The Night of the Askari (1976) User Reviews

Peculiar mix of revenge thriller and social drama

[rundbauchdodo · 5/10 · 18 March 2002]

This rather obscure film from German director Jürgen Goslar (who also directed several episodes of the hugely popular German Krimi series "Derrick") is notable mostly for its cast. Horror icon Christopher Lee is top billed as the British police chief in the African province. His mission is to accomplish peace between the natives and the white people. The late great Horst Frank plays an Albino native who leads a gang of terrorists that try to destroy the efforts to bring the natives and the whites together. And young Sascha Hehn - at the time the film was made nearly unknown, but later cast in some German soft core films and later a TV-star as a heart throbbing doctor or Prince Charming in the schmaltzy series "Das Traumschiff", a sort of German "Love Boat" - is a young officer and the best mate of the ex-policeman on the rampage whose wife has been raped and killed by Horst Frank's evil Albino.

The film itself suffers from its only real problem: Goslar directed the movie as a mix of revenge thriller in the tradition of the John Boorman classic "Deliverance" and a tedious social drama that can not succeed in leaving clichés about African natives out of the story. So the film itself becomes a mishmash of entertaining exploitation film and laughably banal social comment. Whenever Goslar goes for the exploitation, he succeeds; we witness a savage (if not that explicit) rape and murder, some really painful torture and a graphic head shot in "Dawn of the Dead" tradition, only that this film was made two years earlier. Whenever Goslar goes for social comment, the movie becomes bothersome, because it's not really convincing. The climax, on the other hand, is a worst case scenario that partially manages to bring the two aspects of the story together.

All in all, this film is quite interesting for fans of obscure films of the Seventies (be it for the actors alone), but it's also a good example for a movie that doesn't live up to its potentials.

ALBINO (Jürgen Goslar, 1976) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 18 July 2015]

In view of the decent cast (Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning – let us not forget they would be re-united on the notorious HOWLING II … YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF {1985}! – Trevor Howard and Horst Frank), its origins as a Daniel ("The Wild Geese") Carney novel and the fact that it is not half bad, I was surprised by how sheerly obscure this South Africa-set German adventure is; in fact, the film is known by a variety of titles: WHISPERING DEATH (which is the one sported by the print I watched), THE NIGHT OF THE ASKARI and DEATH IN THE SUN! Actually, I had already scored a print entitled ALBINO but that ran for 83 minutes against the full-length 97 of the one I eventually viewed (or rather 93' in PAL mode); curiously enough, in Italy the film was released as CON LA BAVA ALLA BOCCA (With Foam At The Mouth) which was also the name of a documentary on Mario Bava's unrelated and unreleased cult classic RABID DOGS (1974)!

The exotic background spices up a basic revenge plot with a twist: a police officer turns vigilante after his fiancée is raped and killed by the titular head of a band of marauding savages but is in turn hunted down by the Law. In a way, it sounds like DEATH WISH-meets-FIRST BLOOD-by way of APOCALYPSE NOW (albeit preceding the latter two)…and if the end result is nowhere near as memorable as any of these Hollywood prototypes, the film has enough elements of its own to stick in the mind after it finishes unreeling. The late Mr. Lee is somewhat wasted as the local Chief of Police who, perhaps thankfully, sees his command overtaken by an outsider once the order is out to apprehend his errant young colleague; a heavily sun-tanned Trevor Howard, as the embittered father of the murdered girl (Sybil Danning) easily steals the acting honours with a moving performance; Danning's demise at the hands of the unconvincingly pasty-faced Frank is a powerful scene indeed as he first rapes her as she is being held in mid-air by his henchmen, then French-kisses her as she is passed out, and finally proceeds to render the coup-de-grace by scalping her with a knife; unsurprisingly, this fatal assault was reportedly trimmed for British public consumption. This is further complimented by a couple of grisly shots of mutilated faces, the handiwork of Frank's terrorist troop…although the come-uppance of the albino himself, then, is a far less graphic affair (if no less elaborate, in the vein of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, than Danning's fate).

Before signing off, I should mention another commendable contribution made to the film, i.e. Erik Ferstl's music score, which eerily anticipates Riz Ortolani's classic main theme for Ruggero Deodato's reprehensible Amazonian saga CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980). Interestingly, director Goslar's next feature would be SLAVERS (1978) which, not only reunited him with Howard and the forbidding setting but managed to rope in an even better cast (Britt Ekland, Ron Ely, Ray Milland and Cameron Mitchell). Betraying its origins, the soundtrack of ALBINO reverts to German for its very last line, delivered by a departing Howard at the hero's burial.

White Lighting

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 4 February 2013]

***SPOILERS***The film "Night of the Askari" or it's US title "The Albino" plays along the lines of the 1956 western classic "The Searchers" With John Wayne and Natalie Wood. The movie has this albino African terrorist Whispering Death played by Horst Frank looking with his tons of makeup on like an over bloated Steve McQueen. It's Whispering Death who's got the local natives going on a rampage in rural Rhodesia circa 1964 against the white settler and government. The military official in the area Mr. Bill, Christopher Lee, has his hands full when the albino, or whispering Death, raids the home of white Rhodesian army officer Terick Handel, James Faulkner, brutally raping and murdering his wife Sally played by the not quite yet filled out, you can see that by the one nude scene she has in the movie, in the chest area the beautiful Sybil Danning.

