Sun 29 Mar 2015
SAHARA. Columbia Tristar / Showtime, Australia-US, 1995. James Belushi, Alan David Lee, Simon Westaway, Mark Lee, Michael Massee, Robert Wisdom, Jerome Ehlers, Angelo D’Angelo, Paul Empson. Written by David Phillips, based on the earlier 1943 screenplay by Philip MacDonald. Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith.
Sahara, an Australian-American made for TV movie starring James Belushi, may very well be the best war film from the 1990s you haven’t seen. Or maybe you’ve seen it? Then you’ll know that I’m exaggerating, although not by a whole lot.
Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, Sahara is a gritty, taut remake of the classic 1943 film starring Humphrey Bogart. Set in Libya during the North African campaign, the movie has elements that create an eminently watchable and engaging war film: heroism, sacrifice, male camaraderie, and a ragtag group of men forced to undertake a seemingly impossible mission behind enemy lines.
Although it took me a few minutes to get comfortable with Belushi as the lead in a North African war film, I now have to admit that his portrayal of Sergeant Joe Gunn, an American tank commander, was truly outstanding. Gunn is a sweaty tough guy, but with a soft spot for his men. He’s a complex character, capable of ordering his to mow down advancing German soldiers, but also responsible for saving an Italian POW from near certain death in the inhospitable desert. The look on his face upon seeing his friend shot and killed by a German infantryman is more reminiscent of war movies from the 1940s and 1950s than from the 1990s or after. That’s drama, folks. No overwrought dialogue or musical fanfare is needed.
In many ways, that’s what makes Sahara such a compelling, if little known, war film. Yes, it has the requisite action sequences and solid, coherent plot. But Sahara has something too many war films made in the past twenty years don’t have: heart.
With Trenchard-Smith’s skillful direction, which heightens the suspense, and with believable dialogue that draws you into the story, the viewer really does end up caring about what happens to the main characters. They’re all individuals, each with distinct personalities. The beaten down, but still plugging along, M3 Lee tank, Lulu Belle, has a personality all her own.
A scene from the film, in which Gunn encounters a ragtag group of stranded Australian, British, and French soldiers, can be watched here:
March 30th, 2015 at 7:37 am
Jonathan,
Thanks for bringing this movie to our attention. I’ve never heard of it before. The Bogart version is one of my favorite WW2 movies, “Battleground” being my #1! I’ll make an effort to locate a copy of this one though. You make it sound good.
March 30th, 2015 at 8:55 am
I’ve not seen many of James Belushi’s movies. I think that’s because he makes mostly comedies or comedy-dramas, and that’s a genre I don’t watch all that often. But the movies I have seen that he’s been in, I’ve been impressed. He’s a natural in expressing his character’s thoughts and actions in not only words but also with his face and body language. I’ve not seen this one, and as Jon says, probably not too many people have. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.
March 30th, 2015 at 8:57 am
One of Belushi’s movies that I have seen and that I’ve reviewed for this blog is MADE MEN:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=893
It begins:
“I found James Belushi’s performance in this fine shoot-em-up comedy crime caper to be a work of art, and I’m not kidding.”
March 30th, 2015 at 2:12 pm
It’s definitely worth a look. Also, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s — considered an auteur by many – films tend to be quite good and thoughtful
March 30th, 2015 at 2:34 pm
Sorry Jonathan, but you could not get me to watch this with a whip, a chair, and a gun. SAHARA, loosely based on Philip MacDonald’s novel PATROL and the John Ford film PATROL, stars not only Bogie, but Dan Duryea, Bruce Bennett, J. Carrol Naish, Kurt Katch, and George Tobias. It’s an outstanding Warner’s war film imaginatively shot and suspensefully directed.
There is no performance that could get me to waste time on a no name remake. It’s nothing against Belushi, he’s tolerable, and I’ll grant he may even be good here, but that’s no reason to waste time and money when the original is easily available on DVD or Warner’s VOD.
I didn’t bother with the Guy Stockwell BEAU GESTE either, or the Beau Bridges FOUR FEATHERS. What next, CASABLAMCA with Chevy Chase? GONE WITH THE WIND with George Clooney and Lady Gaga?
There is nothing new to say here. War is hell, people are complex, American GI’s were courageous and inventive.
