movie about a guy who crashes his plane and lives with baboons...

[316zombie]

hubs is goingcrazy trying to remember the name of this movie.he saw it when he was young( he's almost 65) and it creeped him out big time.
   he says it's about this guy who crashes his plane somewhere in africa(?)  and starts living with baboons. and eventually kind of.. becomes a baboon,in the sense of acting the way they do.
  at the end, he hides instead of being rescued,then has a death fight with the head baboon...
any ideas?

[Trevor]

That's Sands of The Kalahari.

[316zombie]

i'll have him take a look trevor, thank you! it's on DVD netflix, found it and bumped it to #1, we'll get it next week. i'll let you know if you're right! :)

[Svengoolie 3]

Yeah I saw that too,  wasn't he like mining diamonds or something which is why he stayed?

[316zombie]

he says that's the name,trev,thanks again!
sven,we should get i next week, i'll let you know about the diamonds.

[Trevor]

he says that's the name,trev,thanks again!
sven,we should get i next week, i'll let you know about the diamonds.

I'm 99.99% sure that it is the film: it was filmed in what was then South West Africa - location facilitators were South African - by the same team that made Zulu: Sir Stanley Baker, Joseph E Levine and Cy Endfield and does involve a plane crash and one of the survivors - Stuart Whitman - going bonkers and almost becoming a baboon.  



The mining part: Sir Stanley Baker plays a mining engineer: probably diamonds, as Sven said.

[316zombie]

i'll let you know tomorrow, we got it in today's mail.

[316zombie]

he says there was one of the guys who was also walking across the desert wandered into a restricted area around a diamond mine, but the diamonds didn't have much bearing on the plot itself.
   he also says it was just as weird and creepy as he remembered, and that i won't like it, it's too "dark" for me. after 35 years, i figure he's a pretty good judge on that sort of thing,so i'll pass, lol!
  we have a deal to tell each other" don't watch this with me" and be honest, since i almost killed him after he sprang " a clockwork orange" on me, and my revenge was" my fair lady",lol!

[Trevor]

Glad I was able to assist 

There is another film which is very similar to  Sands of The Kalahari: this one, made by my friend and mentor David Millin ASC which involves a pilot who crash lands in the desert and faces many horrors. This is also inadvertently South Africa's first zombie film as one - holding a machine gun  - pops up at the end.

[316zombie]

zombie?? I'M IN! 

[Trevor]

zombie?? I'M IN! 

This zombie is the Sitting Dead, rather than the walking dead: it does kill the bad guy with a machine gun blast though. 

[316zombie]

well poot. it's not on netflix, dangit!

[Alex]

Tried checking youtube for you, but couldn't find it there either.

[Trevor]

It's also known as African Gold - the submitted reader reviews section has my review of Ride The High Wind - and it was available on DVD until about two years ago. Really creepy -  and funny in places - and made by a mentor of mine.  

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,143057.0.html

[316zombie]

thank you alex and trev, i will send both titles to james, that man can find almost anything.