The Bottom Line: Bogart top-notch with Lloyd Bridges, J. Carrol Naish, Dan Duryea, and a twenty ton tank after the fall of Tobruk. Oh yeah, about 500 Germans are after them, too!
Director Zoltan Korda's "Sahara" is a little-known World War II gem of a movie.
Starring the inimitable Humphrey Bogart, as "Sergeant Joe Gunn", a tank commander in North Africa, cut off from his squadron. The luckless tank also features Dan Duryea as one of the crew members, in a typically fine performance from that actor.
The tank must carry its crew back to the allied lines after the fall of Tobruk. On their way across the trackless desert, the tank picks up five British Tommies, a Sudanese Sergeant, savorily played by Rex Ingram, and a French soldier with an Italian prisoner, played by J. Carroll Naish, an excellent character actor.
You can see Bogey's love of machinery, as he nurses his tank across the burning desert. This affinity for machines would also be evident a few years later in "The African Queen."
The tank makes it to an oasis just as the water gives out. The only problem is, a vast company of German troops are also converging on the oasis and they want that water, too! Excellent action scenes showing the allies giving the Germans a well-deserved drubbing!
The film also depicts a black soldier in a leadership position who acts with intelligence and great bravery, which is not usually seen in a Hollywood picture.
There is not much wrong with this film, except it should be better known!
Fans of "Sahara" will also like "Hell is for Heroes", "Sergeant York", "To Hell and Back", and "Saving Private Ryan".
Bogey fans will also like "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", "The Maltese Falcon", "The African Queen", or any of his other many fine movies.
There s plenty of top-notch, explosive action in this 1943 Bogie classic about a ragtag battalion stranded in the great African desert during World Wa...More at Buy.com
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