King Solomon's Mines

King Solomon's Mines is a 1937 film, the first film adaptation of the 1885 novel by the same name by Henry Rider Haggard. It starred Paul Robeson, Cedric Hardwicke, Anna Lee, John Loder and Roland Young. The film was produced by the Gaumont British Picture Corporation and directed by Robert Stevenson. The 1937 film follows the original novel faithfully, except for the addition of a white female lead and some musical interludes deliberately added to give Paul Robeson a chance to sing. In contrast to later adaptations, it follows the book in playing Allan Quatermain as a professorial type... uninterested in romance. In 1882, Irish dream chaser Patrick "Patsy" O'Brien and his daughter Kathy have failed to strike it rich in the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa. They persuade a reluctant Allan Quatermain to give them a lift to the coast in his wagon. Along the way, they encounter another wagon carrying two men in bad shape. Umbopa recovers, but Silvestra dies after boasting to Quatermain that he has found the way to the fabled mines of Solomon.
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