WHERE NO VULTURES FLY [1951 / 2021] [Blu-ray] [UK Release] Filmed in Technicolor in the Might Majesty of the African Jungle! An Adventure Story of Savage Africa!
Selected for the 1951 Royal Film Performance, Ealing's exciting African family drama was a huge hit with the public and made Anthony Steel's name as a leading man. Filmed in Kenya and co-starring Dinah Sheridan. ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ is featured here as a brand-new High Definition remaster from original film elements in its original theatrical 1.37:1 aspect ratio.
Bob Payton, an East African game warden, decides to set up his own animal sanctuary in remote jungle country. But, with organised poachers in the area, he soon finds his young family in jeopardy and his own life in mortal danger!
FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nominations: 1952 National Board of Review, USA: Win: NBR Award for Top Foreign Films.
FILM FACT No.2: ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ was filmed on location in Kenya and Tanganyika; both remained British colonies throughout the 1950s. The film gives the traditional safari narrative a modernising twist: Robert Payton's quest is to conserve animals not to shoot them, even with cameras. Although the film incorporates a great deal of wildlife photography, the practice of photographing big game trophies is mocked in an early sequence where a hunter's wife, called upon to photograph him with his foot on the dead animal's neck, laments: "the wrong things are always dead in the pictures I take." The film was a co-production between Ealing and South Africa's African Films, with half the financing coming from South Africa. Africa Films was a South African theatre chain. Dinah Shearing flew to Kenya at the end of November 1950 for a four month shoot. Harry Watt took a full unit to Africa and based it at Amboseli National Park, south of Nairobi. They built a complete village of huts for the crew to live in. Anthony Steel contracted malaria during filming on location in Kenya. It was the second most popular film at the British box office in 1952. It also made $800,000 in the USA, which was considered strong at the time for a British film. It made Anthony Steel a star of British cinema.
Cast: Anthony Steel, Dinah Sheridan, Harold Warrender, Meredith Edwards, William Simons, Orlando Martins, Phillip Birkinshaw, Jafeth Ananda (uncredited), Andrew Cruickshank (uncredited), Kenneth Augustus Jeremy (uncredited), Joanna Kitau (uncredited), John Lawrence (uncredited), Jack Arundel Mallett (uncredited), Paul N'Gei (uncredited), Wallace Needham-Clark (uncredited), David Osieli (uncredited), Bartholomew Sketch (uncredited) and Edmund Stewart (uncredited)
Director: Harry Watt
Producers: Leslie Norman and Michael Balcon
Screenplay: Leslie Norman, Ralph Smart, W.P. Lipscomb and Harry Watt (story)
Composer: Alan Rawsthorne
Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth, O.B.E., B.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Audio: English: 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English
Running Time: 107 minutes
Region: Region B/2
Number of discs: 1
Studio: J. Arthur Rank / Ealing Studios / STUDIOCANAL / Network
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: At the start of the film, we are informed that the characters in this film are imaginary, but the story is based on the recent struggle of Mervyn Cowie to form the National Parks of Kenya. To Mervyn Cowie and his colleagues we are deeply indebted for their invaluable co-operation. We also wish to thank the Kenta Game Department and the Governments of East Africa.
Director Harry Watt’s 1951 ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ [aka ‘Ivory Hunter’] is based on Harry Watt’s own story, with a screenplay by W. P. Lipscomb, Ralph Smart and Leslie Norman. It is based on a true story about an Englishman working as a game warden in Kenya who is disgusted by the ongoing destruction of African wildlife, and decides to create a national park to protect them. He acquires more than 1000 square miles of land, but he finds himself up against ivory poachers and local tribesmen in their employ.
Anthony Steel as Bob Payton and Dinah Sheridan stars as Mary Payton effectively, and live on the East African national park game warden of Mount Kilimanjaro Game Reserve. In this sharp and swift-as-an-arrow, brisk, realist-style Ealing Studios jungle adventure film.
Though the yarn is a dynamic Technicolor location filming, the wild animals and eye-catching nature scenes easily makes you feel you are in the part of the Dark African continent. The rhino attack of a truck is especially excitingly captured and the Leopard attack of Bob Payton is on the edge of your seat action.
‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ is a dramatization of Mervyn Cowie’s struggle to set up a Kenyan National Park. Just like Robert Mason in Harry Watt’s film, Mervyn Cowie wrote anonymously to a newspaper to demand the use of aeroplanes, explosives and chemical weapons against Kenya’s wild animals. Mervyn Cowie purposely engineered a scandal to oil the wheels of change.