There are plenty of films that need to be remade. This one did not. If you can’t improve on the original somehow don’t bother. I can think of no world in which I would want to see any Bogart film remade with James Belushi.
Life’s not long enough to waste the time on this when the original is easy to see.
March 30th, 2015 at 5:47 pm
For my retro-thoughts about the original novel by Philip MacDonald, see http://newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com/2014/09/forgotten-suspense-patrol-by-philip.html
I saw “Sahara” in the link from Bill Crider’s blog and the first thing that came to mind was the Matthew McConighey movie based on a Clive Cussler novel. I never saw that one either.
March 30th, 2015 at 7:03 pm
I understand how a remake of a Bogart film can seem both unnecessary and unwise, but I didn’t feel that this was the case in this film. I was skeptical of Belushi at first. Turns out I was in good company as this blogger makes clear here:
http://scaredshiftlessinshasta.blogspot.com/2011/02/sahara-vs-sahara.html
March 30th, 2015 at 7:04 pm
FROM THE REVIEW:
“In April 1995, the made-for-cable-TV remake of Sahara debuted, and I totally intended to skip it. This was an easy, no-brainer decision predicated solely on the fact that James Belushi was cast as Sergeant Joe Gunn, a part that Humphrey Bogart played in the 1943 classic. I thought it was movie sacrilege to cast Belushi in this role. It would be like watching a remake of Casablanca with Rob Schneider cast as Rick. However, due to my tech deficient girlfriend at the time, I wound up with the last hour and thirty minutes of this film on tape instead of an early season Cardinals/Cubs game. I fully intended to tape over the movie without watching, but in setting up the tape position, I started to watch it and just couldn’t stop.”
March 30th, 2015 at 7:13 pm
This and other positive reviews of the film have definitely piqued my interest in seeing it.
The 1943 SAHARA is a fine war film with a memorably sturdy cast. J. Carrol Naish’s performance in it as an Italian P.O.W. even earned him an Academy Award nomination. Surprisingly, it was a Columbia film, Bogart being on loan from Warners. Alas, George Tobias was not among the cast, though he was fighting the good fight that year in Howard Hawks’ AIR FORCE.
And there’s yet another film titled SAHARA; a 1984 vehicle for Brooke Shields!
March 30th, 2015 at 7:17 pm
Michael Massee is a very good character actor as well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cR1wj-g__A
March 30th, 2015 at 7:44 pm
I’m not arguing with anyone liking the film or even that it is bad. I haven’t seen it. But there is nothing there to attract me to the film. I hope I’m clear that is just me and personal.
Bogart and Bennett were both Warner’s actors, and the film looks and feels more like a Warner’s war film than Columbia. Tobias is in so many of these I see him in them whether he is there or not — a bit like Alan Hale in Errol Flynn movies.
Still, I don’t see anyway that cast could in any way approach the first one. I didn’t watch the Lee Majors remake of HIGH NOON either. It’s just a personal rule of mine. So far I haven’t missed much this way, and no matter how good his performance my tolerance for Belushi is thin as cheap thread.
March 30th, 2015 at 8:15 pm
Fred, Comment #6
A great review of the original novel by Philip MacDonald that the original SAHARA (1943) was based on. I hadn’t known about it before now, and while I don’t usually read war novels per se, this sounds like one I might.
And I hadn’t known the connection between the book and the Bogart SAHARA until I did some research on Google just now.
All AFI says about the movie is “Onscreen credits note that this picture was based on an incident in the Soviet photoplay The Thirteen . That film, released as Trinadstat in Russia, was a 1937 Amkino Soviet production directed by Mikhail Romm.” No mention of THE LOST PATROL.
But your review led me to the Wikipedia page for that earlier movie, and this:
“The screenplay was by Dudley Nichols, adapted by Garrett Fort from the novel Patrol by Philip MacDonald. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography by Harold Wenstrom. The film is a remake of a 1929 British silent film, also named The Lost Patrol. The earlier film was directed and written by Walter Summers and is based on the same novel. The Lost Patrol starred Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, J.M. Kerrigan and Alan Hale.
“The Lost Patrol was reprised in a number of films, the script was the basis for the 1936 Soviet film The Thirteen, set by director Mikhail Romm in the Central Asia desert during the Basmachi rebellion. This Soviet film was then adapted in Sahara, featuring Humphrey Bogart. Last of the Comanches is a Western remake from 1953.”
