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The Wilby Conspiracy
The Wilby Conspiracy
	Original film poster
Directed by	Ralph Nelson
Written by	Rodney Amateau; Harold Nebenzal
Based on	The Wilby Conspiracy; 1972 novel; by Peter Driscoll
Produced by	Martin Baum; Paul M. Heller; Helmut Dantine
Starring	Sidney Poitier; Michael Caine; Nicol Williamson; Prunella Gee
Cinematography	John Coquillon
Edited by	Ernest Walter
Music by	Stanley Myers
Color process	Color by DeLuxe
Production; companies	Baum/Dantine Productions; Optimus Productions Ltd.
Distributed by	United Artists
Release dates	August 1975 (UK); July 30, 1975 (LAC); August 15, 1975 (Chicago); September 3, 1975 (NYC);
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Wilby Conspiracy is a 1975 British adventure thriller film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Michael Caine, Sidney Poitier, and Nicol Williamson.^[1] Filmed in Kenya, it was written by Rodney Amateau, based on the 1972 novel by Peter Driscoll. It had a limited release in the US.

Plot

In apartheid-era South Africa, Shack Twala, a black revolutionary who had served time on Robben Island, is freed by Rina van Niekerk , his Afrikaner defence attorney, because he would be a victim of retroactive legislation. Rina, estranged from her husband Blane, is having a relationship with a British mining engineer, Jim Keogh, who has attended Shack's trial. Surprised by the verdict, Rina, Jim and Shack go off to celebrate at her house. They are stopped by policemen who are conducting identity document checks and arresting everyone who does not have their papers on them. As Shack has only just been released from prison he will not receive his papers until the next day. The policeman and Shack antagonise each other leading to Shack being handcuffed and arrested. When Rina attempts to pull the policeman off Shack, the policeman hits her, knocking her to the ground. Jim assaults and knocks out the policeman making all three fugitives.

At a police station, a police brigadier is chastised by the racist Major Horn of the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) for not only arresting Shack but continuing with their random identity checks and arrests that have infuriated world opinion.

The three fugitives are followed and monitored by BOSS to lead them to discover their escape route to Botswana and its facilitators, Indian dentists Anil Mukarjee and Persis Ray; a stash of stolen uncut diamonds being used to fund the Black Congress Party and its leader, a man named Wilby Xaba.

Shack learns that the diamonds are hidden at the bottom of a sinkhole. With Shack and Mukarjee's help, Jim retrieves the diamonds from the 230-foot deep hole, but Ray, wanting to use the diamonds to emigrate from South Africa, kills Mukarjee and attempts to rob them of the diamonds. Shack fights Ray to protect the diamonds, and in the commotion, he throws her into the sinkhole where she plummets to her death. Diamonds in hand, they have arranged for Blane, a private pilot, to fly them out of the country, which he does after Rina blackmails him by threatening to make public his drug usage and relationships with black women, illegal in South Africa.

The three arrive at the South Africa–Botswana border, where the police, who were there waiting for them, give chase in jeeps. After evading them, they board Blane's aeroplane and are chased by South African Air Force aeroplanes over the border into Botswana. They manage to escape the pursuing aeroplanes and land on a makeshift runway and disembark, with Blane departing in his aeroplane. They make their way to one of the Black Congress Party's camps where they meet many villagers, Wilby Xaba, and armed guards. Suddenly, BOSS agents arrive in a commandeered lorry, kill the guards, and take Wilby prisoner, revealing that he was their real target all along and that the diamonds retrieved from the sinkhole were forgeries. As the BOSS agents attempt to escape with Wilby via helicopter, Shack and the villagers bring down and destroy the helicopter, kill the pilot and all the BOSS agents with the exception of Major Horn, and free Wilby. Horn is disarmed of his pistol and taken prisoner, where he gloats that he will be rescued by the South African Government and that he will continue to pursue them. Jim responds by killing Horn, shooting him with his own pistol.

Cast

Sidney Poitier as Shack Twala
Michael Caine as Jim Keogh
Nicol Williamson as Major Horn, South African Bureau of State Security
Prunella Gee as Rina van Niekerk
Saeed Jaffrey as Dr. Anil Mukarjee, Indian dentist
Persis Khambatta as Dr. Persis Ray,dentist
Rijk de Gooyer as Van Heerden, Bureau of State Security
Rutger Hauer as Blane van Niekerk
Patrick Allen as The Brigadier
Joe De Graft as Wilby Xaba
Archie Duncan as Gordon
Helmut Dantine as prosecuting counsel

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Ralph Nelson seems to have become a main contender for the mantle of liberal polemicist, still held in the somewhat atrophied grasp of Stanley Kramer. To date, he has added ittle to the genre but an evident relish for exploitative chunks of violence, and if The Wilby Conspiracy is less disreputable than Soldier Blue in this respect, it has similar failings in many others: a careless way of chopping between the scenes of political message-mongering and the crudely engineered boosts of the action; a rough, schematic kind of dialogue whenever characters declare themselves on the issues, a flip, bantering, comedy-thriller style of delivery elsewhere ...The Wilby Conspiracy is so negligible as a political drama mainly because as a thriller it is reduced to the level of a Biggles adventure."^[2]