The British Empire was a popular subject for filmmakers from the early days
of cinema, and remained so as the medium developed. In the 1930s the Korda
brothers enjoyed huge international success peddling colonial yarns in such
films as Sanders of the River (1935) and The Four Feathers (1939). However, the
films made in the immediate aftermath of WWII were forced to take a more
measured approach.
Debts incurred by the UK during the war made de-colonisation seem almost
inevitable, and in 1947 India became the first of Britain's then colonial
territories to declare independence. The films about Empire made in the years
that followed (roughly between 1947 and 1964, when the majority of British
colonies became independent) adapted quickly to reflect the swift changes across
the dissolving Empire.
The new tone of the post-WWII Empire film was set by a handful of films made
in the 1940s. The Australian-set The Overlanders (d. Harry Watt, 1946) served up
a kind of 'Limey Western', while Men of Two Worlds (d. Thorold Dickinson, 1946),
set mostly in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), introduced a degree of doubt about the
value of Western intervention in the colonies - remarkable for the time. Black
Narcissus (d. Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, 1947) offered a heightened
depiction of the Indian Himalayas as a site for the release of repressed British
desires. Although more opulent than other films in the genre, its exotic path
was one that later Empire films followed.
Ealing's Where No Vultures Fly (d. Harry Watt, 1951) illustrates this
perfectly. The tale of a game warden trying to set up a game reserve in Kenya,
the film provides a checklist of audience-pleasing spectacle, from fresh-faced
stars Anthony Steel and Dinah Sheridan to the panoply of African wildlife
captured in brilliant Technicolor. It was the biggest British film of 1951 and
was selected for that year's Royal film performance.
Another popular title from the period was Rank's first venture into the
contemporary colonial drama. The Planter's Wife (d. Ken Annakin, 1952), unlike
Where No Vultures Fly, tried to tackle the changes happening in the Empire but
depicted it's subject - the British Malaya 'Emergency' - in a very one-sided
way. It was also financially successful but its unashamed imperialist stance
couldn't continue if films were to reflect accurately the mood within the
Empire. The sensitive tone of Zoltan Korda's Cry the Beloved Country (1952), in
many ways a corrective to the bugle-blowing insensitivities of the same
director's 1930s epics, marked the beginning of contemporary liberal dramas set
around the Empire.
1953's Man of Africa, produced by John Grierson and directed by Cyril
Frankel, told the story of the Ugandan Bakiga people, forced to move from their
home and live among the rival Batwa tribe. It's a good example of the liberal
intent that characterised many of the films in the cycle. Frankel, a documentary
filmmaker making his debut feature, employed Ugandan locals in the lead parts.
Through his direction and their performances the film gives expression to previously
unheard voices, even if they are mediated by European filmmakers.
Simba (d. Brian Desmond Hurst, 1955) was more forthright in its attempt to
tackle modern politics. Dirk Bogarde, at the height of his matinee idol period,
played a Kenyan farmer whose reactionary impulse to the Mau Mau uprising is
gradually tempered by his relationship with a Kikuyu doctor. A major criticism
of the film is its padded romance between Bogarde and Virginia McKenna, which
distracts from the more worthy ambitions of the screenplay.
But Windom's Way (d. Ronald Neame, 1957), Rank's underrated drama about the
Malayan 'emergency', more successfully tied romantic problems into international
politics. Peter Finch's Alec Windom, a doctor working in Malaya, becomes
embroiled in the sinister clashes between a ruthless rubber plantation owner,
unscrupulous Government leaders and fanatical rebels. Jill Craigie's screenplay
nails the British dilemma of finding the right way to 'get out' of the Empire,
bravely raising uncomfortable questions about legacy and colonial
responsibility. The film was up for four British Film Academy awards, but was
overshadowed by David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
In Hollywood films like Bhowani Junction (1955), Indian independence provided
a glamorous backdrop for a melodrama of ethnic identity. Paramount financed a
successful series of British Tarzan movies and, before buying the Bond
franchise, Cubby Brocolli's Warwick films, with the backing of Columbia, produced a run of Empire potboilers that nailed their colours to
familiar masts - Mau Mau in Safari (1956) and animal welfare in Odongo (1956).
With the exception of Bhowani Junction, most of these films felt little need to
engage intelligently with the sticky contemporary issues they raised, the
political backdrops simply providing plotlines. Rank followed suit, releasing
Nor the Moon by Night (d. Ken Annakin, 1958), a
shameless final tour of the African continent as it fell away from the Empire.
However, the liberal agenda had left its mark, as is evident in the next batch of Empire films -
those commissioned after 1956's Suez crisis had exposed Britain's declining role on the world stage.
North West Frontier (d. J. Lee Thomson, 1959) was a well-financed action movie about
the rescue of a six-year-old Hindu prince aboard a besieged train. Despite being set in 1904 Imperial
India, the film discusses British interventionism and religious partisanship in a way that inevitably
displays the scars of Partition in 1947. Lawrence of Arabia (d. David Lean, 1962) emphasises
T.E. Lawrence's refusal to impose British colonial rule on the tribes that
oppose the Ottoman Empire, causing them to rise up against their rulers and prove a successful tipping
point in the development of the First World War.
Sammy Going South (1963) follows an orphaned British boy's epic journey down
the length of the African continent. It's no coincidence that Sammy follows the
path of the 'Cape to Cairo red line,' Cecil Rhodes' never-quite-achieved
continuous line of British control from north to south, down the East African
spine of the continent. Sammy's trek isn't a farewell tour. The film charts the
boy's developing independence, his progression serving as a metaphor for an
entire continent newly pushed into self-government.
The flag-waving Zulu (d. Cy Endfield, 1963) focused on a tale of colonial
history. It seems to ignore contemporary events in favour of a celebration of
historical military spectacle, but the film inherits an anti-colonial rhetoric
from the films of the 1950s. Gallows humour runs throughout, pointing out
the bleak irony of the British Imperialist plight. "Why us?," questions a timid private
as the depleted regiment face 4,000 Zulu. "Because we're here, lad" answers his sergeant,
"Nobody else. Just us." It's an exchange that subtly questions the validity of the
regiment's being there at all.
Perhaps a more explicit severing of the military ties to the former colonies
came with Guns at Batasi (d. John Guillermin, 1964), which casts Richard
Attenborough in a brilliant central role as Regimental Sergeant Major
Lauderdale, a pompous firebrand in an unnamed African independent state on the
eve of its independence. The film confirms its progressive message by showing
Lauderdale's response to a sudden military coup as reactionary and almost
illegal. At the end, with the British defeated, Lauderdale commits a surprising
act of defiance - smashing his cherished portrait of the Queen - and marches
off-screen. If the 1950s colonial drama opened the door to the idea of British
intervention in the colonies, Guns at Batasi shuts it firmly and bolts it.
Dylan Cave
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