Cinema cycles usually begin when some foresighted or lucky producer scores a bull's-eye with a shot in the dark. They usually last until there is no room left on the target. Last week there was a volley of shots-in-the-dark when three major moviemakers simultaneously fired away at the same place, released big-budget pictures chronicling the doings of the white man in Africa. Two bull's-eyes and one clean miss, last week's African broadside practically amounted to a cinema cycle in itself.
Bull's-eye No. 1 was Stanley and Livingstone (Twentieth Century-Fox), a $2,200,000 version of...