Watching the
1950 film version of one of my favourite books as a kid, 'King Solomon's Mines', which has the distinction of being the first film shot on location in Africa. Unfortuntely, it takes a lot of liberty with the story and dumps much of the adventure I remember in favour of yet another dreary love story between Quartermain and the created-for-the-film character of Elizabeth Curtis. It is more travelogue than adventure, but still a pretty good film, and a heck of a lot better than some of the
versions that followed.
It did make me want to go and dig up my
old paperback. If there was ever a good literary foundation for an RPG adventure, King Solomon's Mines is it. It constantly boggles my mind why Hollywood can't just film a straight version of some of these incredible old adventures.
