Mister Moses

1965 "Joe Moses is his name...stealing Africa is his game!"
6.1| 1h55m| NR| en
Details

A con man on the run in Africa aids a minister's daughter by helping lead a local tribe to their new homeland.

Director

Producted By

Frank Ross Productions

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Reviews

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.
Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
moonspinner55 Snake-oil salesman and diamond smuggler Robert Mitchum runs into trouble with irate African villagers; he's cared for by the daughter of a missionary reverend who is engaged to the district commissioner, who in turn has ordered the natives off the land due to an impending flood despite their refusal to vacate without their animals. Sloppy second-biller certainly doesn't provide much in the way of an acting showcase, though Mitchum and Carroll Baker manage a comfortable repartee. Adaptation of Max Catto's book waffles uncertainly between comedy, romance and adventure, this due to Ronald Neame's surprisingly lax direction. Film is benign enough, though that's hardly complimentary. *1/2 from ****
MartinHafer Robert Mitchum plays the title character, a diamond smuggler, snake oil salesman and all-around shady character. Somehow he's arrived in Afria and when he's discovered down by the bullrushes, this, combined with his name, convince a local chief that Mister Moses was sent by God! While this certainly is NOT the case, Moses takes a real liking to the missionary's daughter (Carroll Baker) and she convinces him to help her lead the tribe to a new region...and he is sort of like the Biblical Moses. However, he has to contend with the law as well as a crazed anti-colonial son of a voodoo priest who swears inexplicably that he's going to kill him.This is a very strange sort of plot. Even stranger is seeing Robert Mitchum in British Africa! Strangest of all is the ending, however, where for no understandable reason whatsoever, the girl runs off with him. To say the ending makes no sense at all is a reasonable complaint...and the reason this one only earns a 4...even though I usually love Mitchum's films. The 4 is probably a bit generous!!
bkoganbing Handled with a bit more humor than in the Elia Kazan classic The Wild River, Mister Moses is the story of a Masai village in Kenya which is about to be drowned out with the construction of a new dam. But the tribe clings to the land despite Reverend Alexander Knox's best efforts to persuade them to settle somewhere else with government aid. The government in the person of Ian Bannen is prepared to use more forceful methods. He's got a problem though Bannen is also courting Carroll Baker who is Knox's daughter and the village nurse.Along comes into everyone's lives comes Joe Moses as played by Robert Mitchum. His entrance is unusual so I won't reveal it. But the tribe who has absorbed the literal biblical truth of the Holy Scripture has decided that he is their Moses and they'll follow Mitchum and only Mitchum to their promised land.Villain of the piece is Raymond St.Jacques, son of the former witch doctor and one exposed to western ways wants to take over real bad from the old chief Orlando Martins and kick out Baker and Knox. He's got the most interesting part in Mister Moses and really scores in his performance.As for Mitchum this is his third film with a jungle setting, the first two were White Witch Doctor and Rampage and they were both a great deal more serious in theme. Mitchum looked like he was enjoying himself giving a rollicking performance as only Mitchum can. According to Lee Server's masterly biography on old rumple eyes he and Carroll Baker enjoyed each other's company a lot until Shirley MacLaine arrived for a visit.And also Mitchum spent a lot of time with an elephant named Emily in the film and Emily almost got fired until they discovered she was a lesbian elephant. Until they sent for her partner Susie, Emily was a most temperamental elephant. This attested to by director Ronald Neame.Mister Moses is not in the list of great Robert Mitchum parts, but it's one that suited him perfectly and will still be enjoyed by his still legion of fans.
Robin Moss "Mister Moses" is an amiable, lightweight movie that is heavily dependant upon the charisma of its leading players. Luckily for the movie and the audience, one of the stars is Robert Mitchum who had been carrying lightweight movies since his RKO days. It was only during the last phase of his career that Mitchum's merit became recognised. Before then, his skillful underplaying had been misinterpreted as laziness and inability by the unimaginative morons who formed the critical establishment between 1945 and 1960.Mitchum plays Joe Moses, a carnival trader in Africa and an easy-going cynic, who is chased out of one village at the beginning of the movie. Injured and unconscious, he floats downstream and winds up at another settlement which is due to be moved en bloc because of a new dam scheme. Moses is finagled into leading the reluctant villagers across country to their new settlement.Because nothing very exciting happens, the star quality of Mitchum and Carroll Baker is what holds the audience's attention. The mid-1960s was the period when Carroll Baker was making her abortive attempt to become the new sex goddess of Hollywood in a series of salacious melodramas for producer Joseph E. Levine. She was ill-suited for that material, but in "Mister Moses" she is liberated from the shackles of aggressive sexiness. Here, deglamorised and natural, she reminds us of how good she was - and how attractive - in her first few movies before she tried to be a replacement for Marilyn Monroe. Baker and Mitchum make a good screen combination."Mister Moses" has all but disappeared in recent years, and has yet to make its debut on DVD. This is surprising because it was originally released by United Artists, since taken over by MGM. Movies released by MGM and United Artists have flooded the DVD market in the past two years, but there is still no sign of "Mister Moses".