Rope of Sand (1949)

Hal B. Wallis production for Paramount, reuniting Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre from the supporting cast of Wallis' "Casablanca" in 1942, involves Burt Lancaster as an American hunting guide in South West Africa refusing to reveal the location of a cache of diamonds in a restricted area known as the Rope of Sand. Security chief Henreid is the hissable nasty who threatens Lancaster, Rains is the owner of the diamond company who hopes a French woman can seduce Burt into revealing all, while Lorre is a scroungy merchant who knows everyone's business. Limp action-drama with funereal pacing, an annoying femme fatale (Corinne Calvet, a Wallis discovery, in her first major role) and a sour leading man in unhappy spirits. ** from ****

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.

I have watched this movie twice and have been waiting for a DVD to be released for quite a while. You would think a film with Burt Lancaster, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Sam Jaffe would get some attention but, I don't believe this was ever available on VHS, either. Puzzling.It's a good film and worth watching. The first time I saw this it reminded me a bit of Casablanca or To Have And Have Not. Oh, not in that class of those films but just being a solid foreign adventure tale with American and English actors in an exotic setting. On the second viewing, I found the film lagged in a few spots, but it's still a very good movie. Lancaster is excellent as the good guy after diamonds in North Africa while Henreid is the sadistic bad guy and Raines is back somewhere in the middle as he was in Casablanca. Lorre and Jaffe are almost always fun to watch, too.Calvert was a French actress and may not be that familiar to English-speaking audiences. Sometimes her accent is hard to decipher. I didn't find her appealing but I also wasn't as annoyed with her as others seem to be, either. I do agree there should have been a better female lead in here.The film offers some good action and some nice black-and-white photography, especially with the nighttime desert scenes, which I really enjoyed. Hopefully, someone will do the right thing and make this available on DVD.

I'm glad that I am not the only one who intensely dislikes Corrine Calvet in this movie. ;-) Unfortunately I have never seen the original English version. I only know the German dubbed one. But I doubt that Mrs. Calvet's voice could be any worse then her German voice which is absolutely terrible.I really like this movie but as Anne Sharp already wrote Mrs. Calvet makes it difficult to enjoy.Also I noticed two few mistakes:1. In the beginning sequence you see a large "warning" sign in three languages, Dutch, English and German. The German translation should have obviously been "Warnung, Sperrgebiet!" but on the sign it says "Sperroit".2. When Davis wakes up and finds that Ingrim has gone the horse you see is clearly a different one then the one he rides on in the next scene.