The Seaforth Highlanders' Return to Cairo after the Fall of Omdurman and Khartoum (1898)

• 72%
• 1898

In this brief film, Cairo becomes the stage for Lord Kitchener's celebrations after the fall of Khartoum. Possibly filmed by John 'Mad Jack' Benett-Stanford on behalf of the Warwick Trading Company, it is a forerunner of the military films that would shortly flood the screens of Great Britain with the outbreak of the Boer War. Benett-Stanford, an Etonian turned career serviceman, was on active service in the Sudan and doubled as a war correspondent. According to legend, he was shot while attempting to get a picture of the enemy. It seems, though, that even beside the showmen and chancers of the early film industry, 'Mad Jack' had a gift for exaggeration.