Death Drums Along the River

Death Drums Along the River (1963)

A British colonial policeman in Africa investigates a murder in a hospital up river.

Date of release
1963-12-20
TMDB
5.3 / 10 (19)
Runtime
1h 23m
Genres
Adventure, Crime
Director
Lawrence Huntington

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: South Africa

Death Drums Along the River is a 1963 British-German international co-production adventure film directed by Lawrence Huntingdon and starring Richard Todd and Marianne Koch.

Production

The film was shot in Durban, Durban North, Zululand and Lake St Lucia.

Harry Alan Towers produced several films in South Africa with financing from Constantin Film in West Germany and casts of actors from that country.

The film was marketed in West Germany as one of the then popular series of Edgar Wallace films, but it has very little to do with Wallace's novel Sanders of the River, or the previous films based on it, apart from the name Sanders and the boat Zaire, though here it is a small motorboat rather than a steamer. The intertribal warfare in Wallace's work has been replaced by a standard detective story involving murder and diamond-smuggling.

Richard Todd had been in Africa filming The Hellions (1961) and was attempting to produce a film of Ian Fleming's The Diamond Smugglers when Harry Alan Towers offered him the lead. He later wrote, "a couple of years earlier I would not have given a second thought to such a project. However, [executive] Mac Scott assured me that this film was to be of reasonable quality and would get Warner-Pathé distribution if I were in it."

Todd reprised the role of Harry Sanders in Coast of Skeletons (1965).

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