The Wilby Conspiracy (1975)
""The Wilby Conspiracy" is a sort of light hearted "Defiant Ones," played for a good many laughs as well as for suspense and of course social content in the Union of South Africa. It's about a black political activist (Sidney Poitier) and an apolitical white English businessman (Michael Caine) who become locked together by their need to escape from the Cape Town police.
The film, which opened yesterday at neighborhood theaters, was directed by Ralph Nelson ("Lilies of the Field") and written by Rod Amateau and Harold Nebenzal. For a while—at the beginning when the film is establishing the reasons for the flight and pursuit that make up most of the film—it seems as if "The Wilby Conspiracy" is going to take itself seriously and solemnly as one of the first major American movies to come out firmly against apartheid.
It does take itself as seriously as the plot demands but never too solemnly, since 'The Wilby Conspiracy" is, at heart, a good old chase melodrama, decked out in modern dress and in liberated racial attitudes. The best thing about the movie, flimed mostly in Kenya, is its performances, funny and hip and self-assured in the manner of television personalities working in front of loving audiences."
- Vincent Canby for The New York Times
Status: Available for purchase.