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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Topical Richard Brooks Drama, 17 Dec 2001
By charles pope - Published on Amazon.com
I have yet to see this film played on any Television cable channel. Brooks brings to the screen Robert Ruark's novel about the Mau Mau uprisings in the then British East Africa. Its a powerful story that is well acted by Rock Hudson, Sidney Poitier, Dana Wynter and Wendy Hiller.
Here is a chance to see a terrific actor named Juano Hernandez( Young Man With a Horn, " The Pawnbroker") deliver the goods.
Time has changed attitudes on subjects like these situations portrayed here. However, parts of this drama are salient even today although framed differently. One can take the geography out of this part of Africa and transpose these types of conflicts to other continents. Directed with care by Mr. Brooks.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An unusual story and good performances from Rock Hudson and Sidney Poitier, 6 Jan 2011
By D. K. Daniel - Published on Amazon.com
A sympathetic look at an armed, bloody rebellion of blacks would have been unheard of for a Hollywood film set in America in 1957. It seems that the few films that focused on race relations back then tended to present good-natured black characters being mistreated by whites who ultimately see the errors of their ways.
Perhaps that's why "Something of Value" could be filmed at all. It's set in Africa and looks at the issues of independence facing Kenya. Was that Hollywood's way of dealing with race relations in the U.S.? Imagine if MGM had released a film based on the Nat Turner slave rebellion in Virginia in colonial times.
The novel "Something of Value" had been a controversial best-seller and promised to be a controversial film. According to the new book "Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks" (available from amazon.com) writer-director Brooks was a liberal who hated any kind of discrimination. He had done well with "Blackboard Jungle" a few years earlier and another controversial best-seller would be just his kind of project.
For this movie, Brooks worked again with Sidney Poitier, and Brooks also gave Rock Hudson one of the best roles of his career.
"Something of Value" doesn't make heroes of the Mau-Mau insurgents, but it explains why they were driven to violence and why Kenya ultimately would become independent.
Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks (Wisconsin Film Studies)
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another chapter in African history, 16 May 2010
By Fiona Lowther "book lover" - Published on Amazon.com
Not having read the book on which "Something of Value" was based, I don't know how faithful the film is to the book. However, it is an evocative and provocative film. A younger Hudson portrays a white South African whose best friend is a black South African (Sidney Poitier). Having grown up together, the boys become young men subjected to the racial pressures of the MauMau era.
Hudson's character remains sympathetic throughout, and viewers will also be able to understand the coercion placed on Poitier's character because of apartheid.
Hudson doesn't get much of an opportunity to prove his acting ability, nor is Poitier's character given wide range. If one has not read the book, the conclusion of the film is not telegraphed -- those following the story for the first time will not know whether the ending will be tragic or inspiring, or whether either of the two men will survive.
All in all, it is a worthwhile movie.
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