The Fiercest Heart

We've got yet another movie that was new to me when it showed up in the FXM rotation a few months back. That film is The Fiercest Heart. It will be on again, tomorrow at 10:15 AM.

The FXM recording I got started off a bit inauspiciously, with the opening credits both pillarboxed and letterboxed, leading me to wonder whether we wouldn't get a 4:3 panned-and-scanned print after the credits. Sure enough, that was the case, although the movie is enough of a rarity that I think this is the only way we'll get it. Anyhow, after those credits, we're informed that we're in South Africa in the 1830s. At a British fort, Steve Bates (Stuart Whitman) is being flogged before sentenced to the stockade, for having slept with the wife of an officer. But with a little help from his African friend Nzobe (Rafer Johnson), Bates is busted out of prison, along with another prisoner, Harry Carter (Ken Scott).

The three escapees hole up in a hay loft. That happens to be on the farm of one of the Boers, Willem Prinsloo (Raymond Massey). With the Brits showing up, there's not a lot of love between the Boers and the British, with the Boers planning their big trek northeastward to points more interior, looking for good farm land. Unfortunately, it's a dangerous trip, as William has already lost his son in a previous trek, and he now being extremely protective of his granddaughter Francina (Juliet Prowse), who is engaged to Barent.

Eventually the Boers find the three fugitives, but decide not to turn them over to the British because of their hatred for the British soldiers. Bates is also smart enough to try to pass Nzobe off as a Zulu who knows the way through the mountains, as well as being one of them so the other Zulus won't attack. Nzobe isn't a Zulu, of course, but the fugitives will deal with that when the time comes. In fact, they're planning to take the Boers just to their destination before leaving to wherever they can find freedom.

The journey is arduous; so arduous, in fact, that they couldn't film much of it and had to use stock footage from an earlier Fox South Africa-themed movie, Untamed. OK, joke aside, it's always tough for pioneers, who unsurprisingly face attacks from the Zulus among the other hardships. (Willem had everybody burn down their houses so they couldn't turn back.) One of those attacks results in Willem getting his by an arrow, with an infection that ultimately kills him.

On his deathbed, Willem decided to name Bates the new leader of the group, not that anybody wanted it. Francina's fiancé and a lot of the younger Boer men didn't, and Bates sure didn't. Also not wanting it is Harry. He found that Willem brought an entire sack full of cash on the trek. I'm assuming it had to be gold coins that could be freely convertible based on their weight, because what other use would the cash have? He'd like that money for himself, and after the men come across an ivory-trading slaver, Harry thinks he'll be able to get the men to get the Boers' wagons along with the gold for himself.

The Fiercest Heart plays like a very Disneyfied version of history, although of course it was made at Fox. If you want stock animal footage, nice color, and a silly story of love and redemption among the pioneers, well, this is your chance. (Oh, and don't forget the obligatory lovable moppet.) If you want real history, I highly doubt this has anything to do with it. Massey tries to bring class to the proceedings although I think he's miscast, as is Whitman, who doesn't seem British at all. Everybody else is decidedly second rate.

There's a reason The Fiercest Heart isn't very well known. Watch for yourself and see why.