This film's scenario is an old one: Dig in. Take aim. Then fight to the last gasp. But director Basil Deardon's Khartoum executes the scenario on a grand scale. Set mainly in and near the Sudanese city of Khartoum between 1884 and 1885, it features massing armies, booming canons, and a desert landscape alternately beautiful and brutal. Both Charleston Heston as Gordon and Laurence Olivier as Ahmad are in top form as they define the central conflicts: Gordon's ego vs Ahmad's ego, the Christian God vs the Muslim God, and Sudanese rule vs Anglo-Egyptian rule. A memorable scene in the film is a confrontation between Heston and Olivier in the Mahdi's tent. There, they clash verbally as Olivier reveals his plan to take not only Khartoum, but also Cairo, Mecca, Baghdad and Constantinople. Although both actors infuse their characters with unyielding resolve, Olivier is the more overtly fanatical and menacing, but Heston, for his part, refuses to cower, and his always imposing film presence serves him well in presenting Gordon as larger-than-life visionary. Some reviewers, however, criticized the film for both Olivier's use of blackface make-up and for being a bit "talky." If good writing, acting and pacing constitute talkiness, then the film is indeed guilty of that offense.