The African Run

Released initially as Tuxedo Warrior; then rereleased, with a new introductory scene, as The Omega Connection; and finally given new scenes near the start and end to give it a more coherent plot before being released as The African Run, this is, needless to say, one of Cliff Twemlow’s more troubled films. It includes some of his earliest project work, though it would not become widely available until the mid-Eighties, when the likes of G.B.H. and Target: Eve Island had put him on the map. The dodgy VHS map, that is. Despite diligent work by Severin Films, this is also in pretty poor condition, but it has its moments and it’s good to see it getting a digital release if only for the sake of the completists.

The story revolves around a character who is also called Cliff, though he’s played by John Wyman, fresh off the set of middling Bond film For Your Eyes Only. This Cliff is a washed-up ex-colonial still hanging around in an unnamed African country although it’s on the brink of independence. He doesn’t believe that he’d be able to settle back into civilian life in England, and the incoming security chief responsible for the area doesn’t seem to mind him hanging around, spending his ill-gotten gains in the bar he owns, where his only real friend is a monkey called Crapshot.

Cliff’s happy-go-lucky life is complicated when he gets caught up in a diamond-smuggling scheme, with an early double cross making it clear, in case we didn’t know from genre history, that it’s not going to go smoothly. It’s coordinated by a familiar Twemlow bad guy, and the Mancunian Man himself not only writes and produces but appears as Chaser, a character he would reprise in the more successful Target: Eve Island.

There are shades of Casablanca in the way that Cliff tries to manage these shenanigans at the same time as having his life complicated by the reappearance of a former lover who is now with somebody else – and in typical Twemlow one-upmanship, he’s also trying to deal with the arrival of another ex, photojournalist Sally, whose search for interesting stories risks getting her in trouble.

Played by Holly Palance, Sally is spiky and irreverant, with a wiry physique – the sort of woman he might grudgingly respect and, therefore, not the sort of woman he’d consider settling down with. Lisa (Carol Royle) is, by contrast, a shampoo advert blonde who seems driven entirely by emotion and keeps falling back into his arms even though he knocks her about. She’s in love with another man but the two seems unable to resist each other, leading to a good deal of angst on both sides. She also has a gambling addiction and her own connection to the diamonds.

All the ingredients are present for a classic thriller, except the budget. Some of the sets are as shaky as the dialogue, but Twemlow and director Andrew Sinclair are determined to make it seem exotic, so throw in shots of African megafauna at every opportunity, even though they have nothing to do with the story. There’s a genuinely beautiful waterfall in there too, and they exploit is as much as they can, with lots of lingering shots of the rainbows it creates crowded in around the romantic parts of the storyline – making it look even more like a commercial. The monkey has limited acting skills but does its best to contribute to this melange.

This is not a Twemlow classic, but in retrospect it says a lot about the culture and politics of its time, and does it an endearingly clueless, threadbare way that will charm some viewers completely.

Reviewed on: 13 Jul 2025