the vanguard of Lord Chelmsford's relief column. The Zulus did not sing a song saluting fellow warriors, and departed at the approach of the British relief column. This inaccuracy has been praised for showing the Zulus in a positive light and for treating them and the British as equals, but it has also been criticised as undermining any anti-imperial message of the film. Reception On its initial release in 1964, it was one of the biggest box-office hits of all time in the British market. For the next 12 years it remained in constant cinema circulation before making its first appearance on television. It then went on to become a television perennial, and remains beloved by the British public. Zulu received highly positive reviews from critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "if you're not too squeamish at the sight of slaughter and blood and can keep your mind fixed on the notion that there was something heroic and strong about British colonial expansion in the 19th century, you may find a great deal of excitement in this robustly Kiplingesque film. For certainly the fellows who made it, Cy Endfield and Stanley Baker, have done about as nifty a job of realizing on the formula as one could do." Variety praised the "intelligent screenplay" and "high allround standard of acting," concluding, "High grade technical qualities round off a classy production." Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote that the film was "in the much-missed tradition of 'Beau Geste' and 'Four Feathers.' It has a restrained, leisurely tension, the heroics are splendidly stiff-upper-lip and such granite worthies as Stanley Baker and Jack Hawkins head the cast." Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker wrote that the film had "not only refurbished all the clichés of the genre but given them the sheen of high style ... It has already been pointed out that 'Zulu' is in poor taste. But so are such invaluable relics as G. A. Henty and Rider Haggard and Kipling." The Monthly Film Bulletin called Zulu "a typically fashionable war film, paying dutiful lip service to the futility of the slaughter while milking it for thrills. And the battle, which occupies the whole second half of the film, is unquestionably thrilling ... But whenever there is a pause in the action the script plunges relentlessly into bathos, with feuding officers, comic other ranks, and all