A diverse handful of people charter a plan to fly them to Johannesburg and the airplane crashes and burns in the middle of the desert. The six survivors must work out the dynamics between them. (Cf., "Hombre," "Five Came Back", "Flight of the Phoenix", inter alia.) They discover a water hole, around which grow some improbable green melons. This is also the territory of a group of baboons -- notoriously nasty creatures that live in a clearly defined dominance hierarchy. The baboons don't particularly like the intrusion of what they probably see as unusually tall and white baboons.
Among the humans, there is a recovering drunk with a game leg (Baker), a robust American hunter with a rifle but no shirt (Whitman), a lovely and delicate blond (York), a savvy old man (Andrews), a nervous, overacting pilot (Davenport), and one of those disposable humanists (Bikel).
It turns into a story about the survival of the tannest.
York comes close. She's pretty tanned. But the bare-torsoed Whitman takes the prize. He sees the situation in Darwinian terms. And why not? He's the biggest, strongest, tannest, and he's the guy with the gun. He sends the pilot and the philosopher off into the desert, one by one, to seek help. He does it at gunpoint. He kills the older man.
That leaves him, Baker, and the succulent leggy blond in the tattered dress. York puts moves on Whitman and they're soon hooked up. Whitman kind of likes the deal so far. He not only gets to lord it over Baker and play doctor with York but the beast in him comes out and he begins slaughtering the baboons and setting them on fire.
He likes it so much that when the rescue helicopter finally arrives, Whitman hides alone among the rock and refuses to come out. It leaves him alone with the baboons, who have now developed a positive dislike for him. It's man against baboon, although by this time it's hard to tell the difference.
The direction and acting are more or less pedestrian. I kept wondering what the "message" was, or if there were any at all. I guess it's something about civilization, no matter how rotten, being better than savagery. It was so inspiring I immediately wrote a check to the World Wildlife Fund. Every seventy-five cents counts, and those baboons? Their bite was worse than their bark.
Among the humans, there is a recovering drunk with a game leg (Baker), a robust American hunter with a rifle but no shirt (Whitman), a lovely and delicate blond (York), a savvy old man (Andrews), a nervous, overacting pilot (Davenport), and one of those disposable humanists (Bikel).
It turns into a story about the survival of the tannest.
York comes close. She's pretty tanned. But the bare-torsoed Whitman takes the prize. He sees the situation in Darwinian terms. And why not? He's the biggest, strongest, tannest, and he's the guy with the gun. He sends the pilot and the philosopher off into the desert, one by one, to seek help. He does it at gunpoint. He kills the older man.
That leaves him, Baker, and the succulent leggy blond in the tattered dress. York puts moves on Whitman and they're soon hooked up. Whitman kind of likes the deal so far. He not only gets to lord it over Baker and play doctor with York but the beast in him comes out and he begins slaughtering the baboons and setting them on fire.
He likes it so much that when the rescue helicopter finally arrives, Whitman hides alone among the rock and refuses to come out. It leaves him alone with the baboons, who have now developed a positive dislike for him. It's man against baboon, although by this time it's hard to tell the difference.
The direction and acting are more or less pedestrian. I kept wondering what the "message" was, or if there were any at all. I guess it's something about civilization, no matter how rotten, being better than savagery. It was so inspiring I immediately wrote a check to the World Wildlife Fund. Every seventy-five cents counts, and those baboons? Their bite was worse than their bark.