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Sahara (1943 film)

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Sahara is a 1943 war film directed by Zoltan Korda. Humphrey Bogart stars as a tank commander during the North African campaign in World War II.

The movie earned three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound, Best Cinematography (Black-and-White) and Best Supporting Actor by J. Carrol Naish for his role as an Italian prisoner.

The script was worked on by John Howard Lawson, who was later part of the Hollywood Ten accused by HUAC of promoting Communist propaganda.

The movie has gone on to become something of a cult film, and is considered one of the better at-war movies made during World War II. A television remake starring Jim Belushi in Bogart's role was filmed in 1995.

Contents

Plot

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
An M3 Grant tank, commanded by Sargeant Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart), becomes separated from its unit during a general retreat from Rommel's forces. The crew picks up a motley assortment of stragglers, among them a British doctor and other British troops, a Free French soldier, a Sudanese and his Italian prisoner, and a German Luftwaffe pilot who strafes them and is shot down.

Running out of water, they are forced to detour to a desert well marked on Gunn's map. They find it, but it is almost empty, providing only a trickle of water. A German scouting party arrives soon afterwards, is ambushed and nearly wiped out. Gunn finds out from the survivors that a German battalion, desperate for water, is following close behind. He decides to make a stand to delay the Germans any way he can, while he sends one of his crew in search of reinforcements. The two surviving Germans are released, with an offer: "guns for water", even though there is barely enough for Gunn's men.

The well has utterly dried up by the time the Germans arrive. A standoff and battle of wills begins. Gunn pretends the well is full of water and negotiates to waste time. Eventually the Germans attack and are beaten off again and again, but one by one, the Allied soldiers die heroically. The final assault turns into a full-blown surrender as thirst-maddened Germans 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 another source of water and filled the well. Gunn and the only other Allied survivor disarm the Germans while they're drinking their fill and start marching them east, where they encounter Allied troops led by Gunn's courier. The movie ends with news of Montgomery's victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, implying the dead heroes had not sacrificed themselves in vain.

War movie clichés

The movie is filled with standard war movie clichés, most obviously (as in most American war movies) that the heroes are culturally and ethnically diverse (with the black Sudanese covering the fact that U.S. forces were segregated during the war). All of the characters have distinctive traits (British, French, African, Italian, German) reflecting the international scope of Allied efforts against the Nazis (even the captured Italian soldier becomes an ally, unlike the captured German pilot who remains evil throughout) except for Bogart's heroic leader, who simply refers to himself as an 'American'. The movie, however, excels in working with the clichés to make for effective characterizations.

Cast

Americans: British, French and Sudanese: Axis:

External links

 

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