Product Details

• Actors: Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger, Richard Carlson, Hugo Haas, Lowell Gilmore
• Directors: Andrew Marton, Compton Bennett
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301971167
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,821 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  Video > Action & Adventure > Romantic Adventure

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Adventure yarns don’t come more ripping than King Solomon’s Mines, the classic Great White Hunter tale. Novelist H. Rider Haggard’s hero, Allan Quatermain (Stewart Granger), reluctantly agrees to lead an Englishwoman (Deborah Kerr) and her brother (Richard Carlson) deep into uncharted territory in Africa, in search of the lady’s lost husband. What follows is a cavalcade of boys’ adventure stuff: charging rhinos, cannibals, an incredible wildlife stampede, and the back-of-the-neck-tingly thrill of venturing into unmapped lands. The location shooting, including tribal rituals, is marvelous throughout, and the movie manages to pack a great deal of material into 102 minutes without ever seeming rushed. A remake of a 1937 film, King Solomon’s Mines was itself remade badly, with Richard Chamberlain, in 1985, and Quatermain was essayed by Sean Connery in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but purists will prefer Stewart Granger’s stalwart-yet-sardonic hero--his career never quite got over the role. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My all-time favorite movie - but it's evidently been edited, July 9, 2003

By	Barb "kcflood" (Florida) - See all my reviews

I first saw this movie as a little girl and watched it on TV a couple more times over the years. It's absolutely the most thrilling, wonderful movie ever made. But WHAT HAPPENED??? There is at least one tribal dance that has just disappeared -- nowhere to be found in this video. There is one dance still left in the movie, near the end, that is also exciting, but the one I remember the most is where the natives do these incredible jumps and the most wonderful, amazing movements that were all synchronized and fascinating to watch. You could tell they were working themselves into a frenzy to attack the whites, and they were very hostile and truly frightening, so maybe that's not acceptable by today's standards. Did the PC police get to this tape? The VHS running time is 103 minutes. I wonder what the running time of the original film was. I would have given this 5 stars except for my awful disappointment about the omitting of the dancing. Does anyone know where I can get an uncut version? Also, why isn't there a DVD? Maybe there would be an explanation or even out-takes of the dancing.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning adventure movie., May 15, 2000

By	AJ "AJ" (Delaware, USA) - See all my reviews

Even fifty years after its original release, King Solomon's Mines is still one of the best adventure movies ever. Featuring a talented cast and beautiful outdoor camerawork this movie is an often copied, but never surpassed forerunner of the Indiana Jones' style stories. Granger and Kerr make the most of their respective roles creating real live human beings instead of the usual cardboard action figures that the audience has come to expect in this sort of movie and the animal stampede scene, often replayed in later movies' makes for one of the greatest motionpicture events ever.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest Adventures of alltime!, March 9, 2005

By	Daniel G. Madigan (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: King Solomon's Mines (DVD)

King Solomon's Mines features breathtaking photography of African wild life with the main stars in the actual locales. The stampede scene with Kerr and Granger left to their own devices along with the directors, is unbelievable in every sense.Nothing like it until the Buffalo stampede in the otherwise dismal How The West Was Won."
Kerr and Granger are great actors;they invest their roles with great faith in what they are doing,entirely missing in current films of the same genre.

The gorgeous Technicolor, the Watusi dances, later inspiring Bob Fosse, and the great Andrew Marton at the healm, directing with flair and wit and uncommon daring. No computer driven action scenes here.

I love the cynicism of the film, Quatermain's idea of life summed up for him in the games the natives play. And Deborah Kerr, stepping into every dangerous hole and crevice where terrible creatures lurk..excellent in every way.

Buy this and be amazed.