Sahara

Shot in the American desert instead of the real Sahara due to the war, this movie is one of the best war films ever made. The desert is so bleak and barren, and the sun so bright, you can almost feel the heat in your living room. Sahara shows us just how brutal the conditions were in North Africa during the war, and how nature brought suffering to both sides. The Allied soldiers are a mix of a lot of different nationalities (American, British, French, South African, Irish, Sudanese) and we see how these men from diverse backgrounds come together to survive against the elements and the Germans. The Germans themselves have the usual stereotyping of nastiness that is found in most films of the 1940s, but even they are shown to be individuals and not a faceless enemy. Get a cool drink and watch Sahara - it's a great movie.

"Sahara" is a first-rate War film, well directed by Zoltan Korda, which qualitatively balanced its superb action sequences with penetrating character studies…

Bogart is seen as a tank commander who, when separated from his unit in the Libyan Desert, picks up a group of allied (and eventually several enemy) stragglers and heads out in search of badly needed water… Once they arrive at a nearly dry oasis, and after he learns that a motorized battalion of Germans is also after the water, Bogart decides to make a valiant stand…

Bogart's characterization is excellent as he gave what many considered to be the most realistic portrait of the truly "American" fighting man yet pictured on the screen…

Assisting in the overall success of "Sahara" was a masterful musical score by Miklos Rozsa, who did similar duty the same year in another "tank" picture, Billy Wilder's "Five Graves to Cairo."

This Zoltan Korda-John Howard Lawson World War II curio is at times a superb war film, with fine pace, excellent location photography and some excellent, unflashy acting. It is a story in the tradition of The Lost Patrol, as experienced U.S. Sgt. Humphrey Bogart, in a tank, helps a motley crew of soldiers, mostly British, in search of either their unit, safety or water, whichever comes first. They wind up at a desert fort and are eventually attacked by a German regiment that is also desperate and thirsty, and some exciting action scenes of fighting and exhausted men are the result.

Bogart is his usual charismatic self in the lead, and the supporting cast is nearly as good, especially Bruce Bennett and J. Carrol Naish; the former is quiet and dignified, as was his custom, the latter typically flamboyant, but this time his florid acting is appropriate. Overall I like this movie a lot. Like all the best war films, it focuses on seemingly small things, such as well that has gone dry (or has it?), the glaring sun, the little stories of home life,--for once not corny. There is a black African solider who is treated as an equal, and well-acted by Rex Ingram. Now and again, though, the movie turns preachy, as a certain internationalist tendentiousness creeps in, which, even if one finds its agreeable, detracts somewhat from the exciting story and makes it at times feel like a tract on the need for cooperation among nations.

The Good Guys are desperate for water. The Bad Guys are desperate for water. Everyone is obsessed with the impossibility of getting water. Water. Water. Water.

There just isn't any. It's central to the plot. Everyone is terrified of dying for lack of it. They're ready to kill for it. They're ready to die for it. They travel miles and miles out of their way to get to wells.

And yet... when they start seriously shooting at each other, both sides are laying down a practically non-stop withering fire with.... WATER-COOLED machine guns!!!!!!

I guess they must have had a whole bunch of water all along!

One thing to know about this enduring minor classic is that it was never included in the Harvard University based eggheaded revival of Bogart films. The super-brains there only recognized Warner-Bogart movies, never those made by Columbia; even though several of Bogart's best were Columbia Pictures and African Queen and Barefoot Contessa were United Artists.

Columbia took a B-movie sized budget, a great story, excellent acting and made a classic which had a shelf-life in theaters and TV in excess of 40 years. The story was good enough to be remade as a western in 1953 called Last of the Comanchees. Two years ago, Hollywood used the same title (Sahara) to produce a huge budget color adventure movie (but with an altogether story). With unlimited resources and today's alleged high tech, Hollywood produced a mildly entertaining picture which had a shelf-life, not of 40 years, but way under 40 weeks.

The Bogart SAHARA isn't easy to find these days, but have a look on eBay or request it from Turner Classics. Timeless, it won't disappoint even after 63 years.