The Stanley Baker - Cy Enderfield product ZULU is one of the most thrilling and authentic war films I have ever seen. For all of its 135 minutes of running time the screen is a colourful pageant of a most gloricus episode in British military history. One leaves the theatre v;ith the blood aflame and the mind full of ideas for new type wargames with thousands of home-cast Zulus attacking defensive positions. And then one is brought up short in the knowlege that few of us have been able to formulate any sort of workable ru1es that will enable small numbers of troops to adequately defend even the strongest positions! The story of the defence of Rorke's Drift is too well known to need relating here - suffice it to say that this film has done what few films ever manage to do -- to have used about the right numbers of men in accordance with the records of those who took part. And what men they have made them! The two officers, Chard and Bromhead, are most adequately played by Stanley Baker and Michael Caine - but then, there isn't a single character in the entire film who is not portrayed in the most convincing fashion. i;e see the dandy nonchalant officer, the hard-bitten professional officer, the tough but intensely human Colour Sergeant (a most brilliant performance by Nige1 Green) and the rank and file - Private Henry Hook, the old soldier, the dyed-in-the-wool 'barrack-room lawyer' who for most of the film refuses even to fight because he is 'sick and excused duty'. Then he changes his mind, and history tells us that Private Henry Hook of B Company, 2nd Bn., 24th Foot won a Victoria Cross. In fact, it was a most glorious action in which 11 of the 105 defenders won this highest of all awards - and remember, only 1,344 Victoria Crosses have been earned in the hundred and ten years since its inception! Cy Enderfield, in directing this film, must have become completely immersed in military history and procedure - the men are just that little bit dressed up as they were in Victorian days, but sufficiently dishevelled to look as though they have been repelling 4,000 Zulus; the aficionado's will really appreciate the little gem represented by the Colour Sergeunt's bayonet fighting - not for him any old rough and tumble tactics, as an old soldier and a bayonet instructor, he fights methodically and picturesquely just as the drillbook lays down! Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 25 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1964 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com