Death Drums Along the River
Death Drums Along the River (U.S. title: Sanders; also known as Sanders of the River, Inquietante Suceso En Gondra, and Todestrommeln Am Grossen Fluss) is a 1963 British-German international co-production directed by Lawrence Huntingdon ad starring Richard Todd and Marianne Koch.In an unnamed small British colony on the west coast of Africa, somewhat resembling the Gambia, and according to the dialogue next to Senegal, two policemen patrolling a wharf sight a sack of peanuts dropped by stevedores.The intertribal warfare in Wallace's work has been replaced by a standard detective story involving murder and diamond-smuggling.The scene is contemporary Africa, with references to imminent independence of the territory and the French getting out of Senegal; the grand old paddle-steamer "Zaire" is now a mere modern launch; Hamilton appears in a subsidiary part, modified to emerge as something reminiscent of Bones; and poor old Sanders is here nothing more than a police detective.The African locale is not markedly exploited, though the native village looks authentic and the chants sound like the real thing.