Albino [a.k.a. The Night of the Askari] (1976)

Starring:

• Christopher Lee
• James Faulkner
• Horst Frank

IMDB.com
This is based on a book by Daniel Carney with the much cooler title of "The Whispering Death." I haven't read it. Used copies of it are at least 50 bucks on-line. Too rich for my blood. The film (which can be found for rent on VHS at Movie Madness in Portland,Oregon) stars Christopher Lee and Trevor Howard and a bunch of actors I've never heard of. The storyline is a weird mash-up of influences.It starts out like a typical portrait of the tensions between the races in Rhodesia during the 1960's. Some social commentary. Then it switches gears and features "terrorists" (read: black Africans) going berserk and having some kind of whitey stomping rampage. Cue the blood and guts. Sybil Danning is forced to take some hose pipe and gets waxed (killed, not Brazilian). A lurid revenge thriller now looms, wanting to go full bore. And then during the extended chase sequence that takes up the latter third of the film it begins to do just that. It was during this time that a strange thought popped into my head, Isn't this Moby Dick in Africa? Think about it: We have the obsessed Police Officer (husband of dead Sybil) standing in for Captain Ahab chasing the Moby Dick character, a "White" black man. The futility of revenge is revealed.