Rent Sahara (1943)
3.6 of 5 from 71 ratings
1h 34min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- After the fall of the Libyan city of Tobruk, Sergeant Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart) and his crew - "Waco" Hoyt (Bruce Bennett), Fred Clarkson (Lloyd Bridges) and Jimmy Doyle (Dan Duryea) - retreat in their tank across the Sahara. Along the way they pick up six Allied stragglers and Tambul (Rex Ingram), a Sudanese corporal and his Italian prisoner. Tambul directs the group to a desert fortress, where they hope to find desparately needed water. A detachment of German soldiers arrives and attempts to barter food for water, but Gunn and his followers refuse. When the Germans attack, Gunn leads his desert-weary men in a desparate battle, hoping that British reinforcements can arrive in time.
- Actors:
- Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, J. Carrol Naish, Lloyd Bridges, Rex Ingram, Richard Aherne, Dan Duryea, Carl Harbord, Patrick O'Moore, Louis Mercier, Guy Kingsford, Kurt Kreuger, John Wengraf
- Directors:
- Zoltan Korda
- Producers:
- Harry Joe Brown
- Writers:
- John Howard Lawson, Zoltan Korda, James O'Hanlon, Philip MacDonald, Sidney Buchman
- Others:
- Rudolph Maté, John Livadary
- Aka:
- Port Said
- Studio:
- Columbia Tristar
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- A Brief History of Films About American Football, Award Winners, Introducing the Thesping Olympians, Oscar Nominations Competition 2025, People of the Pictures, Remembering M. Emmet Walsh, A Brief History of Film...
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 20/01/2025
- Run Time:
- 97 minutes
- Languages:
- English Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Audio commentary with screenwriter and novelist C. Courtney Joyner (2025)
- Small Miracles (2025, 13 mins): in-depth appreciation by Ehsan Khoshbakht, curator, filmmaker, and editor of 'The Lady with the Torch: Columbia Pictures 1929-1959'
- Building a Tank (1942, 20 mins): documentary short on the work of the Detroit Tank Arsenal, and the manufacture and testing of the M3 Lee tank which prominently features in 'Sahara'
- 'The Siege of Tobruk' (1942, 17 mins): documentary short produced by the UK's Army Film Unit detailing the World War II military campaign in the North African port of Tobruk during 1941, which preceded the events portrayed in 'Sahara'
- Original theatrical trailer
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- UK premiere on Blu-ray
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Reviews (1) of Sahara
Enough Stragglers for a UN Meeting - Sahara review by griggs
Zoltan Korda's WWII desert flick isn't shy about its message, and I'll admit that's part of the fun — you're being worked on, and it works.
Humphrey Bogart leads a stranded tank crew across the Sahara, picking up enough stragglers for a UN meeting: a Brit, a Frenchman, a South African, a Sudanese soldier, all shoved together and told to make it work. He plays it dead straight — no grandstanding, just the sense that he's the only adult in a desert of overgrown boys with guns.
The interesting touch is the decent Italian POW against the fanatical German one, clearly aimed at a US audience with plenty of Italian immigrants. The siege at the well in the back half is the strongest stretch, the desert finally feeling like it might kill someone.
Some of the politics haven't aged brilliantly, and you can hear the war effort elbowing characters aside for a speech. As a snapshot of 1943 optimism though, it knows exactly what it wants you to feel, and mostly gets away with it.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.