Khartoum

“Where the Nile divides, the great Cinerama adventure begins!”

General Charles "Chinese" Gordon (Charlton Heston) wants to be sent back to the Sudan, and the Prime Minister, William Gladstone (Ralph Richardson), sends him with orders to evacuate the Egyptians and nothing more. Gordon stays in Khartoum instead, with the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier) and his army gathering outside the city. Basil Dearden directs the 1884 siege as a war of two stubborn men, and the film is tightest in the rooms where they argue.