Death Drums along the River

British director Lawrence Huntington fetched up in South Africa in the days when it wasn't politically correct to do so and delivered this strangely appealing update of the hoary old Edgar Wallace imperialist saga Sanders of the River. Memorably filmed in 1935 with Leslie Banks, here the star is Richard Todd, attempting to resuscitate his career by playing the police inspector. Produced by Harry Alan Towers, this Techniscoped would-be epic was, somewhat surprisingly, co-scripted by Nicolas Roeg a decade before he directed his masterpiece Don't Look Now. Even more surprisingly, it was followed by a sequel, Coast of Skeletons, again starring Todd, by then a long way from his heroic roles as Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters and Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen.