SEA OF SAND
UK, 1958, 97 minutes, Black and white.
Richard Attenborough, Michael Craig, John Gregson, Vincent Ball, Barry Foster, Percy Herbert, Ray Mc Anally.
Directed by Guy Green.
Sea of Sand is one of the many films made in the mid to late 1950s recapitulating the war effort. Many of these films starred the stars of this particular film. John Gregson was a great favourite at this time. Richard Attenborough continues his role of cheeky young men in service – which started with In Which We Serve in the early 1940s. Michael Craig was a solid romantic lead in British movies at this time.
The film has nothing particularly new but does it effectively with strong black and white photography and the film was made in Libya itself. The film shows a small group behind enemy lines during the preparations for hurling back Rommel in the North African desert. The small group clashes within itself, confronts Germans, suffers losses and has to make its way back to camp, walking in a bedraggled way through the desert.
Guy Green was a cinematographer who started to direct films in the late 1950s and moved to Hollywood in the 1960s and made some of the blockbusters there during the 1960s and 1970s, such films as Jacqueline Sussan’s Once is Not Enough, Light in the Piazza, A Patch of Blue and A Walk in the Spring Rain.
1.The popularity of this kind of war film at the time? Now? An opportunity to see the kind of action that took place in World War Two? The British war effort? British spirit?
2.The location photography in Libya? The military headquarters? The desert, the sand and the dunes? The title? The musical score – and the cheery whistling by Brodie, the more serious and ominous tones of the score?
3.The British action in North Africa? The confrontation with Rommel? Audience knowledge of the history of what took place? The British raids prior to the final confrontation with Rommel? Behind enemy lines, the exploding of fuel dumps?
4.The British in the desert, the rah-rah spirit? Away from home, memories of home? Family lives? The importance of the radio programs which White listened to as he was left stranded in the desert? The music, the garden programs?
5.The focus on Captain Williams, straight up and down, military career? His arrival, the reaction of the men, especially Captain Cotten? The contrast between the two? Clashes of mentality? On the raid together, their interactions, relying on each other? Williams and his final self-sacrifice? The stiff upper lip?
6.The contrast with Cotten, his background as an architect? His surliness, anger? Interactions with Williams, criticising him? His part in the raid? Heroism? His acknowledging his debt to Williams at the end?
7.Brodie, Richard Attenborough and the cheeky style, the driver, the whisky? With the men, jokes? On the raid? His drinking, the rebuke of the superiors? His return? A typical English character?
8.Sergeant Nesbitt, the Australian background, cheerful, his contribution to the raid? Good humour? Matheson, young, married, afraid, his panic? His apologies?
9.The range of British soldiers, those in authority, the ordinary soldiers? Their skills in carrying out the raid? Their courage? The realism of the raid, being fired on, discovered, the Germans turning on the light, the truck seizing, the punctures…? White and his injury? His being left behind, Brodie not being allowed to stay? The struggle of the walk back to camp?
10.The picture of the Germans, seen as the enemy? Their skills, the discovery of the raiders, the firing on them, the lights?
11.A picture of action in war? The war of the past?
