Zarak
Encyclopedia
- For other meanings, see Zarak (disambiguation)Zarak (disambiguation)Zarak is a 1956 British film. Other meanings of Zarak include:*Lord Zarak is the binary-bonded partner of Scorponok, a Transformers character.*Zarak is a small village in Afghanistan...
.
Zarak is a 1956
1956 in film
The year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 5 - The Ten Commandments opens in cinemas and becomes one of the most successful and popular movies of all time, currently ranking 5th on the list of all time moneymakers * February 5 - First showing of documentary films by...
British Warwick Films
Warwick Films
Warwick Films was the name of a film company founded by film producers Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli in London in 1951. The name was taken from the Warwick Hotel in London...
CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
based on the 1949 book The Story of Zarak Khan by A.J. Bevan. It was directed by Terence Young with assistance from John Gilling
John Gilling
John Gilling was an English film director and screenwriter, born in London. He was chiefly known for his horror films, especially for Hammer Films, for whom he directed Shadow of the Cat , The Plague of the Zombies , The Reptile and The Mummy's Shroud, among others...
and Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt , also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director.-Biography:...
. Set in the Northwest Frontier and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
(though filmed in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
), the film starred Victor Mature
Victor Mature
Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...
, Michael Wilding
Michael Wilding (actor)
-Early life:Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, Wilding was a successful commercial artist when he joined the art department of a London film studio in 1933. He soon embarked on an acting career.-Career:...
, Anita Ekberg
Anita Ekberg
Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg is a Swedish model, actress and cult sex symbol. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the 1960 Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita which features the legendary scene of her cavorting in Trevi Fountain alongside Marcello Mastroianni.-Biography:Ekberg was born in...
, and featured Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
in a supporting role.
Plot
Zarak Khan (Mature) is the son of a chief who is caught embracing one his father's wives Salma (Ekberg). Zarak's father sentenced both to torture and death but they are saved by an ImamImam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
(Finlay Currie
Finlay Currie
Finlay Jefferson Currie was a Scottish actor of stage, screen and television.Currie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1878. His acting career began on the stage. He and his wife Maude Courtney did a song and dance act in the US in the 1890s. He made his first film in 1931...
). The exiled Zarak becomes a bandit chief and an enemy of the British Empire.
Production
Often classified as a minor piece of "escapism", this 99-minute film nevertheless boasted a surprising amount of emerging film talent. Ted MooreTed Moore
Ted Moore, B.S.C. was a cinematographer and camera operator on nearly fifty films, and is probably most famous for his work on seven of the James Bond films in the 1960s and early 1970s.-Biography:...
, who handled some of the Technicolor/CinemaScope photography, later performed similar work on the early James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
films, and art director John Box and costume designer Phyllis Dalton later won Oscars for their work on Doctor Zhivago
Doctor Zhivago (1965 film)
Doctor Zhivago is a 1965 epic drama-romance-war film directed by David Lean and loosely based on the famous novel of the same name by Boris Pasternak...
. Richard Maibaum
Richard Maibaum
Richard Maibaum was an American film producer, playwright and screenwriter best known for his adaptations of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels....
, who adapted A.J. Bevan's novel, went on to adapt such Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
novels as Dr. No, From Russia, with Love, and Goldfinger. Similarly, the Director, Terence Young and the Producer, Albert R. Broccoli went on to create the Bond movies.
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
portrays Moor Larkin, an Adjutant to Michael Wilding's character who has a penchant for billiards, as well as offering sensible, albeit ignored, advice. This role created a considerable stir in the British cinema magazine, Picturegoer. Margaret Hinxman, the doyen of film critics, made Patrick McGoohan her "Talent Spot". She assured her readers that this new face would be "really something", given a "half-decent" part. Her admiration was remarkable, in that she completely slated the film, Zarak, itself, describing it as "absurd".
The original film poster was criticised by the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
for "bordering on the obscene" and banned in the United Kingdom.
The action sequences reappeared in John Gilling
John Gilling
John Gilling was an English film director and screenwriter, born in London. He was chiefly known for his horror films, especially for Hammer Films, for whom he directed Shadow of the Cat , The Plague of the Zombies , The Reptile and The Mummy's Shroud, among others...
's The Bandit of Zhobe
The Bandit of Zhobe
The Bandit of Zhobe is a 1959 British adventure film directed by John Gilling and starring Victor Mature, Anne Aubrey and Anthony Newley. On the British India a bandit goes on a rampage in the mistaken belief that the British have killed his family, which later proves to not be the case...
(1958) and The Brigand of Kandahar
The Brigand of Kandahar
The Brigand of Kandahar is a 1965 British action film directed by John Gilling and starring Ronald Lewis, Oliver Reed and Duncan Lamont. A mixed-race British officer is thrown out of his regiment when he is accused of cowardice in action. He then joins some tribesmen rebelling against the British...
(1965).