Khartoum (film) the film for its historical inaccuracies(for example the mahdi did not want to kill everyone in the capital and called for killing only soliders). Khartoum (film) Khartoum is a 1966 film written by Robert Ardrey and directed by Basil Dearden. It stars Charlton Heston as British Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon and Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi (Muhammad Ahmed), with a supporting cast that includes Richard Johnson and Ralph Richardson. The film is based on historical accounts of Gordon's defence of the Sudanese city of Khartoum from the forces of the Mahdist army, during the Siege of Khartoum. The opening and
Khartoum main Nile ("see map, upper right") as it zigzags through northern Sudan into Egypt at Lake Nasser. Khartoum is relatively flat, at elevation , as the Nile flows northeast past Omdurman to Shendi, at elevation about away. Under Köppen's climate classification system, Khartoum features a hot arid climate, with only the summer months seeing noticeable precipitation. The city averages a little over of precipitation per year. Based on annual mean temperatures, the city is one of the hottest major cities in the world. Temperatures routinely exceed in mid-summer. Its average annual high temperature is , with six months of the