Nor the Moon by Night (1958)

• 59%
• 1958
• Drama
• Ken Annakin
• Belinda Lee
• Michael Craig
• Patrick McGoohan

In a game preserve in the southern regions of 1950s Africa, senior game warden Andrew Miller, aided by his younger brother Rusty Miller and a few soldiers, sees to the well-being of wild animals. Andrew protects the game preserve against poachers and tends to the wounded animals with the help of a veterinarian. He also expects his fiancee, Alice Lang, to visit him from England, after a long pen-pals correspondence, with the possible aim of getting married. However, on the day of her arrival by train, a poaching incident forces Andrew to go in the field to search for the culprits. He also needs to redirect a herd of elephants straying away from the protected game preserve into farming lands and hunter-allowed areas. Therefore, Andrew delegates his younger brother Rusty to pick up Alice Lang from the train station. Unexpectedly, Alice and Rusty fall in-love at first sight while Andrew has a few adventures of his own trying to survive animal attacks and murderous poachers. While Rusty introduces Alice to life in Africa and welcomes her at the Miller farmhouse, Andrew is in the field investigating a possible criminal connection between the chief of a local Bantu tribe and local rancher Anton Boryslawski, a settler of Polish origin whose young daughter, Thea, has a secret crush on Andrew. Boryslawski keeps a semi-domesticated pet lioness at home but she is menacing to all unwelcome or uninvited guests. Warden Andrew Miller suspects that Bantu hunters illegally poach wild animals for their meat that is hung-dried in trees and sold to Boryslawski who then sells it as a delicacy to foreign buyers for ten times the price. Andrew attempts to interrogate Boryslawski and the Bantu village chief and gather evidence of this illicit trade. His efforts result in a few attempts on his life. Later, after his Land Rover flips upside down on the road, the savanna catches fire and an injured Andrew takes refuge in a tree surrounded by a pride of hungry lions. When brother Rusty and fiancee Alice are alerted by the other game wardens of Andrew's disappearance, they organize a search-party. The first face-to-face meeting between Alice and Andrew promises to be less romantic than they both expected it to be. Boryslawski's daughter, Thea, also helps with the search efforts in the hope that Andrew will finally notice the woman in her and possibly ditch his fancy English fiancee in her favor. They all have to hurry, however, because the brush fire is fast expanding and Andrew is bleeding from his injuries, up in a tree, surrounded by lions.