Zona Proibida

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.

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!

This is a film of considerable charm and interest, a postwar noir updating of the Warner Bros. "Casablanca"-style foreign intrigue routine that substitutes a refreshing toughness for the earlier films' cotton-candy romanticism. As usual, the stalwart leading man plays second fiddle to the character roles. Claude Rains takes his wry-and-witty routine to the level of sublime high camp, Peter Lorre purrs lyrical philosophy in a rumpled linen suit and three-day beard, and Paul Henried does much better as the arrogant, sadistic villain (reminiscent of Ronald Merrick in "Jewel in the Crown") than he ever did as a leading man. There's even subtle criticism of the apartheid system thrown in. What could have been a minor classic and certainly the best of the "Casablanca" clones is severely compromised however by the presence of Corinne Calvet, whose ferret face and rusty-hinge voice make a potentially pleasurable film difficult to watch, let alone enjoy.

Director William Dieterle did better movies than ROPE OF SAND but he never did one in more unusual settings than in South West Africa, now Namibia. Paul Henreid and Peter Lorre had featured in CASABLANCA seven years earlier, Rains had pulled off one of his best performances in Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS three years earlier, and Lancaster was beginning to make a name for himself. A really good cast for a film that did not seem set for great box office returns.

Interesting to note that apartheid was about to appear in that part of the world, yet it is human greed that dominates the film, with diamonds the commodity most sought.

Acting is generally good, although the French accent hinders Calvet's delivery, even renders it awkward at times. The fighting sequences fall somewhat short of credible. The screenplay is also uneven. Photography is very good.

As a little known film, it deserves watching. And it posts enough quality to not rate a waste of time. 8/10.

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.