Sahara: Bogart & Company Fight The Nazis

This World War Two movie is set in the 1942 North African desert, as the German and Italian forces there are achieving major successes against the Allied forces seeking to prevent the Axis from capturing the Suez Canal. The movie depicts the main Allied troops as being British, but with French, South African and Sudanese also represented, and an American tank crew serving alongside. The movie was filmed during early 1943 in a desert area of southern California near the Mexican border. While the filming location was a desert, the production required tons and tons of sand to be spread out to make it look more like what the production crew wanted to represent a particular part of the desert in Libya.      

 

Actor J. Carrol Naish plays an Italian soldier who is a reluctant German ally, and who is more comfortable working with the Allies (there was certainly more than a little truth to this symbolic representation with many Italians of that era). During my life I seem to recall reading and hearing that J. Carrol Naish played more "ethnic" characters in movies and television than any major star, just as he played an Italian in this film, but in reality, he was of Irish descent (born in the U.S.), and in fact, his uncle had been an Irish official prior to Irish independence from Britain in the early 1920s. And since I mentioned Irish, this movie was obviously tilted more toward American audiences, and Irish-Americans have been a pretty prominent segment of the American population, especially in many metropolitan areas of the eastern half of the country. In the war era, the British and Irish were not necessarily on the best of terms, dating to previous British rule of Ireland. A long time friend of mine of Irish descent was easily riled if England or Britain was mentioned to him, and this was in the 1970s and 1980s (he was born sometime in the 1920s). His grandfather (or grandfathers?) had been from Ireland, and had tremendous animosity toward Britain. Anyway, one of the British soldiers is from Dublin, and it's just my guess that the film wanted to show that the British and Irish could work together in the face of the common danger of fascism. Not only that, the Irish soldier is a captain; thus, he outranks the other British troops and the Americans, too.  

 

Bruce Bennett plays American "Waco" in this film (pronounced as if "wake-o"), and he was the child of German immigrants, as his real family name was "Brix," but he took the stage name Bruce Bennett in the mid 1930s. He actually played Tarzan in the mid 1930s, but Johnny Weissmuller had already captured the public imagination with his performances as Tarzan by that point. And by the way, you'll see American actor Lloyd Bridges playing a British soldier in this movie. Bridges is likely best remembered as the star of the popular television show "Sea Hunt" in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a show I watched regularly. Lloyd's sons Beau and Jeff are actors.     

 

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart as Sergeant Joe Gunn

Bruce Bennett as Waco Hoyt

J. Carrol Naish as Giuseppe (Italian prisoner)

Lloyd Bridges as Fred Clarkson

Rex Ingram as Sergeant Major Tambul

Richard Aherne as Captain Jason Halliday

Dan Duryea as Jimmy Doyle

Carl Harbord as Marty Williams

Patrick O'Moore as Ozzie Bates

Louis Mercier as Jean "Frenchie" Leroux

Guy Kingsford as Peter Stegman 

Kurt Krueger as German pilot and then prisoner

John Wengraf as Major von Falken 

 

In June of 1942, the three surviving American crew members of a US M3 tank, called "Lulubelle" by the crew, are serving in the Libyan desert during heavy Allied fighting against the German and Italian forces there. (Note: The U.S. supplied a somewhat modified version of M3 tanks to the British military in North Africa during the war. The American version was nicknamed the "Lee," while the British version was nicknamed the "Grant.") The crew receives orders by radio to retreat and as they withdraw they come across five British and Commonwealth troops (one is South African) and a Free French soldier. While one of the British soldiers, originally from Dublin, Ireland, is a captain in the medical service, the Americans have the tank, which is commanded by combat experienced Sergeant Joe Gunn; so, the British captain agrees to accept the American sergeant as the commander. The group comes upon a Sudanese sergeant and his Italian captive, who speaks heavily Italian-accented English. (Note: Sudan was in reality a British possession from the latter part of the 1800s, although "in theory" Egypt had a say in the governing of the territory.) With limited supplies, especially water, the Allied group debates whether to take the Italian prisoner along or whether to leave him to his fate in the desert. The man begs for his life and shows pictures of his wife and small child, but Sergeant Gunn doesn't even want to see the pictures. The British captain tries to persuade Gunn to take the Italian with them as the right thing to do, and most of the men seemingly agree, but Sergeant Gunn orders the tank to move forward without the Italian. The tank starts off, leaving highly visible tracks in the sand, and the Italian follows as best he can. Everyone is quiet and rather solemn, and Sergeant Gunn then looks out a hatch and sees the Italian struggling along in an attempt to stay alive. Gunn orders the tank to stop and he agrees to take the Italian with them. The men seem pleased. 

