Movie Review: 'Zulu' (1964)

Zulu (1964)

Directed by: Cy Endfield

Written by: John Prebble and Cy Endfield, based on an article by Prebble

Starring: Stanley Baker, Michael Caine, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, Nigel Green, James Booth, Paul Daneman, Ivor Emmanuel, Glynn Edwards, Patrick Magee

I first saw Zulu when I was 10 years old; in 1973 the Miami TV station that is now known as WFOR-TV (CBS-4) was WCIX (Channel 6) and an independent which coexisted with three network affiliates and a handful of UHF stations in the South Florida market. Back then, Channel Six's programming relied on reruns of classic sitcoms, safe fare along the lines of "Bowling For Dollars," the "Eight PM Movie" on weeknights and several daytime movies on Saturdays and Sundays.

Because the Big Three networks had first dibs on big blockbuster flicks of relatively recent vintage (usually a year or two after a film's theatrical run), Channel Six's selection was heavy on older films -- usually from the Forties, Fifties and Sixties -- of varying quality and various genres. You could watch, say, 1953's melodrama Titanic on Monday, for instance, and on Tuesday you might end up seeing Abbott and Costello in the 1941 service comedy Buck Privates. Somewhere in between, the canny programmers would include edited versions of big epics such as 1964's Zulu.

Zulu is a fact-based account of the Battle of Rorke's Drift (Jan. 22-23, 1879), in which 150 British infantrymen, Royal Engineers, and a handful of Boer militiamen successfully defended a small outpost against 4,000 Zulu warriors, a set-in-South Africa version of the Alamo, albeit with a happier ending for the British and South African survivors of the engagement. Starring Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, James Booth, Ulla Jacobson and introducing Michael Caine, Zulu is one of the best historical films I've seen.

Baker plays Lt. John Chard, Royal Engineers, who has been assigned to build a bridge near the tiny supply outpost of Rorke's Rift. It's January 1879, and the New Year has started badly for the British effort to pacify South Africa in its Empire-building endeavor to civilize one quarter of the globe's surface. The Zulu tribe in Natal, led by King Cetshwayo kaMpande (Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi) has fiercely resisted the redcoats' inroads into their ancient tribal lands, and indeed have destroyed an entire British column at Ishadalwana. Now, 4,000 fierce warriors, armed with assegai (short but deadly spears), shields, and rifles taken from dead British soldiers are threatening to overrun Rorke's Drift, which is manned by a company of the 24th Regiment under the command of Lt. Gonville Bromhead (Caine).

Although Chard and Bromhead clash at first -- they come from two different branches of the Army, and Bromhead is a somewhat pompous fop -- the realization that their tiny detachment is isolated and without support unites them. Chard, who has a bit of seniority based on the date of his commission, assumes command and skillfully repels several massive Zulu "wave" attacks. The engagement goes down in the annals of British military history as one of the fiercest battles of the Imperial era. A total of 11Victoria Crosses (Britain's highest military award for valor) were awarded for the Battle of Rorke's Drift, the most ever for a single engagement.

Although Zulu is the British equivalent of a John Ford Western -- South Africa's terrain looks eerily like the eastern part of Colorado at the foot of the Rockies -- in both style and theme, it doesn't whitewash history by making the Zulu warriors look like villainous savages or portray the British officers and men as paragons of virtue. On the Zulu side, we see them as a proud and ethical people; when an overeager warrior attempts to stop Rev. Otto Witt (Hawkins) and his daughter Margareta (Jacobson) from fleeing the tribal area (where the clergyman has been trying to negotiate peace with King kaMpande), another Zulu stabs the miscreant with his assegai and allows the two civilians to flee. Later, even after having suffered terrible losses at the hands of the defenders of Rorke's Rift, the Zulu warriors gallantly salute their still outnumbered opponents and walk away, chanting a haunting but stirring tribute.

The screenplay by John Prebble and Cy Endfield (who directed Zulu) also avoids depicting the British in propagandistic terms. Not only is there class conflict between the aristocratic Bromhead and the more down-to-earth Chard, but there are all sorts of types of soldiers at Rorke's Drift, ranging from naive and innocent looking newbies to the more cynical and always-in-trouble Pvt. Henry Hook (Booth), who's been confined to quarters for various infractions and is, at first, the least likely man to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

My one complaint about the movie, frankly, is Rev. Witt's Pollyanna approach to life. His desperate attempts to negotiate peace with the Zulu are laudable enough, but when he starts begging the British and South African defenders to not fight but to flee or surrender, his "peace at all costs" and "you're all going to die" spiels become grating; I always sigh with relief when he's finally locked up in one of the buildings. (Supposedly, Jack Hawkins, the actor who plays Rev. Witt, was unhappy with the way he came across in the film; frankly, I can't blame Hawkins.)

Shot mostly on location in South Africa (with interiors shot in England), Zulu boasts excellent production values, a top-notch score by composer John (Out of Africa) Barry, and still-powerful action scenes that, while not as gory as those of Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down, still capture the bravery and sacrifice of Rorke Rift's band of defenders and their 4,000 Zulu opponents.

Blu-ray Specifications

Video

• Codec: TBA
• Resolution: 1080p
• Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1

Audio

• TBA

Subtitles

• English (SDH)

Discs

• Blu-ray Disc
• Single disc (1 BD-50)

Playback

• Region free