March 30th, 2015 at 8:23 pm
Gary, Comment #9
From the brief description of it on IMDb, the Brooke Sheilds SAHARA was a different story altogether. I thought so, but I had to take a look.
It’s not surprising. As I understand it, the Sahara is an awfully big desert, and all kinds of stories could easily take place there.
I didn’t do any research on the filmed version of the Clive Cussler book that Fred mentioned in Comment #6, since it isn’t relevant either, but I seem to remember that Cussler at the time was very unhappy with it.
March 31st, 2015 at 2:48 am
Apparently, SAHARA aired originally on SHOWTIME
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/29/arts/television-review-a-remake-of-the-1943-sahara.html
March 31st, 2015 at 2:50 am
I looked for a copy of the Mikhail Romm movie at a local video store that has a pretty good selection of hard-to-find titles and didn’t see it. I think it’d be interesting to see if there is a copy available. I own THE LOST PATROL on DVD
March 31st, 2015 at 6:54 am
This has been a fascinating discussion.
Patrol has led to an unexpected confluence between Philip MacDonald, John Ford, Zoltan Korda, Mikhail Romm and Andre de Toth (Last of the Comanches). This is about the most deliriously diverse group of talent imaginable.
I usually do not like war movies. “War films” must be the most overrated genre of all time. IMHO there are less than 20 good war films. By contrast, there are hundreds of good Westerns, crime films or science fiction films. Ford’s “The Lost Patrol” is one of the handful of decent war movies.
I’ve only see a little of Brian Trenchard-Smith’s work. Consistently enjoyed his episodes of such early 1990’s TV series as “Silk Stalkings” and “Time Trax”.
March 31st, 2015 at 12:19 pm
On general principles, I’m with you, David, on remakes of movies, especially classic ones. This Jim Belushi one, though, seems to be an exception. Lots of the IMDb reviews follow the pattern of the one Jon quotes in Comment #8. Paraphrasing, “I didn’t expect to like this one, but it really turned out pretty good.”
Even the NY TIMES review begins: “Television remakes of Hollywood classics are usually disastrous. A stunning exception can be found tomorrow in Showtime’s SAHARA.”
Not that I’m trying to change your mind! I feel the same way about the continuation of book series once the original author is dead. I’ve made up my mind that I won’t read them any more. I’ve just learned that someone is going to be writing a sequel to Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander novels. Authorized by his family but not by Eva Gabrielsson, whom he lived with and who knew Larrson and his work more than anyone.
I bought the latest Philip Marlowe novel, but I don’t know exactly why. I didn’t buy the latest Hercule Poirot novel. Even if it’s well-written, I haven’t read all of the Christie ones, so why read a fake one.
The last counterfeit addition to a series that I have read was one by Ace Atkins about Robert B. Parker’s Spenser. It was OK but it felt like a lot of tire spinning with nothing under the hood.
And I’m really tired of all of the Sherlock Holmes stories being written today. It was fun at the beginning, but it’s long been clear that Doyle hit gold with the character, and most of those following in his wake are copycats with nothing original to say.
March 31st, 2015 at 1:05 pm
Almost ignoring all of the interesting comments above, and putting in my vote for the Bogie version, I’m wondering why, when seeing the title of the post I thought of a WWII a film about a crashed bomber in the desert? So what would that film be?
March 31st, 2015 at 1:27 pm
Mike,
You might appreciate Trenchard-Smith’s work. I’d recommend looking his DEAD END DRIVE IN.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/06/dead-end-drive-in-rewatched-politics-dressed-up-as-frothy-entertainment
March 31st, 2015 at 1:54 pm
Richard
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) comes to mind first, but that wasn’t a WWII film, was it?
March 31st, 2015 at 3:34 pm
I don’t mind remakes per se, THE MALTESE FALCON is a remake as is the best version of THE GLASS KEY, but I need a compelling reason to watch one. I will watch one if the original is hard to find which is why I had seen THE HOUR OF THIRTEEN before the original THE MYSTERY OF THE DEAD POLICE (MacDonald again) and the Betty Box THE THIRTY NINE STEPS before the Hitchcock, or I’LL NEVER FORGET YOU before BERKLEY SQUARE, but I had fairly compelling reasons for each of those.
