]

Plenty of action and violence in this story of passengers stranded in the desert after a plane crash.

A small prop plane crashes in the midst of the vast Kalahari desert in Southern Africa.  Passenger Brian O’Brian (Stuart Whitman) grabs the only rifle on board and immediately assumes cave man mode.  He lays claim to Grace Monckton (Susannah York) the only female survivor and starts slaying animals for food.

After some days, Brian begins to view his fellow passengers as competition for scarce recources and forces them one-by-one into almost certainly unsurvivable treks deeper into the desert.  The second half of the film is filled with man-animal and man-on-man violence and leads to a very satisfying ending.

If you like this sort of thing, this movie is quite OK.  The animal slaughter was a bit too much for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wuDY-1GzEI

The clip I could find was a giant spoiler

Loves of a Blonde (Lasky jedne plavovlasky)
Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Milos Forman, Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and Vaclav Stasek
1965/Czechoslovakia
CBK/Filmove Studio Barrandov/Sebor
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [repeated lines] Milda: I don’t have a girl in Prague. I don’t have a girl in Prague. [/box]

Milos Forman delivers a Czech New Wave film with all the foolishness and pain of trying to find romance – this time from the girl’s point of view.

Andula works with many other young women in a State factory in the middle of nowhere. The female:male ratio is 16:1.  The factory manager asks that soldiers be stationed near the plant to lessen turnover rates.  Unfortunately, he gets middle-aged married reservists instead of the young recruits he was hoping for.  This leads to a very funny dance scene where the men agonize about asking the ladies to dance as the girls sit half hoping to be chosen and half dreading it.

Andula arguably lucks out by attracting the attention of Milda, the young piano player for the band.  This guy is full of slick moves and beds her that very night.  His life becomes more complicated when Andula takes his invitation to visit him in Prague seriously.  Milda’s parents are not amused to find Andula on their doorstep.

This is a droll, deadpan slice of life film that easily won me over.  All the characters are very human.  Recommended.

Loves of a Blonde was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Clip