Four men explore the Sahara for oil. They crash land in the dessert where they find an abandoned German WWII tank. With no hope of rescue, they repair the tank to drive to civilization. The German crew had done something shameful and one of the crew finds a bag of jewels. Arab nomads encounter the lost tank and seek to recover the treasure of Kalifa stolen by the Germans during the war.This is a solid B-movie premise. I do have a complaint about the dialogue. It's hard to understand sometimes when the score or the noise from the tank is too loud. Technical difficulty can be expected in some these B-movies although a remastered version could turn down the running score. Of course, I doubt there are enough fans to fix the sound worthwhile. I only recognize Tab Hunter solely because his recent death was on the news. They are all solid character actors although no one stands out. This is fine.

First of all, I have to say that I have been trying to remember the title of this film for about 40 odd years. All I could remember was that it was called 'The Treasure of ???' (UK Title)and that it starred Tab Hunter. Having now found the details and read the reviews, I can only agree with them. I always remember this film as being a terrific adventure story and would love to see it again. Unfortunately, I'm advised that it isn't available on DVD or tape, but if it was, I'd buy it like a shot. I can vividly remember the plane crashing and the occupants finding that radio aerial sticking out of a sand dune, and the resulting finding of the tank. My memory is a little hazy after that, but I can recall them finding some treasure and being pursued by I think some Nazis or Arabs. A marvellous film.

I found this movie for sale on ebay in DVD format. What I received seemed to be a very good VHS to DVD copy, with no title page or chapters. The movie itself was just like I remembered it from the early sixties. A plane owned by an oil company bellies in during a sandstorm in the North African desert and the pilot and passengers must find a way to survive.I found it interesting to note how many similarities there were with the James Stewart movie, "Flight of the Phoenix." It made me wonder if the writer of "Phoenix" might have done a variation on a theme. Similarities included an oil company, a North African desert, an airplane bellying in because of a sandstorm, broken radio transmitter, a man with a drinking problem, rationed water, fixing a broken derelict for transportation and evil Bedouins.All in all it was a pretty good yarn, but there were some hard to believe improbabilities. The idea that a sandstorm could bring down an airplane within a few hundred feet of a buried German tank in an area as vast as the Sahara was a little hard to believe. It was also hard to believe that anyone would be able to disassemble and reassemble a tank engine without a fairly complete set of tools, surely it would take more than would be carried in a fairly small twin engine aircraft. It was also a bit difficult to accept that four men would fail to hear the sound of a DC-3 flying over at about 1000 feet in the middle of the night even if they were sleeping. It was also hard to swallow the British accent of one of the Bedouins.The main plot is that of survival. Some of the subplots, such as John Dehner's drinking problem, get in the way of an otherwise good story. The tank they found was well away from the battles of North Africa because it had joined with a clan of bad guy Bedouins in a raid on another clan. During that raid a bag of jewels was stolen. The tank escaped into the desert and was buried by a sirocco. John Dehner finds the jewels while looking for a place to hide his booze but keeps it a secret. Our heroes drive the tank straight to raiding bad guys camp at an oasis (another improbability). Our heroes escape the Bedouin camp and head for a French fort battling the bad guys all the way. Sort of a variation on the 'stagecoach in the desert' western movie theme.I found the movie to be overall entertaining despite its flaws. Maybe because I remember the movie so fondly from my youth, or maybe because it is pretty good B movie.

Saw this film with my buddies as a kid many, many years ago. We were 5th and 6th graders, and we all loved the movie. Though perhaps a little contrived, the story was quite original, and kept us glued to our seats. "The Steel Lady" was one of the best action/adventure "B" movies I saw back in the 1950s. Now I'm 60, and my movie preferences are somewhat more sophisticated than they were 50 years ago, but I still would like to see this movie one more time before I'm watching flicks on the big screen in the sky... I'd love to buy it, but for some reason I have not been able to find it on the Internet.I might add, that before passing judgement on a movie from the past, one should probably take into consideration when the movie was made, and the viewing audience it was made for.