The Fiercest Heart | |
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Directed by | George Sherman |
Produced by | George Sherman |
Written by | Edmund H. North |
Starring |
Stuart Whitman Juliet Prowse Raymond Massey Geraldine Fitzgerald |
Music by | Irving Gertz |
Edited by | 20th Century Fox |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date
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Running time
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80 min. |
Language | English |
Budget | $745,000 |
The Fiercest Heart is a 1961 film starring Stuart Whitman and Juliet Prowse, also featuring 1960 Summer Olympics decathlon champion Rafer Johnson. It is set in 1830s South Africa.
Three men escape from a prison garrison in South Africa, 1837. As the encounter a tribe of Boers led by Willem Prinsboo who are trekking into the country's interior, one of the fugitives, Steve Bates, a British soldier, immediately develops a romantic interest in Willem's beautiful granddaughter, Francina.
Bates and his fellow escapees, his African friend Nzobo and a brutal criminal, Harry Carter, help hold off a raid by Zulu warriors, but Willem is badly wounded. To the fury of Barent Beyer, a man who loves Francina, her grandfather's last wish before he dies is that Bates now become the group's leader.
The jealous Barent sets an ambush to kill Bates, but before he can, he is felled by a Zulu spear. Carter, too, ends up dead, Bates avenging an assault on Francina. What remains of the group is able to go back to Francina's farm in peace after the Zulu chief is killed in battle by Nzobo.