April 20, 2022

This is a fairly typical making-of featurette of its era. It consists of color footage of the MGM production company on location in Africa making King Solomon’s Mines (1950). Unfortunately, the footage of stars Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger is excerpted from the film itself — that’s not original, unseen footage. Frankly, some of the other footage of Dodge trucks passing over challenging terrain is probably staged, too, but it gives a sense of … read the rest.

This is a fairly typical making-of featurette of its era. It consists of color footage of the MGM production company on location in Africa making King Solomon’s Mines (1950). Unfortunately, the footage of stars Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger is excerpted from the film itself — that’s not original, unseen footage. Frankly, some of the other footage of Dodge trucks passing over challenging terrain is probably staged, too, but it gives a sense of the remoteness of this particular location shoot. It’s significant, as well, because King Solomon’s Mines was a very influential film in terms of demonstrating the success with which extensive on-location filmmaking could be met in theaters.

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