Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review The Maneaters of Tsavo

Remember that old book? There was a movie based on that book, not that many years ago. Anybody remember the name of the movie? So I know what to look for, to purchase a copy. Thanks!

The Ghost and the Darkness.

Yesssss!! That's it! Thanks JB!

LOVE the book and movie! The movie had lots of gun eye-candy for sure. Poor ol' Patterson, I don't know if he had any friends left by the time he left Africa, they all go eaten by Lions!

Hated Val Kilmers Hollywood teeth job. G&D was an enjoyable film, alot of the things did happen as the film portrayed them although it is very "Hollywood gone mad" in some parts.
Not sure why Michael Douglass had to turn up when Patterson didnt need him in real life.
One thing they did miss out that would of made a great bit of film, was when some hunters came out to Join Patterson and stayed the night in a railway car. One of the lions got into the car whilst the hunters slept. And started to attack them. One guy who was on the top bunk had to jump down out of the bunk and landed on the lions back, he then tried to open the door at the other end of the car, but this was been held shut by natives who was aware of the beast inside. Much more entertaining than listening to MD drone on. The bit where VK got knocked of the Machan did happen and also the railcar /trap and the lion escaping. The book is one of those that you carn't put down and if you are on a long haul flight then its a must!

Ben, others, if you like Patterson's book, you'll love anything by Col. Jim Corbett about hunting man-eaters. Patterson was actually kind of a dolt..the same could not be said about Corbett....great writing and great reading...

Loved the book and the movie both - the movie more entertaining but the book more fascinating. Took a trip to Chicago to one of the museums where they had the actual lions mounted. Male lions with no manes - they figured something genetic caused all the rampage!!

If you enjoyed Jim Corbertt's adventures in Northern India, then you will also enjoy Kennerth Anderson's adventures in Southern India.

Many moons ago when I was about 13, I was visiting my Grandmother and I slept in my Father's old bedroom.

The Maneaters of Tsavo was in the bookshelf, so I read it -- and loved it! Turns out that my father also read this same copy when he was about my age, and he had the same reaction to it -- even though he was never interested in hunting!

It was kind of neat to later discuss it with him, and realize that the book really spoke to both of us at the same age, but decades apart.

John

the male lions there have no manes cause its thornbrush country and they will just get caught anyway....

what caused the instance was likely a perfect storm of conditions, elephants were shot out of the area some years before and elephants were what kept the thornbrush in check....if yah look at pictures from the time the railway looks almost like a tunnel through the thorns...with torn scrub that thick you dont get many herbivores living in the area...add that to Rinderpest going through and killing most of the buffalo and antelope.....

your left with lions living in an area with few natural prey items and thick thronscrub ideal for ambushing ppl working on the railroads.....what happened there was inevitable.....

I also liked the guns used in this movie, I believe one
was a Remington Lee.

I liked Capsticks rendition, so I bought Patterson's book. I though Capstick told the story better.

seen them myself, in the late 70's....wish i'd of knowing the whole story behind the display...

I read the book when I was a boy (even did a book report on it IIRC) and saw the movie when it came out in the theater. Good stuff.



I think Corbett was certainly a better hunter than Patterson, and a better writer as well. But he still wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. When he hunted with a double rifle, he only carried the two rounds in the chambers, plus one extra in his pocket "for emergencies". The first time he took out his 7x57, he lost a chance at a man eating leopard when he couldn't get the rifle to fire. He later found out that the gun had a two stage trigger pull, which he had never used before. This situation only occured because Corbett took the gun into the field having never fired it whatsoever. He claimed that since it was brand new, it should be all ready to go.

Brian.

Brian...true dat..I remember those passages...

Odd as it may seem, back in the day they didn't have the luxury of as much shooting as we do now, and a LOT of them thought that way..its new...its good to go...

Even taking that into account, Id rather have Corbett along side than almost anyone...if his huge brass balls didn't make too much noise dragging on the ground, that is...

Corbett was very before his time. He was essentially a game biologist who used his knowledge to kill man eaters. He knew more about big cats than just about anyone.

Ever see his video of the albino tiger in the wild? Fantastic stuff.

Brian.

I think I was about 14 at the time but I remember watching (in the UK ) a made for TV film about Corbert. Mainly about his later life filming Tigers. I havent been able find any info on this film, so i guess it no longer exists.
I have fished a few times for Mahseer in Southern India, but would really like to fish in the North, in Corbert country.
If you enjoyed Corbets books, then you should read Kenneth Anderson's books on hunting in the south. I think he wrote about 9 books. Ell worth reading.