Director Harry Watt draws much from the Western genre. At the most basic level, ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ is a film about an attempt to build a utopian frontier community. Representatives of established ‘civilisation’ are shown to be hypocritical, while outcasts and indigenous peoples are shown to possess uncommon wisdom. The “new” Commonwealth is idealised over the “old” Empire. ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ portrayal of black Africans and the Documentary Movement’s veneration of the British working class.
Although they are rarely afforded the opportunity of speaking, ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ celebrates the heroic dignity of Black Africans and challenges received perceptions of them. Yet the film also both reveals stereotypes and hints that it wants to humorously transcend the situation. After the camera pans over a long unbroken sequence of Akamba tribal dancing, for instance, the exquisitely dressed Akamba leader serves Bob Payton tea.
The 1951 year’s Royal Command Performance film is quite an effective, if thoroughly old-fashioned film, which was a popular hit and prompted a sequel, ‘West of Zanzibar,’ in 1954. In the sequel, Sheila Sim inherited Sheridan’s part when the star married studio boss John Davis and retired, and Paul Beeson was promoted to main director of photography having just done the wildlife photography this time.
BONUS: Before the film starts, we get the original BRITISH BOARD OF CENSORS Certificate and informs us: This is to Certify the 'WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ has been passed for GENERAL EXHIBITION. The film was given a “U” rating.
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Blu-ray Image Quality – J. Arthur Rank, Ealing Studios, STUDIOCANAL and Network presents us the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ with a wonderful Technicolor 1080p image and is of course enhanced with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ has been newly transferred in High Definition from a 35mm colour reversal internegative. Although some basic image restoration work was carried out, and the pictures still display many faults including colour fluctuations, dirt, scratches, film movement, light drops, and missing frames, amongst other issues. Up until you get to chapter 7 the clarity of the Technicolor image is not very sharp, but at chapter second from 58:50 the Technicolor image becomes very sharp. Despite this, it is still enjoyable experience. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – J. Arthur Rank, Ealing Studios, STUIOCANAL and Network bring us the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ with just one standard 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio experience. The audio is nicely rounded and also gives us a good dynamic range and is also very clear, well-modulated sound with no distortion or age-related surface noise, pops, or crackles. But most of all we get to hear the exotic sounds of the African savannah. The dialogue of cast is not quite sharp and has a slight vibration sound when they speak. The composed film score by Alan Rawsthorne really enhances the African setting, but sadly when you hear the higher notes played, you again get a sort of vibrating sound.
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Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Special Feature: Two Original Theatrical Trailers [1955 / 1953] [1080p] [1.37:1] [4:20] In the period between the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s of going to a British cinema, you would get what is called a “double feature” and was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, or sometimes they would show just one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown. So just before the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ starts, we get to view two Original Theatrical Trailers that would have been shown before the main film presentation, and they inform us:
Showing at the ABC Cinema SUNDAY AND ALL WEEK
STOP AND LOOK! A Man Has Just Been Murdered! MOTIVE . . . GREED! THE PRIZE . . . CONTABAND! in the film ‘CONTRABAND SPAIN’ [1955]. Starring Richard Greene, Anouk and Michael Denison. Produced by Ernest Gartside. Directed by Lawrence Huntington. Released by Associate British-Pathé Ltd.
AND
LOOK BEYOND THE STADIUM LIGHTS! BEYOND THE FRENZIED CROWDS! RIGHT INTO THE LIVES OF THE MEN WHO FIGHT FOR FAME AND FORTUNE! AND OF THE WOMEN WHO FIGHT TO HOLD THEM! in the film ‘THE SQUARE RING’ [1953]. This was a Michael Balcon Production. Produced and Directed by Michael Ralph and Basil Dearden. Starring Jack Warner, Robert Beatty, Maxell Reed, Joan Collins, Kay Kendall, Bernadette O’Farrell and Bill Owen. It was a J. Arthur Rank Organisation Presentation.
