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The Last Lion (film)

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The Last Lion
Directed byElmo De Witt
Written byWilbur Smith
Based onnovel Uit oerwoud en vlakte by Sangiro
StarringJack Hawkins
Production
company
Kavalier Films
Release date
  • 1972 (1972)
Running time
90 mins
CountrySouth Africa
LanguageEnglish

The Last Lion is a 1972 South African action film directed by Elmo De Witt and starring Jack Hawkins, Karen Spies and Dawid Van Der Walt.[1] The screenplay was written by Wilbur Smith, one of his rare original screenplays.[2] He used a similar story later on in his novel A Time to Die.[3]

Plot

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Ryk Mannering, a terminally ill American millionaire, goes to Africa on a final hunting expedition to track down and shoot a male lion. This lion has always eluded Mannering, who has killed more than 80 lions, and become obsessed with the animal.

Mannering hires a private doctor to keep him alive, and pays a local hunter to track down the lion. When Mannering ruthlessly kills a lioness with cubs, he infuriates both the hunter and the doctor. But he drives them mercilessly to hunt down the male. In a fit of delirium he kills his quarry – and then collapses and dies himself.

Poster tagline

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"For one it will be the last kill!"[4]

Cast

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Production

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Smith had already written one original screenplay and this was a later one. However he eventually realised he disliked writing scripts and focused on novels.[5]

The film was based on a 1921 novel Uit oerwoud en vlakte by South African author Sangiro (a pen name for Andries Albertus Pienaar (1894 - 1979). The novel had been the subject of a plagiarism action by German author Frits Bronsart von Schellendorf.[6]

Filming took place in December 1971 at Ossie Bristow's Le Rhone Ranch near Zimbabwe.[7]

Release

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Copies of the film are preserved at the National Film, Video and Sound Archives, Pretoria, South Africa. www.national.archives.gov.za

The film has been released on DVD in February 2011.

References

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  1. ^ "The Last Lion". BFI. Archived from the original on 14 January 2009.
  2. ^ "Wilbur Smith - Worldwide Bestselling Author". wilbursmithbooks.com.
  3. ^ "Wilbur Smith - Worldwide Bestselling Author". wilbursmithbooks.com.
  4. ^ "7h941 LAST LION 5 LCs '72 Jack Hawkins, Karen Spies, it will be the last kill for one!". emovieposter.com.
  5. ^ Vagg, Stephen (27 January 2022). "The Cinema of Wilbur Smith". Filmink.
  6. ^ "Sangiro, Pseudonym of Andries Albertus Pienaar". Stellenbosch Writers. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  7. ^ "Jack Hawkins in new film". Evening Telegraph. 9 December 1971. p. 17.
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