In view of the decent cast (Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning – let us not forget they would be re-united on the notorious HOWLING II
YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF {1985}! – Trevor Howard and Horst Frank), its origins as a Daniel ("The Wild Geese") Carney novel and the fact that it is not half bad, I was surprised by how sheerly obscure this South Africa-set German adventure is; in fact, the film is known by a variety of titles: WHISPERING DEATH (which is the one sported by the print I watched), THE NIGHT OF THE ASKARI and DEATH IN THE SUN! Actually, I had already scored a print entitled ALBINO but that ran for 83 minutes against the full-length 97 of the one I eventually viewed (or rather 93' in PAL mode); curiously enough, in Italy the film was released as CON LA BAVA ALLA BOCCA (With Foam At The Mouth) which was also the name of a documentary on Mario Bava's unrelated and unreleased cult classic RABID DOGS (1974)!
The exotic background spices up a basic revenge plot with a twist: a police officer turns vigilante after his fiancée is raped and killed by the titular head of a band of marauding savages but is in turn hunted down by the Law. In a way, it sounds like DEATH WISH-meets-FIRST BLOOD-by way of APOCALYPSE NOW (albeit preceding the latter two) and if the end result is nowhere near as memorable as any of these Hollywood prototypes, the film has enough elements of its own to stick in the mind after it finishes unreeling. The late Mr. Lee is somewhat wasted as the local Chief of Police who, perhaps thankfully, sees his command overtaken by an outsider once the order is out to apprehend his errant young colleague; a heavily sun-tanned Trevor Howard, as the embittered father of the murdered girl (Sybil Danning) easily steals the acting honours with a moving performance; Danning's demise at the hands of the unconvincingly pasty-faced Frank is a powerful scene indeed as he first rapes her as she is being held in mid-air by his henchmen, then French-kisses her as she is passed out, and finally proceeds to render the coup-de-grace by scalping her with a knife; unsurprisingly, this fatal assault was reportedly trimmed for British public consumption. This is further complimented by a couple of grisly shots of mutilated faces, the handiwork of Frank's terrorist troop although the come-uppance of the albino himself, then, is a far less graphic affair (if no less elaborate, in the vein of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, than Danning's fate).
Before signing off, I should mention another commendable contribution made to the film, i.e. Erik Ferstl's music score, which eerily anticipates Riz Ortolani's classic main theme for Ruggero Deodato's reprehensible Amazonian saga CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980). Interestingly, director Goslar's next feature would be SLAVERS (1978) which, not only reunited him with Howard and the forbidding setting but managed to rope in an even better cast (Britt Ekland, Ron Ely, Ray Milland and Cameron Mitchell). Betraying its origins, the soundtrack of ALBINO reverts to German for its very last line, delivered by a departing Howard at the hero's burial.
The exotic background spices up a basic revenge plot with a twist: a police officer turns vigilante after his fiancée is raped and killed by the titular head of a band of marauding savages but is in turn hunted down by the Law. In a way, it sounds like DEATH WISH-meets-FIRST BLOOD-by way of APOCALYPSE NOW (albeit preceding the latter two) and if the end result is nowhere near as memorable as any of these Hollywood prototypes, the film has enough elements of its own to stick in the mind after it finishes unreeling. The late Mr. Lee is somewhat wasted as the local Chief of Police who, perhaps thankfully, sees his command overtaken by an outsider once the order is out to apprehend his errant young colleague; a heavily sun-tanned Trevor Howard, as the embittered father of the murdered girl (Sybil Danning) easily steals the acting honours with a moving performance; Danning's demise at the hands of the unconvincingly pasty-faced Frank is a powerful scene indeed as he first rapes her as she is being held in mid-air by his henchmen, then French-kisses her as she is passed out, and finally proceeds to render the coup-de-grace by scalping her with a knife; unsurprisingly, this fatal assault was reportedly trimmed for British public consumption. This is further complimented by a couple of grisly shots of mutilated faces, the handiwork of Frank's terrorist troop although the come-uppance of the albino himself, then, is a far less graphic affair (if no less elaborate, in the vein of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, than Danning's fate).
Before signing off, I should mention another commendable contribution made to the film, i.e. Erik Ferstl's music score, which eerily anticipates Riz Ortolani's classic main theme for Ruggero Deodato's reprehensible Amazonian saga CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980). Interestingly, director Goslar's next feature would be SLAVERS (1978) which, not only reunited him with Howard and the forbidding setting but managed to rope in an even better cast (Britt Ekland, Ron Ely, Ray Milland and Cameron Mitchell). Betraying its origins, the soundtrack of ALBINO reverts to German for its very last line, delivered by a departing Howard at the hero's burial.