source: Campbell's Kingdom

Trailer—Campbell's Kingdom

Campbell's Kingdom

My rating of the action mentioned as above! I have to continue writing as my review is too short.

Well, my old mother in law enjoyed it! I've given it a 5 because of the confusion it created(pour moi).Campbell's Kingdom is up there,in the Rockies.Nearby,a construction gang have built a dam-for hydro-electricity.The plan is to allow water to flow over the dam and into CK.Where they are finding oil. The construction team are into sabotage of the well diggers efforts.I got all that.It was when an inclinator was used to go up to the CK land I got confused.This mountain climbing device took us up into the snowy peaks of the Rockies.Where the prospective oil field was. Where then,was the dam that would flood the oil field?Well,it must have been even higher! It just didn't make sense.Later scenes showed the dam breaking and doing a bit of flooding.It was well and truly above the oil field. A rousing matinée tale but hard to digest geographically.

I remember the praise being heaped on this film as well as on Dirk Bogard when it was first released. I was about nine years old, and never got to see this spectacle at that time. I saw it for the first time on Film 4 recently, and was quite impressed with the cinematography (It was 1957 British of course), but the casting I felt left a lot to be desired. Plenty of English (and Welsh) actors, with corny Canadian accents (Syd James, who was actually South African), and a terrible accent from one I thought could deliver. James Robertson Justice's effort was terrible. In fact, at an exciting part of the plot when my old hero was barking instructions to a beleaguered cast of mis-fits, his almost falsetto pitched voice reminded me of the Goon Show Bluebottle just before he was blown up! A typical British effort of that time.

This film scores best in it's fine sense of location, which is to be applauded as the post war industry made the effort to escape from Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.Where it falls down is the residual ambiance, among the actors, that they are still in 'Titfield Thunderbolt' country.(OK. So that was filmed in Somerset). Nice in light comedy, Bogarde never really convinced in action roles and though Baker may have convinced some (Himself maybe) that he was tough, one feels that a Broderick Crawford or Richard Boone, possibly even James Mason, (if thinly sliced) would have eaten them both on toast, . Watch for the 'two shot' when Bogarde confronts Baker in the saloon and the bottle of 'Canada Club' whisky on the table jumps on and off its tray.

Canadians don't drink canadian club rot gut whisky , they drink rye and ginger which is crown royal and ginger ale ... you can tell they are canadian because they waste real whisky by mixing it with ginger ale which is to say that dirk bogarde is no more canadian than its whisky ... by the way, i've spent a great amount of time in alberta canada and none of the scenery in this film even closely resembles it ... it was made even more fake by saying the location was 6,000 feet above sea level ... that would put it very near banff or lake louise which it isn't

Have just caught the end of this film, where the DAM breaks up. For a film made in 1957, this action is top notch and realistic. The stuntmen sure earned their money that day! Can't answer for the rest of the film. Brian. Also saw it on Talking Pictures, a DAMN fine channel for lovers of old films, especially black and white. As I heard someone observe, today's main stream channels do not show B & W films, so the modern generation miss out on the gems of yesterday, of which there are many and various, of all genres. Some of which are underrated. such as Conspiracy of Hearts.

I haven't seen this film for a long time. I saw it in the cinema in the late 50's early 60's and over the years since on TV. I think it probably still stands up due to the fact that it is in colour, it's a good clean action film with no heavy violence or strong language, and it has some familiar faces in it. Sid James of course was in Hell Drivers playing a truck driver,with Stanley Baker,who was the hero but, in this one he is the baddie, as he was in Checkpoint which also starred James Robertson Justice who was in the Doctor films with Dirk Bogarde. There are probably other connections, but this and the other films are very straight forward and untaxing to watch.