I did manage to see that once.....veddy cool

This is the film you are thinking of. I've seen it before, as my local library has a copy of it. Don't know if you can find it on DVD, but I'm sure you can find a VHS of it pretty easy online.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280914/

Brian.

Brian,
thanks for posting that link. I think I will try and get a copy.
1986! thought it was about about 1980 when I saw it.
Cheers,
Paul.

Glad I could be of some help. Hope you find your video.

Best Wishes,
Brian.

i believe this may be it....same director, same length.....not alot of detail on the Amazon site though....

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geog...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1304998265&sr=1-8

That's the one.

Brian.

couldn't find it the UK so just ordered it via Rattler's link From Amazon.
Thanks guys. Been trying to find this for a good while.

Ditto about Anderson...Personally, I like Andersons books because I feel he belongs to this era, where as I find Corbett's writings have an almost "Victorian" style to them, although in actual time frame, the two gentlemen overlapped....Also, thats not to say I dislike Corbett's books..

With regards The Ghost and the Darkness, I'm pretty certain the film does contain the Railway car trap scene...

I'm pretty certain I have read other account of the Lions of Tsavo written by the chief engineer for the rail way project as a whole...Although he doesn't do a hatchet job as such on Patterson, the account still left me with the impression Patterson narrated the story from a very narrow and personal perspective.

Also in this second account, there was another character who turned up, who I think e was something like the Superindent of the Railway Police, but otherwise he sounded very much like the character Remington was based on..

If I can recall where I read it, I will post the information..

Edited to add, I think the other account I read was by R O Preston..The link here mentions him in passing, but the account I originally read gave far more detail and lead me to speculate that the "Ghost and the Darkness" drew heavily on the incidents as described by Preston and used them to flesh out and support Patterson's account.

Hi Pete,
Corbert was born in 1875 so his eduction would account for his Victorian style of wriiting, where Anderson was born in 1910.I like both and have all the books by both. All of which I bought in India.

The railway car trap was in the film and it was very close to how it was described in the book.
I was talking about another rail car which wasn't a trap , but was been used as a bunk house for some visiting hunters. Which is chapter 25 of the book.

I haven't read Prestons account of what happened but thanks for posting the link.
Another book called "Lion in the evening" by Alan Scholerfield is along the same lines as Tsavo but is a fictional account set in 1916. Its not as good as Tsavo but Ok to read.

My mistake..Now that you mention it, I think the railcar/bunkhouse incident is also mentioned in Preston's account and it was the visiting Superintendent of Police who was dragged out and killed. Or it may have been another similar incident; it not unreasonable to think that railway cars might have commonly been used as bunk accomadation given the dangers in the area..

With regards to Anderson, several years ago there was a Brit who posted on AR who knew the guy. In fact, he offered me a trigers head trophy that was one of Andersons, and I regret never taking him up on the kind offer.

He did say that Anderson had used a degree of poetic license writting his books, although the basics were fundamentally correct.

What always struck me as odd about Anderson is that he never mentioned Corbett in any of his books, at least not that I can recall anyway.

When I first read Andersons books, I was suprised by that too.

It was a shame you never took the Tigers head. If it was Andersons it would most certanly been mounted by Van Ingen's of Mysore. The Van Ingen's and Anderson knew each other.
When I first fished on the river Cauvery for Mahseer, they had a large stuffed head of a Mahseer which was one of the largest ever caught hanging on the wall of the Fisheries Superintendants office . It was caught , suffed and mounted by one of the Van Ingen brothers. I chatted to the fisheries superintendent about this and also mentioned about hunting and also Anderson. He said the younger brother Joubert(in his mid 90's) had been fishing the week before and caught a 12 lb Mahseer. He was going to arrange for us to go over to Mysore to meet him , but sadly it never came to anything.
Van Ingen taxidermery comes up for sale now and then but fetches silly money by collectors.

Funny this thread revived at this time. Any of you all know the connection between Patterson and the Netanyahu family in Israel? Was reading a passage from a book on Patterson just the other day and apparently Patterson was the godfather of the father(I think, maybe grandfather)of Benjamin Netanyahu. As Patterson was very involved in Palestine during and after the Great War. Really pushed for a Jewish state there. I found it very interesting.

Kaywoodie