Blutige Diamanten

Rope of Sand, an adventure thriller supposedly set in post-WW II South Africa, certainly receives the vote of "classic" in my book. Far away places, a romance triangle, suspense, even a bit of humor at times...it's all there in a neatly executed, well-acted plot that makes you wish YOU could have been there and tried just what Burt Lancaster did. I have watched this movie more than half a dozen times over the years and still get that sense of intrigue and mystery and fascination with the setting and story that I got on the first occasion, as a child. The film noir era was coming to a close when this movie was created in 1949 but most of the crucial elements are there including use of the black and white, music score, contrasting dialog and action scenes, and so on, right up to the final scene. Perhaps the screenplay might have gotten a little more mileage out of Corrine Calvet and Burt but we need to remember that we're judging films of this era against a different yardstick. I seriously don't think that this movie would have come together at all using actors working today because they would all be hungering for a bigger piece of the movie than anyone got here or typically does get in film noir. This is not to mention what current directors typically do as a substitute for what film noir did with the camera and timing of scene combinations. So I disagree with the previous reviewer. Watch this if you can and enjoy!

Rope Of Sand is one of those films that as Burt Lancaster said he did for the poke. It's a routine action/adventure film that some have said is a Casablanca reunion. Also it was Corinne Calvet's first American feature.

But besides Lancaster and Calvet the cast includes Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, and Paul Henreid. Rains is playing his role as a diamond magnate as if Captain Renaud had retired from the army and went to South Africa to make his fortune in diamonds. Rains is the elegant sophisticated head of a diamond cartel and for amusement he likes to manipulate people. Lorre plays a kinder, gentler version of Ugarte I doubt he would murder two German couriers for letters of transit, but he might pick their pockets.

But Paul Henreid is as about as far away from the courageous anti-Nazi freedom fighter Victor Laszlo as you can get. He's the brutal commandant of the diamond police. Yes the Union of South Africa did have such an outfit with police powers to protect one of the country's most valuable resources for the nation and most assuredly for the mine owners. You'll see this also in Sands Of The Kalahari and Gold, both films set in apartheid South Africa as this was.

Lancaster plays a guide who finds a cache of diamonds and gets a beating at the hands of Henreid and his storm troopers. Rains would like to get his hands on the diamonds also and cut Henreid out as he personally can't stand him, but he's useful on occasion. After Calvet who plays a prostitute tries the old badger game on him unsuccessfully Rains hires her to work on Lancaster to divulge his secret. She also goes to work on Henreid as well.

But as what usually happens Burt's charming ways get to her all leading to an inevitable climax about her and the diamonds.

The title Rope Of Sand refers to the desert surrounding where the diamond mines are. It's a decent enough action adventure film made more enjoyable by a great cast of the best supporting players around.

The cast makes this one worth watching: Burt Lancaster, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains (at his silkiest), Peter Lorre, Sam Jaffe. The character Corinne Calvet plays is a screenwriter's dream since she's likely to spark unexpected changes in each of the male characters, but as an earlier contributor pointed out, Calvet isn't up to the part. It's hard to believe that a man such as Burt Lancaster's character could become so smitten with her.

The South Africa setting adds interest to the proceedings and the plot uncoils in skillful fashion until the last reel or so when the rush toward climax becomes somewhat delayed and diffused.

Burt Lancaster's whipping at the hands of Paul Henreid no longer includes details mentioned in the book "Sadism in the Cinema," which implies that some footage has been cut from prints. Even in abbreviated form, however, the scene conveys the hint that the real emotional bond in the movie is not between Lancaster and Calvet but between Lancaster and Henreid. Henreid's brutally sublimated desire for Lancaster is certainly understandable since Burt never looked better than he does here.

I rate this movie pretty highly and then I wonder, were Hollywood movies in the late 40s generally this good, in which case I'll have to see a lot more. "Rope of Sand" is so well made--the story clicks along, every shot is perfectly placed and serves the story, both day and night scenes in a desert are grandly photographed. The interiors are more elaborate than one might imagine, but Edith Head's costumes for Ms. Calvet guarantee that her character is irresistibly sexy. The cast has been gathered from across Europe and beyond--OK, some of them more difficult to follow than others--the supremely skilled actor, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre doing his elegant lowlife, Marais and Miranda singing in a nightclub. And of course young Burt Lancaster, both beautiful and doing the turns of his character. Credit then too to Paul Henreid, holding his own in a fight scene with Lancaster. And there's even a willingness to define South Africa by its racism, from the opening scene of a Black man being chased by converging trucks in the desert. I won't underline an inference about political economy.

What a great cast, what a top director and what a disappointing movie. I blame the script, or rather lack of one, cause nobody involved seems to quite know what it is all about. Something about diamonds? That'll do, let's start filming. Famously Casablanca was already in production without a finished script, and look how well that turned out, right? Just put some of that cast in another exotic location and Fate and sheer acting talent, aided by some stylish camera-work will do the rest. Alas, it didn't. The muddled story limps along from scene to tepid scene, the plot holes are abundant and the Great Romance never convinces for a moment. I kept hoping the story would catch fire at some point, but it never does. Will Paul Henreid turn out to be a Nazi war criminal? Where did Peter Lorre wander off to? Does Claude Rains have any aces up his sleeve? Why would anybody believe the girl killed the doctor? Is she a former member of the French Resistance, set out to kill Vogel? Wouldn't that sorta spice up this bland story? Nah, it turns out everybody is just what they appear to be. With some solid script doctoring this could have become a great adventure movie. Shame.