I don’t doubt this is good, or an exception, but even when they made it the original was easy to see. And frankly Belushi’s screen persona is one that I find annoying so watching anything with him is something of a challenge for me. I freely admit it is a prejudice, I’m not sure he could give a performance I wanted to see.
Mike, War Movie covers such a lot of territory. Are we calling A FAREWELL TO ARMS, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, THIS ABOVE ALL, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, or CASABLANCA war movies? MAN HUNT, MINISTRY OF FEAR … or just those about soldiers in combat. Can we compare SGT. YORK as a war movie to UP PERISCOPE.
Some war movies are adventure films, some spy movies, some character pieces, some biographical, some love stories. It’s hard to define War Movie.
If you mean films like SAHARA I probably agree with your assessment though.
The Cussler SAHARA is a mess, but a mildly entertaining one, though it isn’t hard to see why Cussler objected and the way the studio mishandled it the film was out of theaters before anyone knew it had been released (or maybe it escaped). Actually it’s faithful enough to Cussler’s book and not badly cast, but no one could have made a film out of a book that ends with finding Lincoln’s mummy in a Confederate Ironclad in the Sahara. If Cussler expected them to film that he had been sniffing something illegal.
I just don’t want to think of the Brooke Shields one. It is unusual to have four movies with the same name and only two of them a vaguely related.
March 31st, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Add Command Decision as pretty well the most serious war film of all covering as it does the process in which men are sent in to actual combat.
March 31st, 2015 at 6:09 pm
Reading back over this entry and the subsequent stream of comments, I’ve noticed something that strikes me as odd:
In a detailed essay and more than twenty comments, with Jim Belushi figuring in most of them –
– there hasn’t been so much as a single mention of his brother John.
This may qualify as a breakthrough of sorts for Jim, who’s been toiling in John’s shadow for as long as he’s been in the business.
And always in a negative sense.
For the longest time, it seems that devotees of John Belushi’s have held the fact that Jim Belushi not only outlived John, but went on to a genuinely successful career of his own – the one John should have had, in their view – against him.
Even here in Chicago, the Belushi family’s home town, there’s an element of outright hostility in some reviews that Jim gets – at best grudging, at worst outright pans of his mere presence in anything (if I read or hear the Mozart/Salieri comparison again (false equivalency if ever there was), I’ll look for something heavy to toss through the nearest window …).
As of today, James Belushi has lived approximately twenty more years than John Belushi did.
He has had a sustained success in movies and TV, as opposed to his brother’s quickfire stardom and equally quickfire fall.
It’s called life – some prosper, others don’t, but trying to assign karmic blame on one or the other – not a good way to go through the world.
March 31st, 2015 at 6:37 pm
I like Jim, not so much John. And Did not know about the hometown negativity, but we live in that kind of world where too many things seem to be driven by social media, or any kind of media by people who apparently have nothing much to do. One for, or against, socialism.
March 31st, 2015 at 8:55 pm
I’m not a big fan of John, and certainly don’t hold the shortness of his career against Jim, frankly I disliked them about equally. I don’t need to go to the movies to know obnoxious fat guys, which is both actors screen persona. ANIMAL HOUSE was fine, the same character over and over and over again not so much.
I admit I watched Jim’s series, but only because of the wife and the sister in law.
I can imagine it has not been easy living in that shadow, and I know critics have been hard on him. But, since I did not appreciate John’s ‘genius’ it follows that John lite wasn’t going to thrill me either. On the other hand Jim was clearly trying to build on John’s screen persona so it makes criticizing him a bit more fair. If he had played a totally different type and been attacked it would have been truly unfair.
Entertainment is not fair. It has never been fair and never will be. What makes one person a star and another not is virtually indefinable.
The simple fact is Jim would have had no career at all if not for John. Does he deserve to be taken on his own now? Not if he’s still doing his brother’s schtick all this time later. Stretching in one role in one movie is not a major career change.
More power to him for his career, the same to Tom Arnold, but don’t make me watch them. Big dumb loud obnoxious fat guys are not exactly in short supply around here.
But if Jim Belushi was truly bothered by the comparisons to his brother he only needed to try a different screen image to escape it. Much of his twenty year career has traded on John’s name and persona, if you do that you have to expect to be compared to the person whose name you are building your career on. If you follow in bigger footsteps you have to expect a bit of hostility to haunt you.
