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Khartoum (1966 film)

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Khartoum is a 1966 epic war film, set in the 1880s, in which Egyptian forces led by a British general defend Khartoum against an invading Muslim army led by a religious fanatic.

Directed by Basil Dearden. Written by Robert Ardrey.
They say the Nile still runs red from the Battle of Khartoum!  taglines

Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon

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  • If you, as a servant of your god, must use one hundred thousand warriors to destroy me, a solitary servant of my God, then you whisper to me Muhammed Ahmed: who will be remembered from Khartoum, your god or mine?
  • If my life has a single point, it's this: I've learned to be unafraid of death but never to be unafraid of failure.
  • [patting his camel in goodbye] So we ride beneath no more desert stars, then. Ah, all things must end.
  • Every man has a final weapon: his own life. If he's afraid to lose it, he throws the weapon away.
  • And when the Mahdi floats me down the Nile, the government will assume a pained expression and will say to her majesty and the churchmen and the anti-slavery people 'well, we sent Gordon; we did the best we could'.

Muhammad Ahmed

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  • I should prefer, Gordon Pasha, that you leave Khartoum now. You are not my enemy. Why should your blood sweeten the Nile?
  • It is sometimes wise, Gordon Pasha, to provide the man with a few sunny hours of fraudulent hope so that when night comes he will have a more perfect inward vision of the truth of his hopelessness.
  • [removes a head from a large pot] Is it the Englishman whose name was Frank Power? [removes another head from a second pot] Is it the Frenchman whose name was Herbin? [places a severed arm and hand in Gordon's hands] Is it not your own ring? [Gordon stares horrified]
  • [in horror at seeing Gordon's decapitated head on the end of a pole] Take it away! Where is Abdullah? I forbade it, I forbade it!

William Ewart Gladstone

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  • I don't trust any man who consults God before he consults me.
  • God go with you. And I don't envy God.

Narrator

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  • ...but there is this: A world with no room for the Gordons, is a world that will return to the sands.

Dialogue

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Col. J.D.H. Stewart: Why did you let them talk you into this mission?
Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon: As is well known, I, ah..regard myself as a religious man, yet I belong to no church. I'm an able soldier, yet I abhor armies. I can even add that I've been introduced to hundreds of women, but never married. in other words, no one's ever talked me into anything.
Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon: Colonel, what are the chances of my sacking you as my aide?
Col. J.D.H. Stewart: If any exist, General, please be assured that I'd be the first to point them out to you.
Zobeir Pasha: [disbelieving] The General will defend me. The great Christian hero will defend Zobeir the slaver. [angry] Before I receive my country from your bloody hands, I shall see it die. You killed my son!
Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon: I executed him.
Zobeir Pasha: Do you have sons, Gordon Pasha? Do you have sons? No! You killed mine!
Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon: God forgive me, Zobeir, but let the dead bury their dead.
Zobeir Pasha: You killed my flesh, my blood, my Suleiman! Get thee from my house and may ye die in the desert untended! May vultures consume thy flesh, sands thy blood!
Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon: The Mahdi plans to lay siege to Khartoum. Take it by force. To slaughter all the Egyptians - and those Sudanese who haven't accepted him.
Col. J.D.H. Stewart: [incredulous] But... there are 35,000 people in Khartoum.
Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon: Those are his purposes. And I believe him. The man is sincere. He believes utterly in the Divine necessity for what he's doing. How could I have been such a stumbling fool! I'm a man who will question anything, except my own religious convictions. The Mahdi's no different. There's vanity for you! I seem to have suffered from the illusion that I have a monopoly on God.

Taglines

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  • They say the Nile still runs red from the Battle of Khartoum!
  • Khartoum -- where the Nile divides, the great Cinerama adventure begins!

Cast

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(1) Tewfik Pasha: Khedive of Egypt;
(2) Major Kitchener: a British Army officer.
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