Destination Gobi (1953)

Director:

Robert Wise

Writers:

Everett Freeman (writer)
Edmund G. Love (story)

Release Date:

11 May 1953 (Sweden)

Genre:

War | Drama

Plot:

A group of US Navy weathermen taking measurements in the Gobi desert in World War II are forced to seek...

Plot Keywords:

Desert | Mongolian | Mongolia | Mongol | Saddle

Cast

Richard Widmark	...	CPO Sam McHale
Don Taylor	...	Jenkins
Max Showalter	...	Walter Landers (as Casey Adams)
Murvyn Vye	...	Kengtu
Darryl Hickman	...	Wilbur 'Coney' Cohen
Martin Milner	...	Elwood Halsey
Ross Bagdasarian	...	Paul Sabatello
Judy Dan	...	Nura-Salu
Rodolfo Acosta	...	Tomec
Russell Collins	...	Cmdr. Hobart Wyatt
Leonard Strong	...	Wali-Akhun

Also Known As:

Gobi Outpost (USA) (working title)
Ninety Saddles for Kengtu (USA) (working title)
Sixty Saddles for Gobi (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (nf) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Nixon and Fallen, NV were both used as location sites, and Piute Indians residing on a reservation in Nixon played Mongol extras.

Quotes:

[Walter flirts successfully with a Mongolian woman]
Jenkins: Well, looks like you made a hit, Walter my boy. Tell me, how do you do it?
Walter Landers: My training as a meterorologist. I can take one look at a girl and tell weather.

Movie Connections:

Edited into All This and World War II (1976)

Better than average war film which gets extra credit for its unique setting in the Gobi Desert.

This film has the feel of a documentary as sailor Richard Widmark frets at his role at a remote weather station in the Gobi Desert and yearns to get a ship under him again. Ultimately, he returns to the sea in an unexpected fashion.

The relationship between the sailors and the nomadic Mongols is a crucial part of the film. The nomads are credibly portrayed as human beings who are neither all good or all bad. The film gets high marks for its portrayal of the Mongol culture. It would have been so easy for the film to show people who looked like the Native American Indians Hollywood films are so comfortable with. The Mongol yurts have a realistic look and the film truly succeeds here in portraying a different and likeable culture.

There is little action in this film, but that's really not a problem. The unusual and probably unique story line more than makes up for it. The ending is a little hard to believe, but remember that anything is possible in films. Enjoy it.