Das schwarze Zelt (1956)

Das schwarze Zelt: Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. With Donald Sinden, Anthony Steel, Anna Maria Sandri, André Morell. In the African desert, a British soldier romances the native chief’s daughter and helps the tribe fight off a Nazi attack.

“This film can be summed up as follows: sumptuous photography; turgid plot; wooden acting.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe mystery is how they could string it out for two hours. The story is that there isnu0026#39;t a story – itu0026#39;s just a travelogue across the Libyan desert. Michael Craig, who was hot property in British cinema back then, is a blacked-up Arab sheik and has no lines that I can remember. Blink and you miss him. I just couldnu0026#39;t work out what Anthony Steele would see in the love interest. Donald Sinden looks as though he has the mood of someone who has got out of bed the wrong side every morning of the shoot.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe only thing that must have stopped this from bombing at the box office was the novelty for the cinema-going public in grey, smog-ridden 1950s Britain of seeing u0026#39;realu0026#39;, u0026#39;desertu0026#39; sand in colour, something they could have done on the sea front at Clacton or Bournemouth.”