THE WOMAN AND THE HUNTER

US, 1957, 79 minutes, Colour.
Ann Sheridan, David Farrar, John Loder.
Directed by George Brakestone.

The Woman and the Hunter is a small jungle film, similar to many of its time, akin to King Solomon's Mines and Mogambo, but on a much less ambitious scale. George Brakestone make a number of films in Africa in the 50s.

The film is not particularly interesting, has familiar material. However, it has Ann Sheridan doing a kind of Bette Davis- Joan Crawford role, initially seeming sympathetic, underneath quite ruthless. She is the secretary of an American millionaire whom she expected to marry but he decides that he wants to marry more advantageously and financially profitably. He has a spoilt son who has attempted suicide and has brought him on a safari. Ann Sheridan is fond of the young man, looks after him and takes his side. She is also attracted to the great white hunter, played morosely by David Farrar, who is to guide the safari. When she is rejected, she sets her cap at the hunter. However, he doesn't offer enough scope for her ambitions. He has led a safari on which a young couple were killed and dwells with depression on what has happened. However, he is infatuated with her. She takes the advantage of marrying the young man in the jungle in order to inherit his fortune. When she confronts his father, she shoots him, but claims it was in self-defence.

The police investigate, think that the young man did the murder. They go out on safari to confront elephants, the young man is wounded, Ann Sheridan then has to confess.

It is the kind of material that might find its way in later decades into an episode of a television series.