Bloody Boers

The Fiercest Heart (20th Century-Fox) was evidently made in the hope that the common Hollywood oat, transplanted to a South African setting, would produce a fine cash crop, especially if mixed with plenty of corn. But the crop is a washout.

Leached out of a novel custom-written for the studio by Stuart Cloete, the story begins in 1837, when small parties of hardy Boers were setting out on the great trek from Cape Colony to the Transvaal, a thousand miles to the north. The hero (Stuart Whitman), an N.C.O. in the British cavalry and an s.o.b. in everybody's book, deserts with two buddies (Ken Scott, Rafer Johnson) and hitches a ride to the interior with a wagon train of Dutch Voortrekkers.

After a day or two on the lone Karroo, the freeloading louse begins to think he wouldn't really like a home where the elephants roam. When a tribe of blacks turn up and start flipping spears at the wagon circle, he decides to cut out for the coast. But the baas (Raymond Massey) persuades him to stay for the big battle, which is something less than a Zululu, and he enters the Promised Land neck and neck with the baas's daughter (Juliet Prowse).

Actor Whitman plays Vivaldi on a penny whistle and tries to look like Pan, but unhappily he looks more like Peter Pan. Juliet Prowse looks like Leslie Caron with muscles and, perhaps because she is a native of South Africa, also looks ashamed of the mess she's in. Massey is gassy. The only object of real interest on the screen is Rafer Johnson, the Olympic decathlon champion, here appearing in his big Hollywood role. Most of the time

Actor Johnson just stands in the corner of the screen, as far as possible from the hero--when they stand together. Whitman looks sort of puny. When at last somebody speaks to him. Johnson looks startled, makes a reply that does not appear in the script: ''Who, me?"

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