Brilliant and touching

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

There was a time in adventure novels and some movies when the hero was motivated and decent; when the bad guy was clearly unscrupulous; where romance was discrete and sex was nonexistent; where the writing was clear, descriptive and straightforward. With Ralph Hammond-Innes (writing as Hammond Innes) we learned, thoroughly researched, about the North Sea, the Arabian Desert, whaling, Australia, Labrador, elephants, Morocco, the Arctic, the South Seas and a lot more. All this was found in his satisfyingly thick adventure novels. His best, in my view, were written between the late Forties and the late Sixties. Campbell's Kingdom is one of them...and the movie's not bad, either. There's gorgeous Canadian Rocky Mountain scenery, a ramshackle mining town named Come Lucky, a deep, forested valley called Campbell's Kingdom, naked greed, ruthless motivation, virile action...and Bruce Campbell, played by Dirk Bogarde. Campbell travels to Come Lucky from England to see the high, cold valley his grandfather left him. The old man, who for years believed there was oil to be discovered in his valley, left it to Bruce hoping the young man could prove the dream was true. Bruce came to Campbell's Kingdom and Come Lucky thinking he has just six months to live. All he really wanted was to find a place to feel sorry for himself. Instead, Bruce finds himself up against Owen Morgan (Stanley Baker), the ruthless, driven construction boss who is building a big hydroelectric dam that, when shortly completed, will flood Campbell's Kingdom. If oil is found, it will stop the dam. If the dam is completed, it makes oil moot. Morgan rules in Come Lucky, and the men whose jobs depend on the dam are ready to play just as rough as Morgan wants them to. Campbell discovers there just may be some truth to old Campbell's claims, doesn't like being pushed by Morgan, and decides he won't sell. He'll find out the truth. He's aided by Jean Lucas (Barbara Murray) a young woman who helps run the small hotel in Come Lucky and has a story of her own, and by Boy Bladen (Michael Craig), who wrote an engineering report Morgan fiddled with, who really likes Jean, and who is just as decent as Bruce. By the time James Robertson Justice shows up as James MacDonald, who runs a small oil-drilling rig, it looks like rough action is going to break loose right in the middle of some beautiful scenery. It does. The climax is a terrific sequence that demonstrates dramatically what happens to a dam built with poor grade cement. One other moral: Fresh air and hard work can do wonders with an illness that promised death. Campbell's kingdom gets off to a bit of a slow start as we learn about Bruce Campbell's health, about Campbell's Kingdom, the people of Come Lucky and the degree of Owen Morgan's ruthlessness. A quarter of the way in, though, the excitement kicks in. For the rest of the movie Bruce has to meet head on one crisis after another. Bruce Campbell finds unexpected reserves of resourcefulness requiring split-second timing, perilous tram rides, mountain road avalanches and blown bridges. No one beats another into the ground but there's a lot of action. I've never thought Dirk Bogarde was convincing as a rough and tumble type, but he's much better here in most of the movie leading his few troops and outguessing Morgan than as the soulful, seemingly-dying-with-quiet-nobility Bruce Campbell we first encountered. In his younger years Bogarde knew how to give that sad look with a weary, resigned little smile that made the hearts of middle-aged matrons flutter. Stanley Baker, on the other hand, had the kind of face that just looks mean. Campbell uses his brain more often than Morgan, and that helps. They were both good enough actors to make the friction between their two characters work. It would be an injustice to Barbara Murray not to mention that, perfectly acceptable as she was in movies like Campbell's Kingdom, she reached her absolute prime, and I mean prime, 17 years later as Madame Max Goesler in The Pallisers. She gave luster to maturity, experience, wit, desirability and charm. Four movies have been made from Hammon-Innes' books. The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) manages to turn a suspenseful story into a dull courtroom slog. Hell Below Zero (1954), based on The White South, was turned into an Alan Ladd vehicle. It's not bad. I've not seen Snowbound (1948), based on The Lonely Skier. So it's best to start out with his novels. Pick one at random from the Fifties and dive in. You might like them a lot.

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.

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.

If you can accept the concept of Dirk Bogarde athletically capering all over the Canadian Rockies, fighting bad guys and winning the day - then this is the movie for you.The story revolves around a guy who has been wrongly (it turns out) diagnosed with a terminal disease. Sporting a letter from his grandfather he comes to the Canadian town to prove that grandaddy's theory of "oil in them thar hills" is correct. Grandad has died, nobody believed his story of seeing oil one day after a landslide - and to complicate things evil Stanley Baker has built a dam and wants to flood the area where Grandaddy's land is. Our hero meets up with a surveyor who supports him in his quest and the whole story revolves around whether or not they will prove that the oil exists before bad Stanley floods the land.This movie is worth watching for two things - the ending when our hero is valiantly telling the dam workers of impending disaster (when they only had to look up to see it for themselves) and the unbelievable sight of the late Sid James playing a Canadian truck driver.The story is unbelievable, but the acting is quite good. This movie obviously cost a fair bit of money to make. What a pity they couldn't come up with something better for their trouble.