Sahara

Sahara  an effectively gritty (yes, it's a corny pun as there's an awful lot of sand involved) war-time flick has Humphrey Bogart as Joe Gunn, a Tank Corps sergeant,leading a motley crew out of the Hun-infested Sahara Desert to safety.

The film was based on a 1937 Russian film, Trinadtsat/The Thirteen (unseen) and has been re-made many times since including as a Western, Last of the Comanches (1953), starring Broderick Crawford and, for no apparently good reason, a 1995 US-Australian made-for-cable co-production also called, Sahara, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith and starring that guarantor of hackdom, James Belushi, in the lead.

It is heavily propagandistic with America firmly centre-stage, bringing enlightenment to British, French and Italians and vanquishing the nasty Nazis. Nevertheless the film stands up because much trouble has been taken to make it realistica an aim bolstered by Bogart’s strong presence and a decent script by Korda along with James O'Hanlon and John Howard Lawson (who was one of the Hollywood Ten).

 

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