One from the Michelle Old Movie Archives....
I am a huge Micheal Caine fan.....and I was curious what was his first role in the movies......and it turned out to be a great one many haven't given much thought to...
The movie was "Zulu"...released in 1964 and starring Stanley Baker, Micheal Caine, Jack Hawkins and Nigel Greene. The movie is based on historic fact and is a true story...which attracted me to it....
On the January 22nd 1879 the British Army suffered one of its worst defeats in history when Zulu forces massacred 1,500 of its troops at Isandlhwana in Natal Province, South Africa. A short time after the main battle a Zulu force numbering in excess of 4000 warriors advanced on a British hospital and supply dump guarded by 139 Welsh infantrymen at a place called "Rourke's Drift". The film concentrates on this bloody 12 hour battle during which the British force, under their commander from the Royal Engineers ....Lieutenant John Chard (Stanley Baker)...performed valiantly. Chard happened to be in the area building a bridge and happened to be senior to the infantry officer in the area....Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Micheal Caine). British troops won 11 Victoria Crosses...the most in any single engagement in British military history in the defense of Rourke's Drift. While taking some liberties with history the film follows reality fairly closely, including matching exactly the identities of the Victoria Cross winners.
Lieutenant Bromhead, who, as an infantry officer, is rather put out to find himself subordinate to an engineer, relents and decides to follow Chard in staying and defending the Drift. Realising that they cannot outrun the Zulu army, especially with wounded soldiers, Chard decides to fortify the station and make a stand, using wagons, sacks of mealie, and crates of ship's biscuit.
Besides just being very well acted, as you'd expect with Baker and Caine....one of the highlights of the movie for me was the music score by the great John Barry. Its stirring and seems to bring every scene to a climax beautifully. The movie is directed by the great Cy Enfield and was the result of some passionate work done by Stanley Baker...who had a fascination with the stand at Rourke's Drift and wanted to make a movie as a tribute to those officers and men who were there. Baker took it on as a personal project....providing some of the funding in collaboration with Enfield.
So much for the genesis of the career of the great Micheal Caine...one of the great actors of our generation.,.....and for a great movie I can watch over and over for its devotion to historical fact.
Its "Zulu"....
For a bit of history and high drama....and a story of bravery of the highest order.......this movie offers that.
