Rent Station Six-Sahara (1963)

Pumping Irony - Station Six-Sahara review by CH

In this era when so much is available and the chasing down of an old film does not involve several changes of 'bus to an outlying repertory house, how does one discover a film and decide to watch it?

Serendipity is a part of the process, fuelled by flicking through the contending guides. Leonard Maltin is dismissive of Station Six-Sahara (1962) and so there perhaps some might leave it, unseen; then again, the Radio Times guide enthuses, and so it proves that this is a film well worth watching.

Written by Bryan Forbes and Brian Clemens (perhaps best known for television series The Avengers) from a play by Jean Martel, it was directed by Seth Holt with much of the dramatic effect provided by cinematographer Gerald Gibbs. The shades of black and white make this desert outpost more sultry than colour perhaps would have done. The camera hones in repeatedly upon a ceiling fan while other machinery pumps up and down in what appears to be a staging post in the subterranean transmission of oil across the continent while radio contact is fitful.

In its time, the film was advertised with the erotically-charged Carroll Baker to the fore. In fact, she appears halfway through. By this time, the real attention and interest have been provided by the five men palpably going to seed in this outlandish setting, where monotony so inflames petty rivalries and jealousies that one of them offers to give Denholm Elliott a month's pay if he can choose and keep one of the many letters he receives each month.

This might sound preposterous as the mainspring of a plot, but it works, bringing so much with it, tension already heightened when Carroll Baker, literally, crashes into the place with a man badly injured in the offending automobile (“he's not a friend, he's my ex-husband”).

Anybody at the time who had sought out this too-little-known film by travelling across London and holding an umbrella against the wind-driven rain would not have regretted the expedition. To find oneself in this parched, malevolent location (in fact it was made in Shepperton) becomes all absorbing. The pause button is not needed.

Earns Its Heat - Station Six-Sahara review by griggs

Martin Scorsese rates this among his favourite British films, and I'm entirely on his side.

Seth Holt directs, Gerald Gibbs shoots it in black and white so harsh you can feel your collar wilting, and Peter van Eyck sweats through every scene like it's contractual — he'd had a decade's practice by then, having done much the same thing in The Wages of Fear.

Carroll Baker gets top billing and still doesn't turn up for ages: the real story is five men slowly grating on each other in a tin shed in the middle of nowhere. Denholm Elliott sells Ian Bannen a love letter for a month's wages, then spends the rest of the film trying to buy it back — seller's remorse has never looked so desperate.

Then a Cadillac roars in out of nowhere, Baker's ex-husband driving, her riding shotgun, and everything goes up like a struck match. Mostly filmed at Shepperton, with a Libyan detour thrown in — you'd never spot the join.

Not once did I reach for the pause button. This one earns its heat.