Simba (1955 film)
| Simba | |
|---|---|
Original film poster
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| Directed by | Brian Desmond Hurst |
| Produced by | Peter De Sarigny |
| Written by | John Baines Robin Estridge Anthony Perry (story) |
| Starring |
Dirk Bogarde Virginia McKenna Donald Sinden |
| Music by | Francis Chagrin |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| Edited by | Michael Gordon |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | General Film Distributors |
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Release date
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25 January 1955 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Simba is a 1955 British drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Dirk Bogarde, Donald Sinden, Virginia McKenna and Basil Sydney. The screenplay concerns a British family living in East Africa, who become embroiled in the Mau Mau Uprising.
Alan Howard (Dirk Bogarde) visits Kenya to see his brother, whom he discovers has been murdered by Mau Mau.
The box-office success of The Planter's Wife (1952) saw Rank become interested in making films about other contemporary Imperial stories and head of production Earl St. John put out a call for story submissions to do with the Mau Mau Uprising. Anthony Perry obliged with a treatment and he was sent to Kenya, where his advisers included Charles Njonjo. The treatment had to be approved by the War Office, the Colonial Office, and the white settler organisation, the Voice of Kenya. The script was written by another writer, John Baines.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios, with second unit photography in Kenya. The producers had originally hoped to cast Jack Hawkins in the lead and used a double in Kenya to match him in long shot. When Hawkins was unavailable, Bogarde was cast instead and much of the Kenyan footage covering Hawkins could not be used. However, they had also used a tall, blond Rhodesian policeman as the long shot stand-in for the part of Inspector Drummond, but had difficulty finding an available blond actor in England to play the part and so match up the shots. A chance meeting in the bar at Pinewood between the director Brian Desmond Hurst and Donald Sinden, who had had to dye his hair blond for the comedy film Mad About Men, led to Sinden being cast as Drummond.
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