Harry Quashie Movies

If the plot of the 1993 Kevin Costner film A Perfect World seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps it's because it bears a more than passing resemblance to the British-made 1952 thriller The Hunted (U.S. title: Stranger in Between). Dirk Bogarde stars in this emotional melodrama as an escaped murderer, sloshing through the North Country mud. Bogarde is reluctantly saddled with a fugitive orphan boy (Jon Whitely), who insists upon tagging along. The murderer ends up sacrificing his freedom to rescue the injured boy from certain death. While The Hunted was greeted with moderate enthusiasm in Britain, its virtues were trumped by the French film critics of the era. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This tense, uncompromising African actioner affords Victor Mature one of his best screen roles. When his family is wiped out by Mau Mau insurrectionists, white hunter Mature assembles an expedition to track down the tribal leader responsible for the massacre. The British authorities don't want Mature to foment further difficulty by seeking revenge, so they revoke his hunting license. Still, he manages to embark upon his justice-seeking safari by hiring himself out as a guide for millionaire lion hunter Roland Culver and Culver's fiancee Janet Leigh. The grimness of the proceedings is occasionally leavened by an incongruously upbeat musical score. Safari was photographed on location by Ted Moore and directed by Terence Young, who'd later collaborate on the James Bond epic Thunderball (1965). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi