SAHARA Movie Review

1943 Zoltan Korda

Early World War II propaganda films tend to suffer from a certain over-enthusiasm. They are so certain of the rightness of their cause that hatred of the enemy overpowers all other aspects. It's an understandable and easily forgivable flaw. Zoltan Korda's entry in the genre manages to avoid it—without any real loss of patriotic fervor—and remains a cracking good adventure tale that's as exciting now as it was on the day it was made.

Though the credits state that the story is based on “an incident in the Soviet film, The Thirteen,” an equally important source is John Ford's The Lost Patrol. Both are about a small group of soldiers that finds itself with neither an officer nor a clear objective in the middle of a sandy wasteland, and so a sergeant is forced to make decisions to overcome a series of obstacles. In this case, it's Sgt. Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart), whose American tank “Lulubelle” has been assigned to the British 8th Army in Libya, 1942. Separated from the rest of his outfit, Sgt. Gunn, Waco Hoyt (Bruce Bennett), and Jimmy Doyle (Dan Duryea) are ordered to retreat south from the advancing Germans. A larger problem is water.

Before they've gone far, they come across more motley stragglers in the desert, including a Sudanese soldier, Sgt. Tambul (Rex Ingram) and his Italian prisoner (J. Carrol Naish), a French soldier (Louis Mercier), and a gaggle of Brits. Filling out the multi-national dance card is a downed German pilot (Kurt Kreuger). Dripping with new passengers, Lulubelle grinds across the dunes as the question of water becomes even more pressing and the Germans close the distance.

Within that solid event-filled narrative structure, the director is able to give his cast enough time for light character development, and that's really all that's called for. When the tank finally arrives at a windswept “oasis,” Korda shifts gears, slowing the pace and building suspense beautifully. The long scene at a well could have come from a Hitchcock film of the same period. It's built on the same simple techniques of closely observed details and individual reactions. That sequence, in turn, sets up the final confrontation with the Nazis, where hundreds of Germans try to take the strategic position that the Allied forces hold.

Though the film is very much an ensemble piece, two cast members stand out. Bogart, coming off Casablanca, which had cemented his status as a major star, is a tough, understated hero. The taciturn Gunn is nothing like Rick Blaine, but Bogie makes him just as effective. In at least two ways, Rex Ingram's work is even more unusual. First, it was rare for any Hollywood film of the time to feature a black character in a strong supporting role. For the character then to be depicted as intelligent, experienced, and heroic is virtually unheard of. Sgt. Tambul is all that, and Ingram makes him the most personable of the group, too. Today, it may be easy to dismiss that side of the film as tokenism, but given the widespread racism in the 1940s, even small steps should not be ignored.

That open-mindedness is just a small part of a film that transcends its origins. Over the years since it was made, Sahara has received Hollywood's ultimate praise in several remakes, none of them approaching the original.

Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Sgt. Joe Gunn), Dan Duryea (Jimmy Doyle), Bruce (Herman Brix) Bennett (Waco Hoyt), Lloyd Bridges (Fred Clarkson), Rex Ingram (Sgt. Tambul), J. Carrol Naish (Giuseppe), Richard Nugent (Capt. Jason Halliday), Pat O'Moore (Ozzie Bates), Kurt Kreuger (Capt. Von Schletow), John Wengraf (Maj. Van Falken), Carl Harbord (Marty Williams), Louis Mercier (Jean Leroux), Guy Kingsford (Peter Stegman), Peter Lawford (Bit Part); Written by: Zoltan Korda, John Howard Lawson, James O'Hanlon; Cinematography by: Rudolph Mate; Music by: Miklos Rozsa. Producer: Columbia Pictures, Harry Joe Brown. Awards: Nominations: Academy Awards ‘43: Best Black and White Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor (Naish). Running Time: 97 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta.