After viewing most of Bogart's 50 movies, I have attemted to rate the movies and have divided them into two listmania lists. Sahara is a 5 star movie with a 10th overall ranking (i.e.: ranked 10th out of 50 Bogart movies for entertainment and acting quality), just behind High Sierra and Sierra Madre but ahead of The Big Sleep. This is a patriotic war movie made about a year after the start of US involvement in the war. The movie shows heroic allied soldiers - from many countries all working together - beating German soldiers in battle. It was produced as part of the studio war involvement aimed for domestic consumption and as entertainment for the troops; it is made to support the war by demonstrating that the Germans were just human like the rest of us, but sacrifices are required. Bogart shows his famous acting skills plus we have a good supporting cast of young actors including Bruce Bennett, Carrol Nash, and Lloyd Bridges, with directing by Zoltan Korda.

The movie is about three American tank soldiers led by Bogart in the US Army IVth Armored Corp and set in North Africa during that WWII campaign. The other soldiers in their tank group appear to have have been wiped out; Bogart has received orders to retreat south across the desert. As they make their way across the open desert of North Africa in their temperamental tank - affectionately called Lulubelle - they meet a small group of armed British soldiers. They include a Frenchman, a South African, and an Irishman from Dublin who is leading the group. Next, they meet a series of individual soldiers from the Sudan, Italy, and a downed German flyer. After surviving a sand storm they learn of a German mechanized battalion. Finally, under Bogart's leadership they engage this batallion sized force in combat - even though they are outnumbered 50 to 1.

This black and white war movie was made in the California Mojave Desert in early 1943, and it follows the filming of Casablanca and then the war movie Action in the North Atlantic. Both prior movies were made in late 1942 at Warner Brothers where Bogart was a contract actor. This movie was made at Columbia in a one time studio star swap: Bogart for Cary Grant. DVD buyers will notice that the Columbia DVD is more expensive than the Warner DVDs of the era and it is not available with the other bundled Warner Bogart DVDs, but must be bought as a single DVD. This is just one of two movies he made outside Warners between the early 1930s and late 1940s, according to his biographer Meyers - great biography available on Amazon.com.

This is definitely a guys movie with no women in the movie. There is a lot of dusty and dirty desert war fighting - a sort of mini Lawrence of Arabia. Bogart shows steely emotions, lots of leadership, physical abilities, and skill with men and machines. All in all this is one of Bogart's more interesting movies. His character demonstrates his tough guy persona of Duke Mantee of the Petrified Forest fame and other 1930s crime figures, a Dillinger like criminal with a raspy metallic voice and snarling mannerisms, but somewhat tempered here as a good guy in Sahara. The Bogart character is a seargent and tank commander who is very patriotic and a somewhat sensitive man, as we saw in the Rick character of Casablanca. In a rousing and patriotic speach, he brings some of his men - and perhaps some viewers - to tears, and demonstrates his famous acting abilities.

The Columbia DVD is twice as expensive as most of his other Warners DVDs and it is very basic. It has just the movie and three trailers, and only one trailer is for another Bogart movie: The Caine Mutiny, a later Bogart movie at Columbia. Otherwise the DVD is sharp and clear and has good but not great music. I checked a few wideo stores and it was high priced there also. So the Amazon.com price seems okay. I bought the DVD and did not regret the price. It is a 62 year old movie that is still entertaining.

Recommend strongly for Bogart lovers: 4 or 5 stars.

I had first seen part of 'Sahara' on television. Unfortunately I had to go somewhere and was not able to watch the full movie or even learn its title. I later found out it was called 'Sahara' and sought out a copy on VHS. I found 'Sahara' to be a gripping tale that holds your attention from start to finish. It is wonderful how they have made a war movie that so effectively integrates the action and character development into a story that moves with seamless continuity. 'Sahara' is the story of an American tank crew in North Africa forced to retreat to the South through the Sahara. Along the way they pick up some British soldiers, a French soldier, a Sudanese soldier and his Italian prisoner, and take a Nazi fighter pilot prisoner. This ragtag group has to deal with running out of water in the desert and trying to find water. They are not alone in their quest as a much larger contingent of Nazi troops is after the same water and this presents our heroes with a decision to retreat or stand and fight. The backbone of this film is a diverse group of men of different cultures and race who fight together against an enemy driven by hatred. In a time when the world faced an enemy that sought to classify humans by their preference and extinguish millions without batting an eye, this movie presented a message of equality by stripping away superficial differences and yet embraced culture as something to be shared. Unfortunately Hollywood and the American public had not quite embraced that message as other films continued to be littered with stereotypes and the public did not embrace equality; and yet that is still a work in progress today. Perhaps some may feel that I have over rated 'Sahara' or even read too much into it. Irregardless, it was a stand out for 1943 and it is just as pertinent today.--Bob

I finally picked this up on DVD. I had seen in on video previously. This is a excellent war film with strong acting on all parts. The story moves well and you really get the feeling of being in a hot sandy desert. It is jingoistic for sure but I dont mind, as were most of the war movies during that period.

The international composition of Bogarts tank and passengers I felt was a way to show that international cooperation was going to be essential in overcoming the germans and that the Italians really were in this conflict over their head.

Anyway very enjoyable film

By 1943, the war in Europe had been going on for four years, and the United States had been involved for two. The war was far from being won, and Hollywood accordingly presented images of good old-fashioned American virtues of grit that sound increasingly quaint in the light of the modern tendency to downgrade the military. But in SAHARA, director Zoltan Korda involves the viewer directly in the war against fascism by presenting Humphrey Bogart as Sgt. Joe Gunn, in a role as memorable as any that he ever had. He, Dan Duryea, and Bruce Bennet are tankmen lost somewhere in the North African desert just before the battle of El Alemain. They seek to reenter the war and in doing so, pick up a number of equally lost fighters, two of whom are the enemy. J. Carrol Naish is Guiseppe, an Italian infantryman who has long since lost confidence in Mussolini. Kurt Krueger is a downed Luftwaffe pilot who is forced to ally himself with Guiseppe, a man who he is sure is not far elevated, racially speaking, over the Jews who were being tossed into crematoria. Bogart discovers an oasis that provides just enough water to keep his men alive. The plot complicates when an Afrika Korps battalion is short on water and attacks the oasis for its precious water.

SAHARA is typical of the war films of the time in that Hollywood knew that audiences would respond patriotically if the film combined crackling scenes of realistic combat with powerful and believable characters. Bogart as Joe Gunn more than delivers in nearly every scene in which he appears. His craggy face and gravel voice are totally convincing, especially in scenes like the one in which he responds to the not unreasonable question as to why they should risk their lives in battle when to run away seems the more prudent course. Bogie deadpans that delaying the Nazis at every step is the surest way to win the war. Director Korda makes sure that Bogart's tank crew is a multinational ethnic mix of Brits, French, Nigerian, and even Guiseppe, who in one stirring scene, repudiates his Italian Duce by telling Kurt Krueger, "Must I kiss the hand that beats me and lick the boot that kicks me? No! I'd rather stay in this miserable hole than to return to an Italy like that." SAHARA provided just the right note of infectious enthusiasm for a nation to rally around its military, even if today's peace-at-all-cost activists can't quite understand why.

The incomparable Humphrey Bogart is tough, gritty and determined as Sgt. Joe Gunn commander of the remainder of a U.S. tank crew retreating south from the Nazis into the Libyan desert. His crew including a young Dan Duryea and the veteran actor Bruce Bennett pick up a small group of Allied stragglers on the way. Running low on supplies and water they set out for a well marked on a map. They encounter a British Sudanese sergeant major played by Rex Ingram leading an Italian prisoner played by the versatile and Oscar nominated J. Carroll Naish. Finding the well to have dried up, the rag tag bunch is led by the beautifully spoken Ingram to a distant well by following an old caravan trail.

Little do they know but they are being pursued by a mechanized German battalion of about 500 men also desperate for water. Bogart and his group find a scant supply of water at the second well which is located amid some ruins deep in the desert. They ambush a German scouting party and learn of their quandry. They release prisoners with the false knowledge that there is plenty of water to be found to lure the battalion in. They decide to make a stand at the well to delay the Nazi troops while sending out Bennett in a captured Nazi vehicle for help.

Sahara is an excellent wartime movie which serves as a testimony to the resolve of our troops to defend their country and ideals in the face of deplorable circumstamces. Bogart is terrific as usual. J. Carroll Naish does a superb acting job playing the disillusioned Italian prisoner, a mechanic from Turin, Giuseppe.