In his memoirs, Filming Emerging Africa, director Geoffrey Mangin noted the popularity of the exotic African travelogue during the 1950s. It was, he suggested, a ‘good way to attract tourists – especially the more moneyed traveller’. Mangin had much experience in this field – dating back to 1946 when he produced Southern Rhodesia: Land of Sunshine in Kodachrome – and harboured ‘dreams of producing outstanding scenic “epics” which would encourage thousands to visit the relevant areas’ (Mangin, 1998, 40). In 1957 he made Border Highlands, a ten-minute film intended to encourage visitors to the Eastern Districts, and after the success of this film, producer Alan Izod asked Mangin to make ‘something more adventurous’. The subsequent production, a 35mm Eastmancolor film intended for worldwide distribution, was Fairest Africa (Mangin, 1998, 42).

Mangin described himself as a ‘kind of travel film explorer’, seeking to locate ‘photogenic scenery in remote parts of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia’. Peter Young, the Nyasaland Films Officer, suggested some areas to visit and Mangin proceeded, often with his mother, on his expedition. He explained that in each location he tried to arrange ‘adequate “people action” to imply that the places were accessible to visitors’, persuading ‘the few odd white locals’ to appear as tourists (Mangin, 1998, 42).

The completed film was edited by Denis Coppard, who also added background music, while Vernon Brelsford, ‘an acknowledged expert on the territories’, wrote the commentary for Mervyn Hamilton of the broadcasting service. Mangin’s next film – Pleasure Highway (aka Wish You Were Here) – would adopt a similar form, presenting a journey around the tourist attractions of Southern Rhodesia, although on this occasion the attractions were more explicitly seen through the eyes of a holidaying family (Mangin, 1998, 44). 

Louis Nell, a fellow cameraman at the Central African Film Unit (CAFU) noted that Mangin ‘pioneered the Unit’s 35mm colour travel promotion documentaries’ and stated that Wish You Were Here and Fairest Africa were the ‘first Southern Rhodesian films to obtain cinema release in South Africa and overseas’ (Nell, 1998, 180). Mangin explained that these films, which were mainly distributed by Rank and Columbia Pictures, appeared before the main feature in over 250 cinemas throughout the African subcontinent (Mangin, 1998, 44). The government report for the Federation explained that rights to the film had been sold for commercial distribution, but it was also screened non theatrically, for example at a meeting of the Nyasaland Society (Nyasaland Journal, 1960, 10). In 1958 Fairest Africa won the award for ‘World’s Best Cinema Travel Film of the Year’ at a Brussels festival and was subsequently available to hire in England from the Rhodesia House film lending library (Advisory Commission, 1960, 219). Kinematograph Weekly reviewed this ‘attractive and interesting two-reeler’ in November 1959, concluding that ‘this short with its informative commentary is comprehensive in design and excellent in execution’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 26 November 1959, 18). As late as October 1964, the film played at the Commonwealth Institute Cinema in Kensington, while Mangin received a letter noting that Pleasure Highway – which also played theatrically across America – was playing in local cinemas in Canada (The Times, 19 October 1964, 13). Mangin concluded that these films ‘did much to encourage visitors to Central Africa and placed the territories firmly on the world tourist map’ (Mangin, 1998, 45).

The image of Africa projected on screen did not feature many local Africans, and the explanation for this offered by Mangin indicates some of the racial prejudices and perceptions surrounding ethnographic representations of Africa during this period. Mangin stated that ‘as we could not offer primitive bare-bosomed dancers or colourful ongoing tribal ceremonies’ – in part because the women were, he suggested, ‘unphotogenic’ and wearing tatty dresses provided by missionaries – he had to concentrate instead on the ‘scenery’. Mangin wished to represent the African people in traditional ethnographic terms, but noted additional difficulties in filming locals. The locals were, he claimed, ‘friendly but could not understand English and had little idea what I was doing’, while the women ‘either ran away or grouped together emitting loud shrieks’ (Mangin, 1998, 42, 43). Mangin was, as James Burns noted, a supporter of the Rhodesian Front, and offered in 1962 ‘to assist the regime by secretly providing European and U.S. television networks with footage favourable to the government’, yet his political views were symptomatic of much of white Rhodesian society and his racial assumptions shared by many CAFU filmmakers (Burns, 2002, 73, 74).