Rope of Sand (1949)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

William Dieterle

Writers:

Walter Doniger (story)
Walter Doniger (writer)

Release Date:

3 August 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure

Plot:

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.

Plot Keywords:

Desert | Adventuress | Beautiful Woman | Intrigue

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

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)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Afrikaans

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Norway:16 | West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Imperial County, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

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.

A classic B & W adventure

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!