Zulu DVD 1964 Special Collectors Edition / Directed by Cy Endfield / Starring: Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth

UPC 5014437808639

MADE IN EU

REGION 2 PAL DVD

Audio:  English 2.1, German mono, Commentary 2.1

Subtitles: English HOH, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish

Runtime: 133 minutes

English Summary:

Zulu is a 1964 British epic war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War. It shows how 150 British soldiers, many of whom were sick and wounded patients in a field hospital, successfully held off a force of 4,000 Zulu warriors. The film is notable for showing the Zulu army as disciplined and governed by strategy.

In 1879, a communiqué from Lord Chelmsford to the Secretary of State for War in London (voice-over narration by Richard Burton) details the crushing defeat of a British force at the hands of the Zulus at the Battle of Isandlwana. In the aftermath of the battle, the victorious Zulus walk amongst the scattered bodies of dead British soldiers and gather their rifles. At a mass Zulu marriage ceremony witnessed by missionary Otto Witt (Jack Hawkins) and his daughter (Ulla Jacobsson), Zulu King Cetewayo (Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi) is also informed of the great victory.

A company of the British Army's 24th Regiment of Foot is using the missionary station of Rorke's Drift in Natal as a supply depot and hospital for their invasion force across the border in Zululand. Receiving news of Isandhlwana from the Natal Native Contingent Commander Adendorff, who warns that an army of 4,000 Zulu warriors is advancing to the British position, Lieutenant John Chard (Stanley Baker) of the Royal Engineers assumes command of the small British detachment. Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine), an infantry officer, is rather put out to find himself subordinate to an engineer due to the latter's slightly earlier commission. Realising that they cannot outrun the Zulu army with wounded soldiers, Chard decides to make a stand at the station, using wagons, sacks of mealie, and crates of ship's biscuit to form a defensive perimeter. Witt becomes drunk and demoralises the men with his overtly dire predictions; the soldiers of the Natal Native Contingent desert. Chard orders Witt to be locked up in a supply room.

Cast:

• Stanley Baker as Lieutenant John Chard
• Michael Caine as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead
• Jack Hawkins as Reverend Otto Witt, a Swedish missionary based at Rorke's Drift
• Ulla Jacobsson as Margareta Witt
• Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi as King Cetshwayo, his real life maternal great-grandfather
• James Booth as Private Henry Hook, described as "a thief, a coward, and an insubordinate barrack-room lawyer"
• Nigel Green as Colour sergeant Frank Bourne
• Ivor Emmanuel as Private Owen, a Welsh baritone and head of the company choir. At the end, Owen leads the men in singing "Men of Harlech".
• Paul Daneman as Sergeant Robert Maxfield, Private Hook's sergeant
• Glynn Edwards as Corporal William Allen, portrayed as a model soldier
• Neil McCarthy as Private Thomas, a former Welsh farmer who becomes friends with Private Owen
• David Kernan as Private Frederick Hitch
• Gary Bond as Private Cole
• Peter Gill as Private 612 John Williams, a member of the company choir who is partnered with Private Hook in defending the hospital
• Patrick Magee as Surgeon-Major James Henry Reynolds, the regimental doctor
• Richard Davies as Private 593 William Jones
• Denys Graham as Private 716 Robert Jones
• Dickie Owen as Corporal Christian Schiess, a hospitalised Swiss corporal in the Natal Native Contingent
• Gert van den Bergh as Lieutenant Josef Adendorff, an Afrikaner officer serving with the Natal Native Contingent and a survivor of the battle at Isandhlwana
• Dennis Folbigge as Commissary James Langley Dalton
• Larry Taylor as Hughes
• Kerry Jordan as Louis Byrne, depicted in the film as a comedy relief company cook rather than an Acting Store Keeper^[7]
• Harvey Hall as Sick man