What is the real story behind "The Ghost & The Darkness"?? (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

I was just watching this movie on tv. Just wondering if anyone knows how close this was to the real story?

 

[Steve_Tk]

The bridge in real life really was not that big as it was shown in the movie. It's actually pretty plain looking in real life, so they beefed up that a little bit.

But the lions really ate all those people and Colonel William Patterson was the one that killed them.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Yeah, in the movie the bridge has a sort of River Kwai look to it, but the photo at the Chicago Field Museum website http://www.fieldmuseum.org shows that the real bridge is much less cinematic.

Still a great movie though. Even though it is a true story, it seems to borrow from Jaws, but a good story is a good story. Beautiful cinematography, and Jerry Goldsmith effectively scores up a good theme for the African landscape and underscores the tension of man-eating lions.

Does anyone know if the Remington character played by Michael Douglas and his part of the story true or a Hollywood fabrication?

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

I believe Michael Douglas was a fabrication.

 

[felix_suwarno]

i think the lions i saw at field museum didnt look like the lions in the movie. but i still like the movie...

 

[Steve_Tk]

They are African lions, how else would they look?

 

[JasenP]

The lions had been turned into rugs and the Field Museum folks had to re-create the lions at a smaller scale to make up for the missing portions of hide.

No, I'm not that knowledgaeble on the subject. This info is on a plaque in front of the display.

 

[Andrew W]

I've read the book by Patterson and it's written in a very British, stiff-upper-lip style. He didn't write the book to terrify but more as a factual record. Nonetheless, It must have been damn scary to be perched on a pole in the dark, (real dark, not 21st century kinda dark) waiting for lions.

If you enjoy this kind of stuff, I would reccomend looking for a few books by Peter Capstick. Start with Death in the Long Grass which will bring you up to speed on just how dangerous a place Africa can be. (Without even taking the human population into account...)