With his boss Mr. Bill ordering Terick to bring 'Whispering Death" in alive if at all possible he's instead determining to make him pay with his life for murdering and raping his wife Sally. Together with his loyal African native guide Katchemu, Sam Williams, Terick goes out in the Rhodesan hills and countryside looking to kill "Whispering Death" and his band of terrorists. Not to bring them in, if at all possible, alive like Mr. Bill ordered him to. This in fact puts both Terick and Katchemu in the cross hairs of the white Rhodesian soldiers who are ordered to stop them, with deadly force if possible, before they instigate a major native uprising by killing Whispering Death, who's looked upon as a God by the local native tribes, against their white government and military officials as well as the white settlers in the area!

****SPOILERS**** With all his men killed and capture Whispering Death is now on his own with a vengeful Terick hot on his tail. The ending of the movie isn't pretty with Whispering Death now wounded and exhausted from running is finally put away by Terick only to have him getting himself surrounded by Mr. Bill's white Rhodesian troops. Terick ends up being given the send off that he so rightfully earned by not following Mr. Bill's strict orders to do everything possible to bring Whispering Death back alive! Also Terick didn't quite help his own cause by him pointing his rifle at the troops, instead of raising his hands and giving himself up, that just about sealed his fate!

Sounds much more interesting than it is

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 13 August 2016]

"Albino" or "Night of the Askari" (and there are a handful other German and English-titles for this one) is a 90-minute live action film from 1976, so it has its 40th anniversary this year. The lead actor here is Christopher Lee, known from James Bond or the Lord of the Rings movies, and he is probably also the main (only?) reason why this film is still somewhat known today. According to IMDb, this is in German-language, but of course there are also dubbed versions out there in English and other languages. It runs for 90 minutes, which felt way too long already to me as it dragged on many occasions and Lee was not good enough either to really make it work in terms of the forgettable screenplay. The films tries to score a lot through his atmosphere and style, but it turns out more desperate than successful. The reason why this is in German is probably director Jürgen Goslar, turns 90 next year. It is one of his most known works and he also adapted the Daniel Carney novel for the screen here. Movie buffs will find more semi-big names (next to Lee) in the cast here. I will admit that the plot listed here on IMDb about a police officer taking revenge for a personal tragedy did sound interesting to me, but none of this expectations was fulfilled during the watch. I give this one a thumbs-down and recommend it only to the very biggest Christopher Lee fans. Everybody else should skip the watch.

This movie has added relevance in this era of War on Terrorism.

[Scythian Warrior · 5/10 · 1 July 2002]

Albino, although made in 1976, works as an action film set in the present day. This movie is basically about conflict between those who enforce the law and those who break it to terrorize others. This conflict is the key, and it explores the temptation of law enforcers to break the law to get the terrorists. This theme is perhaps more relevant now than prior to September 11, 2001.

Sybil Danning fans get to see her in only a few scenes. This is NOT a sexy movie. Her character (Sally) has a key role in the plot development. Her riding a horse to the climactic confrontation for her character reminds me of classic "maiden in peril" Westerns, and thus ends up being of quite appropriate.

An offbeat tale of vengeance in a "progressive" colonialist society.

[guanche · 10/10 · 24 October 2007]

A well acted depiction of life in White Rhodesia from the European point of view, and a rather disturbing story of an irreconcilable conflict between a good man's justifiable need for revenge and the necessity of upholding the law. Parents, and those sensitive to violence, should be cautioned that this is an extremely gruesome film with explicit scenes of rape, murder, torture, and mutilation.

The film credibly portrays the lives of European settlers determined to remain in their adopted land despite the increasing danger of rebellion. Most of them honestly believe that it is possible to live in peace with the Africans as long as they are willing to accept their "civilizing" guidance. The rebels are presented as bloodthirsty thugs who terrorize other Africans and have no real program of true revolution other than savage hatred of the White Man. Most of the Africans are more or less loyal to the Whites and are usually shown to be strong, honorable, and trustworthy, although often in a patronizing manner.

Christopher Lee is quite good as a police chief determined to prevent vigilante justice when a group of terrorists led by an albino (pronounced "albeeno" in the film) witch doctor (Horst Frank) rape and murder the fiancée of a man recently retired from the police force. He (James Faulkner); along with a couple of equally vengeful African servants of the victim's elderly father (Trevor Howard); takes off into the bush to find and kill those responsible. These are not evil men out to indiscriminately slaughter Africans but people who feel that there can be no rest for their souls until they spill the blood of The Albino and his crew. Lee sympathizes with their feelings but is firm in his determination to maintain law and order and bring the killers to justice legally. This, of course, also means hunting down the revenge party, causing the settler's militia to mutiny and withdraw from the operation.

The pursuit of both the killers and the posse is grim and realistic, causing the viewer to actually perceive the stresses and fatigue of the participants. Although somewhat cheaply done, subtly racist, and overly clipped and trite in spots, the film is of great interest from both the historical and moral perspective. I saw it many years ago, but, unfortunately, it; like a surprising number of other quality films; hasn't been made commercially available on either VHS or DVD.

From the author of The Wild Geese

[ssgtnail · 8/10 · 4 January 2023]

The is a Unique glimpse into Rhodesia during its struggle against antagonist forces both internal and external.

The acting is a bit forced but is easily overlooked for the greater story which is a nice blend of action and pathos.

Stereotypes are here but they may surprise you in how they are implemented.

This is not your typical John Wayne action flick but neither is it an anti Rhodesian hack piece. It walks the line between the two and offers up a compelling story of revenge action and drama.

It benefits most from not having Andrew, V. McLaglen's heavy hand to turn it into a parody od the book. Is he did with the wild geese.