In my case John doesn’t come into the equation. Jim just had twenty years or so playing roles I would as soon avoid watching. I would have avoided them with John too. I reserve the right to dislike an actor because I dislike him and be as unfair as I want to be. When it comes to entertainment I don’t feel a need to reward work I don’t like out of fairness.
To be absolutely honest if neither John or Jim had ever been in a single television show or film I would not personally have missed a thing, including ANIMAL HOUSE and BLUES BROTHERS. The Belushi name is more likely to keep me from watching anything that attract me. Strictly personally, which is how I judge entertainment, I avoided them both then and now.
March 31st, 2015 at 10:18 pm
I tend to avoid watching either John Belushi or Tom Arnold in anything they’re in myself, but I think brother Jim has found a very comfortable niche for himself, without the “quickfire stardom and equally quickfire fall” that Mike Doran attributes to John, and he’s certainly right about that.
If you’d asked me for a list of my 100 most favorite actors before Jon’s review was posted, Jim Belushi wouldn’t have been even close to being on it, and maybe he still wouldn’t. No flash, nothing to hold him firmly in mind, but a solid performer through and through every time I’ve seen him, which admittedly, as I said way up above there in Comment #2, has not been all that often.
If I may, though, I’ll repeat what I said, then, and still believe:
“But the movies I have seen that he’s been in, I’ve been impressed. He’s a natural in expressing his character’s thoughts and actions in not only words but also with his face and body language.”
He’s not a big star, nor will he ever be, but I think he’s better than you give him credit for.
April 1st, 2015 at 3:23 am
I do think that had it not been for Trenchard-Smith’s direction, Belushi’s performance in this would not have been so notable. In fact, I think the direction of the film is also worth a discussion. And for those who haven’t seen the film, worth a close inspection
April 1st, 2015 at 3:56 am
Jonathan,
Thank you very much for the tips about the Brian Trenchard-Smith film to watch.
Will try to check it out.
I need to revisit some of Brian Trenchard-Smith’s TV work, too.
It seemed of good quality, when seen years ago.
April 1st, 2015 at 8:27 am
Way back in comment #18, Richard asked about a movie with a WW2 plane crashed in the desert. Only thing I can remember was another terrific Twilight Zone episode where all the men are dead, but just don’t know it.
April 1st, 2015 at 8:51 am
Paul
That TZ episode was “King Nine Will Not Return.”
From wikipedia, it was “the season two premiere episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on September 30, 1960 on CBS.
“The World War II B-25 Mitchell bomber King Nine has crashed in the desert. Captain James Embry finds himself stranded, alone except for the wreckage and the mystery of what happened to his crew, all of whom have disappeared….”
Robert Cummings played Embry.
Also: “The episode was based on the discovery of the B-24 Liberator four engine bomber Lady Be Good and her crew’s remains, which had crash-landed at night, deep in the Libyan desert after running out of fuel, while returning from a WWII bombing mission over Naples…”
Then following a link to the Lady Be Good page:
“The Lady Be Good incident was indirectly referenced in a couple of television shows and movies. Sole Survivor, a 1970 made-for-TV movie, was about the ghosts of a B-25 bomber crew that crashed in the Libyan desert…
Followed of course by a mention of the TZ episode.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Be_Good_%28aircraft%29
April 1st, 2015 at 5:26 pm
Richard may well have been thinking of THE PURPLE PLAIN with Gregory Peck, based on H.E. Bates bestselling novel. Peck’s plane goes down in the desert and they struggle to get back to camp through Japanese troops hunting them (yes, it is Far East, not the Sahara).
It’s the only movie on that theme I can think of and was once well known though seldom shown now.
January 31st, 2016 at 4:00 am
I too was amazed to see a remake of,in my opinion,one of Bogy’s best. Especially with Jim Belushi playing his part. But, I happened to be channel surfing tonight, and when I saw there was a Sahara remake made in 1995, it was a done deal that I’d give it a look see. I was surprised to see that, at least for the first half, it stuck to the original script. After that, it strayed quite a bit. I have to say that if a remake had to be made of this classic, it wasn’t a bad job either in the acting or script. The only question I’ve ever had about the original was…..why in the hell didn’t they just Tie Up The Nazi Pilot?