Pte. Alfred Henry HOOK V.C. - poor treatment in "Zulu" film (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, December 28, 2014, 00:25 (3459 days ago) @ slowhands

As posted earlier today I watched the 1964 film "Zulu" on tv, not for the first time.
It appears that Alfred HOOK V.C. was rather poorly treated in this film. I haven't read the aforementioned book, but his Wiki entry states

"In the film Zulu, Hook is depicted as an insubordinate malingerer placed under arrest in the hospital, only to come good during the battle. However, Saul David writes in his book, Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879, that he was there as the hospital cook, subsequently as part of a small guard detail assigned to protect the patients. Saul David continues that far from the miscreant portrayed, Hook was actually a teetotaler and model soldier."

Further to this, he had been awarded Good Conduct pay shortly before the battle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hook_(VC)

That website also states
"Most of the characters in the film were based on actual participants of the battle, but their behaviour is mostly fictional – something that has provoked disapproval: in an interview on the DVD, the descendants of Private Hook objected to his portrayal as a thief and malingerer (although his character acts bravely near the end of the film during some desperate fighting). Indeed, Hook's elderly daughters walked out of the film's 1964 London premiere."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_(1964_film)

The above-mentioned author Saul David was also involved in this BBC documentary from 2003. Clearly the actual events of that day in 1879, and their portrayal in the subsequent film version, describe a very sad tale however you read it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1444554/Wrong-men-given-VCs-at-Rorkes-Drift.html

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I must say that reading these accounts have saddened me and distinctly tarnished what had been a high opinion of this "classic British" feature film.
Next summer my son finishes his A levels and hopes to attend a specialist film-making college in West London, I will remind him to try his best to always portray real people accurately and respectfully.