Theatrical Trailer [1951] [1080p] [1.37:1] [3:12] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY.’ The trailer has been newly scanned and conformed from YCM separation masters. At the start of the trailer, it announces “The picture selected by unanimous acclaim for the ROYAL FILM PERFORMANCE! From the wild full-blooded heart of Africa comes a picture that will stand among the FINEST of them all ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY.’ Superbly FILMED IN TECHNICOLOR! A Michael Balcon Production. Associate Producer Leslie Norman. Story and Direction by Harry Watt. Starring Anthony Steel, Dinah Sheridan and Harold Warrender. Africa Springs Vividly To Life! In a Picture that CHALLENGES the Great Ones of our time! Colour by Technicolor. A British Film. Released Through General Film Distributors Ltd.
Special Feature: ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ Filmed [2021] [1080p] [1.78:1 / 1.37:1] [9:30] Cast and Crew give their recollections on the making of the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY,’ especially with focus puller Herbert Smith, production secretary Marcia Dawes, draughtsman Tony Rimmington and publicity secretary Yvonne Homan. Here we first meet Herbert Smith [focus puller] in his home, who of course worked on the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ where they were on location for five and a half months. Herbert Smith also tells us the story that while filming, he had a go at a White Hunter who was killing far too many wild animals and condemned what he was doing and the White Hunter was not much pleased, and that night when Herbert Smith went to sleep in his tent, the White Hunter put some meat on top of the tent to attract a wild animal in the hope of killing Herbert Smith, but luckily no animal attacked in is sleep. Herbert Smith talks about Anthony Steel, who was a bit of a womaniser, and went to dance with a married woman and wanted to take her back to his hotel room and they husband found out and was very angry and threatened Anthony Steel with violence, but it all get resolved in the end. Next we get to meet Marcia Dawes [production secretary] and talks about all the amazing animals she saw in Africa and also we get clips from the film. Next we meet Tony Rimmington [draughtsman] and talks about working with Anthony Steel on location, where the actor had to climb a tree to avoid a wild animal, which in fact was a Leopard and they put an armour plated glass between them to protect Anthony Steel, and the Leopard tried to climb the tree, but luckily the Leopard had been given an injection of drugs to calm it down, and as it climbed the tree, but lost its grip and fell back onto the crew below. Near the end of these interviews we meet publicity secretary Yvonne Homan [publicity secretary] and talks about the director Harry Watt and near the end of the shoot give a party in the canteen for a lot of the crew and thought it was a very nice gesture on the part of Harry Watt. Despite this interview special is very short, it was still nice to hear all of their recollections on working for the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ in Africa. Produced, photographed, edited and directed by James McCabe.
Special Feature: Image Gallery [1951] [1080p] [1.78:1] [1:40] Here we get to view 34 images and the majority are in colour, but there are some in black-and-white images, and what you view is International Film Posters, publicity photographs on location and a few black-and-white other publicity images.
PLUS: FIRST PRESSING ONLY: A beautiful collector’s 8 page booklet, which is the replica of what was given out at the 1951 Royal Film Performance that gives lots of in-depth information about the film and other fascinating memorabilia items relating to the film.
BONUS: Reversible printed Blu-ray cover featuring original artwork, rare Cinema Posters and colour Lobby Promotional items from the film. Also information about the remastering notes.
Finally, the majority of the UK press commented about the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ and said that the film's selection for the 1951 Royal Command Performance, suggested that it would have been an ideal choice if the three-year-old Prince Charles had attended, judging it "a pleasant picture, especially for children." Placing a family at the centre of the film – Robert and Mary Payton and their son Tim – was another departure, strengthening its credentials as family entertainment. At times it resembles George Cansdale's 1950’s BBC television programmes, introducing the audience to wild, loveable or strange animals and their young. Tim adopts many of these as pets and uses the park as a type of adventure playground. Other press commented about the film by saying, “the corner of the Empire where it the film ‘WHERE NO VULTURES FLY’ is set is fresh, beautiful and exciting to look at.” Most pre-1952 film representations established the idea of Kenya as Endemic spectacle. Director Harry Watt made a sequel, West of Zanzibar, in 1954, but the onset of colonial war in Kenya meant that by the mid-1950s it was more likely to be portrayed as murderous than Endemic, with Africans becoming part of a spectacle of savage rather than enchanting wildlife. Overall, the unusual mix of influences also contributes to a sense of narrative uncertainty. There’s a self-consciousness that is determined not to reprise the gung ho imperialism of Korda’s inter-war pictures but which lacks the rigour necessary to altogether reject them. In short, it belongs to a category of British film which could be described as “commercial-film-with-a-conscience.” Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
