Sahara (1943 film)

Sahara
Directed by	Zoltán Korda
Produced by	Harry Joe Brown
Written by	Philip MacDonald (story) James O'Hanlon John Howard Lawson (screenplay)
Starring	Humphrey Bogart Bruce Bennett Lloyd Bridges J. Naish Dan Duryea
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography	Rudolph Maté
Editing by	Charles Nelson
Distributed by	Columbia
Release date(s)	November 11, 1943 (1943-11-11)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Sahara is a 1943 war film directed by Zoltán Korda. Humphrey Bogart stars as a U.S. tank commander in Libya during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The movie earned three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound (John Livadary), Best Cinematography (Black-and-White) and Best Supporting Actor by J. Carrol Naish for his role as an Italian prisoner.

The story is credited to an incident depicted in the 1936 Soviet film The Thirteen by Mikhail Romm. Later, Sahara was remade by Andre de Toth as a Western with Broderick Crawford called Last of the Comanches (1953) and by Brian Trenchard-Smith as the Australian film Sahara, with James Belushi in Bogart's role.

Plot

DVD cover image

The crew of an M3 Lee tank, commanded by U.S. Army Master Sergeant Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart) and nicknamed Lulu Belle, become separated from their unit during a general retreat from Erwin Rommel's forces. At a bombed-out field hospital, the Americans pick up a motley collection of stragglers, among them British doctor Captain Halliday, four Commonwealth troops, and Free French Corporal Leroux (Louis Mercier). Halliday, the only officer, cedes command to Gunn. Later, they come upon Sudanese Sergeant Major Tambul (Rex Ingram) and his Italian prisoner, Giuseppe (J. Carrol Naish), who volunteers to lead them to a well at Hassan Barani. En route, Luftwaffe pilot Captain von Schletow (Kurt Kreuger) strafes the tank, killing one of the British soldiers (Lloyd Bridges), but is shot down and captured.

Arriving at the well, they find it completely dry. Now running out of water, they are forced to detour to the desert well Bir Acroma marked on Gunn's map. They find it, but it is almost dry, providing only a trickle of water.

When German scouts arrive in a half-track soon afterwards, Gunn sets up an ambush. Gunn finds out from one of the two enemy survivors that their mechanized battalion, desperate for water, is following close behind. He persuades the others to make a stand to delay the Germans, while Waco (Bruce Bennett) takes the half-track in search of reinforcements. The two Germans are released to carry back an offer: "food for water", even though there is barely enough for Gunn's men. When the Germans return in force, Gunn changes the deal to "guns for water".

The well has completely dried up by then. A standoff and battle of wills begins between Gunn and Major von Falken (John Wengraf), the German commander. Gunn keeps up the pretence that the well is full of water and negotiates to buy time. Eventually, the Germans attack and are beaten off again and again, but one by one, the defenders are killed. During the fighting, von Schletow tries to escape, killing Giuseppe when he tries to alert Gunn. Tambul chases him down and kills him, at the cost of his own life.

The thirst-maddened Germans' final assault turns into a full-blown surrender as they drop their weapons and claw across the sand towards the well. To Gunn's shock, he discovers that a German shell that exploded in the well has tapped into a source of water. Gunn and the only other Allied survivor disarm the Germans while they drink their fill. As they are marching their prisoners east, they encounter Allied troops guided by Waco. The movie ends with news of the Allied victory at the First Battle of El Alamein, turning back the tide of Rommel's Afrika Korps.

Production notes

The movie was filmed on location in the Imperial County portion of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, near the Salton Sea, using soldiers and equipment of the U.S. IV Armored Corps, then in training, as extras.

In 1992, Kurt Kreuger was quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle on the emotions inherent in making the film, in which he portrayed a stereotypical Nazi:

I was running across the dunes when Tambul jumped on top of me and pressed my head into the sand to suffocate me. Only Zoltán forgot to yell cut, and Ingram was so emotionally caught up in the scene that he kept pressing my face harder and harder. Finally, I went unconscious. Nobody knew this. Even the crew was transfixed, watching this dramatic ‘killing.' If Zoltán hadn't finally said cut, as an afterthought, it would have been all over for me.

Cast

Americans:

• Sergeant Joe Gunn - Humphrey Bogart
• Jimmy Doyle - Dan Duryea
• 'Waco' Hoyt - Bruce Bennett
• Tank Driver (Lulubelle) - Antonio "Tony" Odello (not shown on screen)

British, French, South African and Sudanese:

• Captain Jason Halliday - Richard Nugent
• Fred Clarkson - Lloyd Bridges
• Osmond 'Ozzie' Bates - Patrick O'Moore
• Peter Stegman - Guy Kingsford
• Marty Williams - Carl Harbord
• Jean 'Frenchie' Leroux - Louis Mercier
• Sergeant Major Tambul - Rex Ingram

Axis:

• Giuseppe - J. Carrol Naish
• Captain von Schletow - Kurt Kreuger
• Major von Falken - John Wengraf

External links

• Sahara at the Internet Movie Database
• Sahara (1995 TV remake) at the Internet Movie Database
• Sahara at the TCM Movie Database
• Sahara at AllRovi
• Google Video
• "War in the Sahara, Bogart-style", from Eve's Magazine