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Rope of Sand (1949)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
3 August 1949 (USA) morePlot:
A man abused by a sadistic mining company cop before he could tell where on their desert property he'd found diamonds decides to steal them instead. full summary | add synopsisPlot Keywords:
Awards:
Nominated for Golden Globe. moreUser Comments:
A classic B & W adventure moreCast
(Complete credited cast)| Burt Lancaster | ... | Michael (Mike) Davis | |
| Paul Henreid | ... | Commandant Paul G. Vogel | |
| Claude Rains | ... | Arthur 'Fred' Martingale | |
| Peter Lorre | ... | Toady | |
| Corinne Calvet | ... | Mademoiselle Suzanne Renaud aka Aniseneletette Duringreaud | |
| Sam Jaffe | ... | Dr. Francis Kittridge Hunter | |
| John Bromfield | ... | Thompson (guard) | |
| Mike Mazurki | ... | Pierson (guard) | |
| Kenny Washington | ... | John | |
| Edmund Breon | ... | Parker, Chairman of the Board | |
| Hayden Rorke | ... | Ingram | |
| David Thursby | ... | Henry (bartender) | |
| Josef Marais | ... | South African Veldt Singer | |
| Miranda Marais | ... | South African Veldt Singer (as Miranda) |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
104 minCountry:
USAColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 moreSound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Recording)Filming Locations:
Imperial County, California, USAFun Stuff
Quotes:
[first lines]Narrator: This part of the desert of South Africa, where only a parched camel thorn tree relieves the endless parallels of time, space, and sky, surrounds like a rope of sand the richest diamond-bearing area in the world -- an uneasy land where men inflamed by monotony and the heat sometimes forget the rules of civilization.
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Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Rope of Sand (1949)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| this seems to be a terribly hard movie to find... | danielj_old999 |
| Questions about comment | Mel11 |
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Related Links
| Full cast and crew | Company credits | IMDb Adventure section |
| IMDb USA section | Add this title to MyMovies |


Rope of Sand, an adventure thriller supposedly set in post-WW II South Africa, certainly receives the vote of "classic" in my book. Far away places, a romance triangle, suspense, even a bit of humor at times...it's all there in a neatly executed, well-acted plot that makes you wish YOU could have been there and tried just what Burt Lancaster did. I have watched this movie more than half a dozen times over the years and still get that sense of intrigue and mystery and fascination with the setting and story that I got on the first occasion, as a child. The film noir era was coming to a close when this movie was created in 1949 but most of the crucial elements are there including use of the black and white, music score, contrasting dialog and action scenes, and so on, right up to the final scene. Perhaps the screenplay might have gotten a little more mileage out of Corrine Calvet and Burt but we need to remember that we're judging films of this era against a different yardstick. I seriously don't think that this movie would have come together at all using actors working today because they would all be hungering for a bigger piece of the movie than anyone got here or typically does get in film noir. This is not to mention what current directors typically do as a substitute for what film noir did with the camera and timing of scene combinations. So I disagree with the previous reviewer. Watch this if you can and enjoy!