To marry his fiancee Sybil Danning & become a farmer like his
stepfather to be Trevor Howard, James Faulkner quits his job in the
South African police force, not without warning his boss Christopher Lee
that there might be an uprising among the black natives though, led by a
certain Albino (Horst Frank). But it is no sooner than he is celebrating
his leave from the force that these blacks, led by the Albino, burn down
his farm & rape & kill his wife to be. Driven by a thirst for
revenge, Faulkner - accompanied by his loyal black servant Sam Williams
- sets out to track down & kill the Albino & his gang, & it
is up to police chief Christopher Lee to stop him, a plan seriously
marred by his men - all loyal to their old comrade Faulkner - deserting
him. But Lee is soon replaced by commander Erik Schumann, who is trying
to track down Faulkner with a bataillon of soldiers. Faulkner, now
having to fight a war on 2 fronts, still manages to get to the Albino
& kill him before being shot by the soldiers, actually giving up his
life after having accomplished his mission.
This trash version of a whites-vs-reds-vendetta-Western transposed to
South Africa (in more than one way) is - to be polite - politically
questionable at best, & not only by today's standards. The naivety
which puts the good white opressors against the evil black
natives is actually quite bewildering, not made any better by some
blacks among the whites' ranks, all in subservient positions, calling
their white masters mambo. These political views are of course
not at all counterbalanced by the other message of the film - that it is
by all means ok to put personal vendetta over law-&-order - the
movie is not only about James Faulkner's road to vengeance, but
also deals with the great sympathy & respect he earns for it from
his colleagues, even his boss Christopher Lee, while the soldiers after
him &
their commander Erik Schumann are treated with misregard. Some kind of
movie that is !
Within the context of these messages, it is rather surprising how
many name-actors did actually appear in the film - though it must be
added that both Trevor Howard's & Christopher Lee's career were
definitely going downhill, while Sascha Hehn, then mainly an actor in
German erotica like Schulmädchen Report 6 or the Hausfrauen
Report/Give 'em an Inch-movies, was still years away from
receiving stardom in the German speaking countries with his
smash-hit-kitsch-tv-series Das Traumschiff & Die
Schwarzwaldklinik, & later b-movie-queen Sybil Danning was
back then still a starlet on the rise, and at that point of her career she couldn't be too awfully
picky about what to act in.
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