Hal B. Wallis production for Paramount, reuniting Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre from the supporting cast of Wallis' "Casablanca" in 1942, involves Burt Lancaster as an American hunting guide in South West Africa refusing to reveal the location of a cache of diamonds in a restricted area known as the Rope of Sand. Security chief Henreid is the hissable nasty who threatens Lancaster, Rains is the owner of the diamond company who hopes a French woman can seduce Burt into revealing all, while Lorre is a scroungy merchant who knows everyone's business. Limp action-drama with funereal pacing, an annoying femme fatale (Corinne Calvet, a Wallis discovery, in her first major role) and a sour leading man in unhappy spirits. ** from ****

I rate this movie pretty highly and then I wonder, were Hollywood movies in the late 40s generally this good, in which case I'll have to see a lot more. "Rope of Sand" is so well made--the story clicks along, every shot is perfectly placed and serves the story, both day and night scenes in a desert are grandly photographed. The interiors are more elaborate than one might imagine, but Edith Head's costumes for Ms. Calvet guarantee that her character is irresistibly sexy. The cast has been gathered from across Europe and beyond--OK, some of them more difficult to follow than others--the supremely skilled actor, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre doing his elegant lowlife, Marais and Miranda singing in a nightclub. And of course young Burt Lancaster, both beautiful and doing the turns of his character. Credit then too to Paul Henreid, holding his own in a fight scene with Lancaster. And there's even a willingness to define South Africa by its racism, from the opening scene of a Black man being chased by converging trucks in the desert. I won't underline an inference about political economy.

Rope of Sand – 1949 I watched this one last night for the first time in more than twenty years. The last time I was not really "noir aware" so I took the whole thing as a lightweight action adventure. Boy was I wrong! This is a very dark noir with plenty of top noir talent involved. The film's location is a small town in the South African desert. The town is on the edge of a vast diamond country and is ran by the local diamond cartel. Lancaster plays a man with a problem. The problem? He knows where a small cache of diamonds are hidden. They are however inside the cartel's territory and the security tends to shoot first and see who they shot later. A further complication for Lancaster is that the head of the security forces, Paul Henreid, would like a "friendly word" or two. Henreid it seems knows about the diamonds and wants them for himself. Claude Rains plays Henreid's superior who is also in the running for the diamonds. Corinne Calvet plays a tart who makes a living by preying on wealthy men. She stages phony rapes and then blackmails the men for a healthy sum. She tries the gag on Rains who brushes her off but hires her to put the moves on Lancaster. We also have Peter Lorre wandering through doing a take on his Casablanca role. Here he is attempting to buy diamonds instead of selling letters of transit. Everyone seems in on the secret and they are all doing their best to apply a knife to someone else's back. Rains and Henreid really shine here with Henreid in particular standing out. The man makes a first rate villain! Calvet is OK but Liz Scott would have been perfect imo. The standard noir urban surroundings are discarded and replaced by the bleakness of the empty desert. This works quite well in giving the film a real sense of hopelessness.The impressive cast includes Burt Lancaster, Paul Henried, Claude Rains, Sam Jaffe, Nestor Paiva , Mike Mazurki, Peter Lorre and Corinne Calvet . The film was directed by William Dieterle who did such films as The Turning Point, Dark City and The Accused. Producing the film was Hal B. Wallis whose noirs are too many to list. The director of photography was Charles Lang Jr. Lang shot Desert Fury, Sudden Fear, The Big Heat, Man From Laramie, Female on the Beach and Ace in the Hole. Music is by Franz Waxman who scored Sunset Blvd, Rear Window, Dark Passage and He Ran all the Way among others. For a film with all this talent involved it does not get much press. I quite enjoyed it!

I have watched this movie twice and have been waiting for a DVD to be released for quite a while. You would think a film with Burt Lancaster, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Sam Jaffe would get some attention but, I don't believe this was ever available on VHS, either. Puzzling.It's a good film and worth watching. The first time I saw this it reminded me a bit of Casablanca or To Have And Have Not. Oh, not in that class of those films but just being a solid foreign adventure tale with American and English actors in an exotic setting. On the second viewing, I found the film lagged in a few spots, but it's still a very good movie. Lancaster is excellent as the good guy after diamonds in North Africa while Henreid is the sadistic bad guy and Raines is back somewhere in the middle as he was in Casablanca. Lorre and Jaffe are almost always fun to watch, too.Calvert was a French actress and may not be that familiar to English-speaking audiences. Sometimes her accent is hard to decipher. I didn't find her appealing but I also wasn't as annoyed with her as others seem to be, either. I do agree there should have been a better female lead in here.The film offers some good action and some nice black-and-white photography, especially with the nighttime desert scenes, which I really enjoyed. Hopefully, someone will do the right thing and make this available on DVD.