East of Sudan ** (1964, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, Derek Fowlds, Jenny Agutter, Johnny Sekka) – Classic Movie Review 9273

Producer-director Nathan Juran’s 1964 East of Sudan is a simple, familiar, good-looking colonial adventure movie, with stalwart performances from Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms, Derek Fowlds, Jenny Agutter and Johnny Sekka, who help to make it as credible as possible.

The story is set a day after General Gordon was killed at Khartoum during the Mahdist insurrection in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

A British soldier, veteran colonial Private Richard Baker (Quayle), and a starchy English governess, Miss Margaret Woodville (Syms), endure a treacherous journey as they escape, The African Queen-style, down the river after a Moslem attack on General Gordon’s outpost in the 1880s. Private Baker and newly arrived English gentleman Murchison (Fowlds) try to evacuate the Emir’s daughter Asua (Agutter) and her governess Miss Woodville from southern Barash.

It offers a chance to see the young Jenny Agutter (aged 12, in her cinema movie debut) and the young Derek Fowlds, as well old clips from The Four Feathers (1939). It is shot at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, and it is very studio set bound, with heavy reliance on archive and stock footage. Many of the scenes in East of Sudan are taken from The Four Feathers.

Also in the cast are Desmond Davies, Johnny Sekka, Harold Coyne, Joseph Layode, Ilario Bisi-Pedro, Derek Blomfield and Edward Ellis.

East of Sudan is directed by Nathan Juran, runs 94 minutes, is made by Ameran Films, is released by Columbia Pictures, is shot in Technicolor and Techniscope by Jud Kinberg, Wilkie Cooper, is produced by Charles H Schneer (executive producer) and Nathan Juran, is scored by Laurie Johnson and is designed by Lionel Couch.

RIP Derek Fowlds (1937–2020), who died on 17 January 2020, aged 82.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9273

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