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[Adelaida Frodge]

Zuluis a 1964 British epic adventure action war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between a detachment of the British Army and the Zulu in 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, in which 150 British soldiers, 30 of whom were sick and wounded, at a remote outpost, held off a force of 4,000 Zulu warriors.

The film was directed by American screenwriter[5] Cy Endfield and produced by Stanley Baker and Endfield, with Joseph E. Levine as executive producer. The screenplay was by Endfield and historical writer John Prebble, based on Prebble's 1958 Lilliput article "Slaughter in the Sun". The film stars Baker and introduces Michael Caine, in his first major role, with a supporting cast that includes Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Nigel Green, Paul Daneman, Glynn Edwards, Ivor Emmanuel, and Patrick Magee. Zulu chief and future South African political leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi played Zulu King Cetshwayo kaMpande, his great-grandfather. The opening and closing narration is spoken by Richard Burton.

The film was first shown on the 85th anniversary of the actual battle, 22 January 1964, at the Plaza Theatre in the West End of London. Zulu received widespread critical acclaim, with praise going to the sets, soundtrack, cinematography, action sequences and the performances of the cast, particularly Baker, Booth, Green and Caine. The film brought Caine international fame. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the 93rd best British film ever.[6]

In January 1879, in the aftermath of the crushing defeat of a 1,300-man British column by the Zulu armies at Isandlwana, Zulu tribesmen scavenge the battlefield and collect rifles and ammunition from the dead soldiers. At a mass Zulu marriage ceremony witnessed by missionary Otto Witt and his daughter Margareta, Zulu King Cetshwayo is informed of the great victory; Witt and Margareta flee when they realise that the Zulus are going to attack Witt's missionary station at Rorke's Drift in Natal, which a company of the British Army's 24th Regiment of Foot are using as a supply depot and hospital for British forces in Zululand.

Receiving news of Isandlwana from Natal Native Contingent Commander Adendorff and warnings that 4,000 Zulu warriors are advancing on their position, Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers assumes command of a force consisting of less than 200 men as he is slightly senior to their nominal commander, Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead. With not enough time to order a full evacuation, Chard decides to stay and fight. He has wagons, sacks of mealie (maize), and crates of hardtack stacked to form a defensive perimeter, gun holes knocked in the hospital walls, and a medical ward set up in Witt's chapel. A contingent of South African cavalrymen who had fought at Isandlwana arrive, refuse Chard's pleas to help reinforce the station on the grounds that it is hopeless, and swiftly depart on their horses. Witt, enraged by Chard arming the hospital's patients and ordering them to fight instead of allowing them to be evacuated, persuades the Zulus serving in the Natal Native Contingent to desert. In retaliation, Chard orders the wagons, which Witt had wanted to transport the sick and injured, to be overturned to plug gaps in the barrier. Then he and orders Witt to be locked up in the chapel's supply room.

The Zulu impis approach and then charge before quickly retreating under British fire; Adendorff explains that they are trying to find weak points in the station's defences. Witt starts drinking heavily and proclaims that none of the soldiers will survive the coming battle. Chard permits Margareta to take her father away; the Zulus, recognising the Witts, allow them to pass unharmed. Chard is concerned that the northern perimeter wall is under-defended and realises that the Zulus, aware of this, are preparing to attack the station from all sides. Zulu warriors armed with British rifles also start taking potshots at the soldiers. Throughout the day and night, wave after wave of Zulu attackers are repelled, but the defenders are gradually killed off one by one, among them the company cook, killed by a Zulu spear while carrying ammunition. Due to a shot fired too close to the hospital's hay roof, the building catches on fire, and Private Henry Hook rallies the patients to fight them and escape. Sergeant Robert Maxfield, Private Hook's bedridden and mentally broken commanding officer, is killed along with a Zulu warrior as the hospital burns down.

The next morning, the Zulus approach to within several hundred yards and sing a lament before launching again into their war chant; the British respond by singing the Welsh song "Men of Harlech". In the final assault, just as it seems the Zulus will finally overwhelm the tired defenders, the British soldiers fall back to a small redoubt in front of the chapel. With a reserve of men hidden within the redoubt, they form into three ranks and fire volley after volley, inflicting heavy casualties; the Zulus retreat. After a pause of three hours, the Zulus re-form on the Oscarberg. Resigned to another assault, the British are astonished when the Zulus instead sing a song to honour the bravery of the defenders before departing.