 

As the tank rumbles on, a German planes strafes the tank, but the crew is able to hit the plane with machine gun fire and the pilot parachutes out before the plane crashes. The men capture the pilot, a cocky Nazi, who doesn't want the Sudanese soldier to search him (the Sudanese soldier is black and the Nazi doesn't want him to touch him). Sergeant Gunn wants to turn the pilot over to intelligence officers for interrogation, so that means the group adds another man to its number. The group then learns that one of the British soldiers was badly wounded during the strafing. The Sudanese soldier leads the group to a well, but it is dry, and the situation is getting dire, as the Sudanese soldier tells them the next well is 50 miles away, and of course, there's no guarantee it won't be dry too. The wounded British soldier dies, and a message comes across the radio for all Allied troops to report to their main units to form a defensive line to keep the Axis forces from breaking through to the Nile and the Suez Canal. The group moves out to try to reach the next well amidst a sandstorm, but they finally reach the well where there is an abandoned building for shelter. The storm ends and the men go out to look for the well, as everything is now covered with sand. They find the well and it seems to be dry, but the Sudanese soldier goes down into the well and finds a trickle of water dripping from the rocks. The men send down any containers they can find and at last Sergeant Gunn allows each man to have three swallows of the precious water. Meanwhile, a German column has found the grave of the British soldier, but the Germans are desperate for water too. They have a Bedouin guide who tells them about the possibility of water at the well some 50 miles off, and out of their way, but the German commander knows he, his men and his vehicles need water, so off goes the German column, unaware they are heading to where the Allied group happens to be.  

 

Since the tank has had a lot of wear and tear from travel and the sandstorm, Sergeant Gunn wants to do maintenance on it. The Italian offers his help, telling Gunn that he was a master mechanic in Torino (Turin) before the war. Sergeant Gunn accepts the offer. Gunn mentions Mussolini to the Italian, and the man says that Mussolini talks big and says he has all of the answers, and that he has his slogans written on many walls all across Italy. The Italian says the slogans got into the minds of the people. A German reconnaissance vehicle with three Germans and the Bedouin is spotted moving toward the well area. Sergeant Gunn hopes to capture the Germans to get information. Inside the building, the Italian is put back with the German prisoner, who has heard everything that is going on outside, as he actually speaks English. He lets the Italian know he will tell him what to do. 

 

One German mans a machine gun mounted in the vehicle, and the other two Germans and the Bedouin leave the vehicle to approach the building on foot. Firing starts and the Bedouin and one German are killed and the other two Germans are captured. The British captain speaks some German and Gunn has him ask the Germans some questions, all as Gunn deliberately drinks water in front of the two thirsty men. One German remains uncooperative, but the other finally tells them that they are part of a mechanized battalion of 500 men and Gunn gives him some water. Sergeant Gunn tries the same with the other German and the man takes the water, says nothing and throws the water on the ground. In the meantime, the Sudanese soldier checks the well and finds the water has almost completely stopped dripping and he reports this to Sergeant Gunn, who tells him it won't matter, because they are going to leave, but then he thinks it all over and he wants the group to stay and delay the enemy battalion. Gunn tells them he realizes they could likely die and that no one may ever know what happened here. When one of the soldiers objects, Gunn goes into how the British withstood heavy German air attacks and how so many little boats sailed to Dunkirk to help evacuate the troops there, and how the Russians made a stand at Moscow, and how the American troops stood in the Philippines against the Japanese, and how the Chinese evacuated parts of their country in the face of the Japanese invasion. He gives the men some reasons to fight and they agree, regardless of any skepticism they may have. Gunn wants to offer the German battalion commander a phony deal. Sergeant Gunn will release the two German prisoners and have them tell their commander the Allied group will give the Germans water in exchange for food (of course, there really isn't very much water). In the meantime, Gunn will send one of his men in the captured German reconnaissance vehicle to try to find the Allied lines to get help. The captured German pilot hears the plan and he tries to yell to the two other German prisoners that there is no water, but he is stopped, and Gunn gives orders to kill him if he tries anything like that again.

