The Ghost And The Darkness

"Tsalvo is the worst place on Earth" - Samuel

I LOVE the movies. If I had to sum up my life philosophy or my 'religion' it would be 'escapism'. Born with a feverish imagination, I have always been able to put myself into the places I see or read about. I can feel myself as the characters in the situations they encounter. If the story is good, I am totally with what the author was trying to convey in his telling. If the story is bad I am rewriting it in my head as I am watching or reading and second guessing the choices characters are making. A great writer or a great tale is therefor very special to me. I have no sympathy for lazy storytelling. (looking right at YOU James Cameron)

My father was a great storyteller. When I was a kid he told me the story of Colonel John Henry Patterson and the Tsalvo lions. It is rare to find man eating animals and ever rarer to find them among the great cats, especially lions. Males lions do not hunt for themselves unless they absolutely have to. The females do all the work. It's the reason the male lion is not really the king - sure he wears the crown, but if he pisses off his harem of bitches he is out in the cold with an empty belly. Males are chosen for their look and fierceness because the females need that 'symbol' to keep predators and rivals at bay but make no mistake, the ladies call the shots in the pride.


So to find two males hunting together, with a taste for human blood, means that they are some pretty messed up members of lion society. Damaged goods if you will. They are without pity or remorse. They have nothing to lose and no fear of humans, if I can anthropomorphize them for a second. By the time their story came to an end, these two lions had killed 140 (!) men. The locals called these rouge beasts 'The Ghost' and 'The Darkness'. When finally put down the lions were maneless (another unusual feature but not for lions of this area) and both were exceptionally large. Each lion was over nine feet long from nose to tip of tail and required eight men to carry back to the camp. You can actually see them today at the Field Museum in Chicago. They say when you look into their eyes you feel fear.


In 1898, Colonel John Henry Patterson was commissioned by the British East Africa Company to oversee the construction of a railway bridge over the Tsalvo river in present-day Kenya and arrived at the site in March of that year. Almost coinciding with his arrival the attacks on workers began at the build site. Believing the lions to be evil spirits and blaming Patterson for their arrival, work was shut down as it became increasingly difficult to keep workers despite efforts like nightly curfews, protected walled camps (called Bomas) and nightly bonfires. Patterson was forced to confront these two predators if he was to be successful in his mission to complete the bridge.

Many problems not related to the man-eating lions were also evident in the railway camp. The groups were divided by religion, class and ethnicity. Despite all this, the lions were eventually killed and the bridge was completed over the Tsalvo river.


The movie starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas takes some liberties with the story (mainly the lions have full mains to make them more fierce looking I assume) but it's a pretty accurate retelling of the tale. The setting of the movie is great with fantastic foreign actors, most notably John Kani as Samuel, Patterson's right hand native guide (Kilmer). Kani was also in 'The Wild Geese' and is one of my favorite African actors. He is a strong presence in this film.

I enjoyed this adventure despite the over-the-top performance by Douglas. It has a great setting and continues the tradition of 'great white hunter' movies, popular since the early days of film. The filmmakers don't shy away from the racism of the times either. Kilmer is seen as the only hope for survival from the superstitious workers specifically BECAUSE he is white. They have a belief that the white man can do anything having seen his inventions like the rifle and the steam engine.