Cy Endfield was inspired to make the film after reading an article on the Battle of Rorke's Drift by John Prebble. He took it to actor Stanley Baker with whom he had made several films and who was interested in moving into production. Endfield and Prebble drafted a script, which Baker then showed to Joseph E. Levine while making Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) in Italy. Levine agreed to fund the movie, which was produced by Baker's company, Diamond Films.[9] It was shot using the Super Technirama 70 cinematographic process, and distributed by Paramount Pictures in all countries excluding the United States, where it was distributed by Embassy Pictures.[5]

Most of Zulu was shot on location in South Africa. The mission depot at Rorke's Drift was recreated beneath the natural Amphitheatre in the Drakensberg Mountains (considerably more precipitous than the real Rorke's Drift, which is little more than two small hills). The set for the British field hospital and supply depot at Rorke's Drift was created near the Tugela River with the Amphitheatre in the background. The real location of the battle was 100 kilometres (60 mi) to the northeast, on the Buffalo River near the isolated hill at Isandlwana.

Other scenes were filmed within the national parks of the then Province of Natal. Interiors and all the scenes starring James Booth were completed at Twickenham Film Studios in Middlesex, England. The majority of the Zulus were real Zulus. 240 Zulu extras were employed for the battle scenes, bused in from their tribal homes over 100 miles away. Around 1,000 additional tribesmen were filmed by the second unit in Zululand. Eighty South African military servicemen were cast as soldiers.[10]

Michael Caine, who at this early stage in his career was primarily playing bit parts, was originally up for the role of Private Henry Hook, which went to James Booth. According to Caine, he was extremely nervous during his screen test for the part of Bromhead, and director Cy Endfield told him that it was the worst screen test he had ever seen, but they were casting Caine in the part anyway because the production was leaving for South Africa shortly and they had not found anyone else for the role.[5] Caine also believed that he was fortunate that the film was directed by an American (Endfield), because "no English director would've cast me as an officer, I promise you, not one," due to his Cockney roots.[12] Caine later said "My entire movie career is based on the length of the bar at the Prince of Wales theatre, because I was on my way out [after failing to get the part auditioned for] and it was a very long walk to the door. And I had just got there, when he called out: 'Come back!'[13]

The company was unable to obtain enough historically authentic Martini-Henry rifles for all of the extras, and had to use additional later Lee Enfields, with a very noticeable moving bolt on the right side, absent on the Martini-Henry. The sidearms used were also visibly later types, World War I-vintage Webley Mk VI revolvers.[14]

The basic premises of the film are true and largely accurate, but is not a historical re-enactment of real events. Although actual participants of the battle are named characters in the film, they bear little resemblance to their actual counterparts. The heavily outnumbered British successfully defended Rorke's Drift more or less as portrayed in the film. Writer Cy Endfield even consulted a Zulu tribal historian for information from Zulu oral tradition about the attack.[5] There are a number of historical inaccuracies in the film.[16]

There are several inconsistencies with the historical record concerning the Swedish missionaries, the Witts. In the film, Witt is depicted as a middle-aged man, a pacifist and drunkard, who has an adult daughter called Margareta accompanying him. In reality, Otto Witt was aged 30. Witt's family were 30 kilometres (19 mi) away at the time of the battle. On the morning of the battle, Otto Witt, with the chaplain, George Smith, and Surgeon-Major James Henry Reynolds, had ascended Shiyane (Oscarberg), the large hill near the station, and noticed the approach of the Zulu force across the Buffalo River. Far from being a pacifist, Witt had co-operated closely with the British Army and negotiated a lease to put Rorke's Drift at Lord Chelmsford's disposal. Witt made it clear that he did not oppose British intervention against King Cetshwayo. He had stayed at Rorke's Drift because he wished "to take part in the defence of my own house and at the same time in the defence of an important place for the whole colony, yet my thoughts went to my wife and to my children, who were at a short distance from there, and did not know anything of what was going on". He therefore left on horseback to join his family shortly before the battle.[21]

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