 

The German prisoners are released and the Allied men find some land mines in the captured German recon vehicle, and they use them to mine the grounds leading up to the building area. They dig in the tank to give it added protection, as its gun is their only real firepower. Gunn sends American soldier "Waco" off in the recon vehicle to try to make it to the Allied lines. As the two German prisoners walk along hoping to meet up with their battalion, the one who had held out against giving information kills the other man, calling him a "damned traitor" ("verdammter Verräter"). Back at the outpost, the men see the German troops advancing to attack. The Allied troops let them get closer then they open fire. The intense fire, including from the tank, throws the Germans back, with heavy casualties. The first attack has been thwarted. Gunn checks on his men, but finds that the South African has been killed. The German commander shows a white flag and he and one of his men meet Sergeant Gunn halfway between the two sides. Gunn tells the German commander he'll trade water for guns and the mortar the German battalion has. The Germans are desperate for water, but no deal is reached. The captured German pilot decides to act and he tries to order Giuseppe, the Italian prisoner, to follow his lead, but Giuseppe will have none of it, and he delivers a sharp rebuke to Hitler and the Nazis: when the German pilot tells him the place will be taken by the German forces and then he will denounce Giuseppe as a traitor, Giuseppe says, "Denounce me then... Mussolini is not as clever as Hitler, he can only dress his Italians up to look like thieves, cheats and murderers. He can't, like Hitler, make them feel like that. He can't, like Hitler, scrape from the conscience the knowledge that right is right and wrong is wrong, or dig holes in their heads to plant his own Ten Commandments, steal from thy neighbor, cheat thy neighbor, kill thy neighbor..... It was for your Hitler that God, my God, created Hell!" This infuriates the German pilot and he knocks Giuseppe to the ground and then stabs him in the back with the screwdriver the Italian had been using to work on the tank. Though badly wounded, Giuseppe gets outside to tell the men that the German has escaped and is on his way to tell the German commander there is no water. The Sudanese soldier takes out after the German and kills him, but he himself is finally killed by German machine gun fire. As Gunn talks with one of the British soldiers, a German sniper kills the soldier. In the German camp, the soldiers are begging the commander for water, and he again goes to meet Gunn, who instead sends the Free French soldier, "Frenchie," out to meet him, as Gunn pretends to be bathing along with the British captain to make it look as if they have lots of water. No agreement is made and as the two men walk away, the German commander orders his men to open fire, killing Frenchie by shooting him in the back. The Allied guys return fire, killing the German commander. Meanwhile, the recon vehicle with Waco breaks down, leaving him to go on foot through the sand. Back at the well outpost, the Germans start another attack, and one of their mortar shells hits the well. One of the men is wounded and the British captain helps him inside the building, but another shell hits there too, killing both of them. Only Gunn and Ozzie, one of the British soldiers, remain alive and they prepare to fight to the end. Gunn calls out to the Germans to come and get the water, all they want, but he doesn't realize that the mortar shell brought water bubbling up out of the sand. The Germans throw down their guns and dash for the water. The two surviving Allies take them prisoner. 

 

Waco struggles through the sand, but finally a British reconnaissance vehicle comes along and the men spot Waco. After a while we see the column of German prisoners guarded by Gunn and Ozzie, as a British column approaches. The two men hear that the British and Commonwealth forces have held the Germans and Italians at El Alamein, stopping their drive for the Suez Canal. Sergeant Gunn looks at the dog tags of the dead men and he says they would want to know that the enemy had been halted. Their sacrifice helped in that effort. (Note: While the Allies halted the German and Italian drive at El Alamein, this desert rail station continued to be at the center of events in North Africa until a major British-led Allied offensive there in the latter part of October 1942, which resulted in the retreat of the Germans and Italians in early November. This was then followed by the Allied invasion of French Morocco and Algeria in northwestern Africa, and this sandwiched the German and Italian forces between the the British and Commonwealth forces pursuing their retreating forces from El Alamein, and the American, British and French forces advancing out of French Morocco and Algeria.)         

 

Photo is of the 2001 Columbia Pictures DVD ...

WORD HISTORY:

Sand-This word goes back to Indo European "samadho," but there are variations in how the Indo European form is rendered, but all beginning "sam," meaning "sand." This gave Old Germanic "sandam," which then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sand," where it remains all of these centuries later. Besides the "fine rock particles" meaning, the plural "sands" has long been used for desert and beach areas covered in sand. Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German and Low German have "Sand" (all German nouns are capitalized), Dutch has "zand," West Frisian has "sân," Danish, Norwegian and Swedish all have "sand," Icelandic has "sandur." The early part of the 1300s saw the development of the verb "sanden," which came from the noun. The verb long meant "to sprinkle sand over something," and this led to the further meaning "to cover over with sand." The meaning "to rub with a cloth or paper with affixed sand in order to make a surface smooth" seems to have developed in the mid 1800s, as this tool became increasingly popular.