Circa 1900 , a British colonial policeman Lt. King Edwards (Ty Hardin) in Africa is assigned by his superior officer , Captain Walter Phillips (George Sanders) to pursue a band of escaped killers (Julio Peña , Jorge Rigaud and Allan Collins or Luciano Pigozzi , nicknamed the Italian Peter Lorre) through the lush jungle and to rescue gold-miner's widow (Helga Liné) from the nasty convicts . He chases the murderers across territory so wild , it lies just "one step to hell" . Along the way he is captured by slave traffickers , and besieged by attackers and gunslingers .
Gorgeous African scenery helps save an otherwise average movie . This exciting African adventure contains a story full of pursuits , action , thrills , violent fights , mediocre dramatic pace and ordinary direction . Passable but so-so adventure , a thrilling flick with beautiful outdoors and breathtaking confrontation among the tough protagonist , Ty Hardin , against heinous murderers and other underlings . Well-staged action sequences with rousing crossfire and spectacularly bloody fights and brawls . Here appears usual stock-shots , including customary African animals : Hippo, Rhinoceros , Zebras , Cheetah , giraffe , gnu , Crocs . Charismatic performance for the whole casting . Ty Hardin is acceptable in his usual two-fisted role , killing relentlessly enemies and showing his breast and slimness when he baths and swims in a lake surrounded by crocodiles . Ty Hardin may be a name best remembered by Spaghetti Western aficionados, but in his day, from the mid-'60s to the early '70s, Hardin was one of the most popular actors of the television . Ty began working in films as a secondary . From there, he began acting in TV shows , later moving onto the Western genre , where he found his niche . Unlike fellow Spaghetti star Clint Eastwood, however , Hardin never became a top international box-office attraction . Ty then moved west to California and won some minor roles in B movies . Soon, Ty had his own show, ¨Bronco¨ (1958), which ran from 1958 to 1962 . From here, he moved into a brief flurry of film activity : Merrill's marauders (1962) , PT 109 (1963) , Wall of Noise (1963), and Battle of the Bugle (1965) . After this, Ty's career drifted off into a series of forgettable movies made in Europe and , later, he worked in Prescott, Arizona , as an evangelistic preacher . Though often dismissed as just a hunk of "beefcake" and full of juvenile slenderness ; however , he had a decent career . Support cast is frankly good , though really wasted , while George Sanders , Pier Angeli and Rossano Brazzi have not much more than walk-on characters , leaving the Spaniard secondary actors to play most of the donkey work , such as : Julio Peña , Jorge Rigaud , Miguel Del Castillo , Fernando Villena ,and Antonio Mayans , Jesús Franco's regular . Besides , appearing some Italian support players in brief performances , such as Aldo Bufi Landi , Luciano Pigozzi , Dale Cummings and Pamela Tudor .
In addition , it packs a colorful as well as evocative cinematography by Julio Ortas , being shot in Pretoria and Spain : Seseña , Colmenar Viejo , La Pedriza , Manzanares Del Real , Madrid . It contains an atmospheric musical score by Gianni Marchetti . The motion picture was regularly directed by Sandy Howard and Giovanni Scolaro . Scolaro was an ordinary screen-writer who wrote a lot of Spaghetti Western and Peplum . While Sandy was a powerful producer who financed all kinds of genres such as Westerns : ¨Man in the wilderness¨ , ¨A man called Horse , ¨Retun and triumph a man called Horse¨ , Adventure : : ¨Savage harvest¨, ¨Neptuno factor¨, Thriller : ¨City of fear¨, ¨Stoney¨, ¨Deadly Force¨, ¨Angel I and II¨, ¨Sky riders¨ , Fantasy and Sci-Fi : ¨Embryo¨, ¨The island of Dr Moreau¨, ¨Meteror¨ , ¨The Devil's rain¨ . He only made 3 films : ¨Diary of a bachelor¨ , ¨Gammera , the invincible¨ and this one .
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