Review – Sahara (1943)

This is a war movie from those strange days of World War Two when America’s hatred of fascism prompted ultra-capitalist Hollywood to allow communists to openly express their political beliefs in major motion pictures. Humphrey Bogart stars as a tank commander who picks up a rag-tag bunch of Allied troops fleeing the Germans in North Africa. This ad hoc unit becomes a melting pot of different nationalities, races and social classes all united in the struggle against the enemy. The guys even pick up a couple of prisoners, an Italian soldier who personifies the humanity of the common man forced into battle and a Luftwaffe pilot who turns out to be the epitome of Nazi evil. The gang holes up in an abandoned building next to a mostly-dry well in the middle of nowhere, where they’re eventually besieged by a column of German infantry. This years-ahead-of-its-time exercise in multiculturalism is the work of Hollywood Ten member John Howard Lawson, who wrote the screenplay based on a story that in turn was based on part of a Soviet production. Worth seeing