Inspired by my “Oh, My Beloved” riff about Donald Trump summoning the spirit of Laurence Olivier’s “Mahdi”, I watched the generally tolerable, flirting-with-mediocre, Ultra Panavision 70 Khartoum last night.

Basil Dearden’s 1966 film ends with Olivier reacting with anguished disapproval when his triumphant followers, exuberant after the fall of Khartoum and the death of Charlton Heston’s General George “Chinese” Gordon, arrive at his tent with Gordon’s head on a tall pole.

Brief footage of Heston’s head was reportedly shot and included in the film, but an extremely negative audience response reportedly led Khartoum producers to axe the footage in favor of a quick fade-to-black.

It struck me this morning that the head-on-a-spike fate of Thomas More’s (i.e., Paul Scofield’s) severed eyes, ears, mouth, nose and throat in A Man For All Seasons was also a thing that year.

At no other time and in no other films was the fate of a lead character’s head a topic of interest, but it happened twice in ‘66.

Fred Zinnemann’s film ends with narration that says More’s head sat atop a spike on London bridge before his daughter retrieved and buried it. It would have been vulgar for Zinnemann to show a replica of Scofield’s head in any context, of course, but…well, nuff said.

Khartoum premiered on 6.6.66; AMFAS opened on 12.12.66.