This was a real Adventure film that all us youngsters loved when we were lucky enough to see it at the local cinema. Plenty of action and adventure in Technicolor

The Trailer gives us a taste of what is to come

When you viewed this, you just had to go and see it

After this film. I always think that Burt Lancaster became more and more unpleasant and, as we say, got too big for his boots

He could appear brutal on screen, and he sometimes seemed that way behind the cameras too.

He was the boss as well as the star and British directors often seemed to fall foul of him. Charles Crichton (the ex-Ealing comedy director whose credits include The Lavender Hill Mob and A Fish Called Wanda) was sacked a few weeks into the shooting of ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’

Lancaster was equally savage with another Ealing comedy director, Sandy Mackendrick, firing him from the George Bernard Shaw adaptation The Devil’s Disciple (1959.)

“Sandy was a very clever director and a very nice guy but he took one helluva lot of time,” Lancaster later said. At least, by then, Mackendrick had directed Lancaster in one of his greatest performances, as the columnist JJ Hunsecker in Sweet Smell of Success (1957.) Ironically, that film seemed remarkable precisely because of Mackendrick’s inventive camerawork.

It helped, too, that Mackendrick made known an aspect of Lancaster’s character that had hitherto only been hinted at – his capacity for bullying.

One film Director that he didn’t bully or even try to bully was Byron Haskin who directed him in ‘His Majesty O’Keefe’ – and had directed him a few years before in ‘I Walk Alone’ – he just wouldn’t even try or even dare because Byron Haskin had the measure of Burt Lancaster

ABOVE – Don’t mess with me, Mr Lancaster