Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

gavin6942 A man (Burt Lancaster) abused by a sadistic mining company cop (Paul Henreid) before he could tell where on their desert property he had found diamonds decides to steal them instead.Glenn Erickson reflected on the background of the film and how it was received when first released, "Although William Dieterle's direction is capable, the script works too hard to introduce an overly familiar collection of stock thriller types ... Critics generally liked Lancaster's performance, even if they slighted the work of Claude Rains and Peter Lorre and saved the bulk of their praise for Paul Henried's nasty villain." Indeed, those who watch the film for Lorre may be disappointed on little screen time he receives.Reflecting decades later, Burt Lancaster singled this out as his least favorite film. That was due to personal reasons, however, so may not necessarily reflect whether this was (in his opinion) his worst performance.

kenjha It is set in Africa and includes three cast members from "Casablanca," but it is a far cry from that classic. The main problem is the lousy script, a muddled plot about hidden gold in the desert. It's quite talky for an adventure film and most of the dialog is boring and does nothing to help the narrative flow. What little action there is is clumsily choreographed. Lancaster and Henreid ham it up. Lorre plays a vague character who talks a lot but says nothing. Rains comes off best. Calvet makes an unimpressive American film debut as the love interest. Not only can she not act, she has an annoying voice that sounds like a whiny space alien.

MARIO GAUCI This is the fourth merely adequate Burt Lancaster movie I am watching in a row (as part of my ongoing tribute to him to mark, albeit a month in advance, the fifteenth anniversary of his death) which comes more of a disappointment in this case given the fine director (William Dieterle) and cast (Lancaster, Paul Henried, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sam Jaffe and Mike Mazurki) involved. While it is true that Dieterle's career had already peaked with PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948) and went slowly downhill from there, the film's main fault lies is in the surprisingly uninteresting (given the desert location and diamond mine setting) plot that fails to give rise to much excitement or memorable incident. Naturally, with a cast of that calibre, some good scenes or lines cannot be amiss and, in particular, Rains (as a Macchiavelian director of the company) and Henried (effectively cast against type as the brutish foreman) seem to be relishing their roles; conversely, Lorre and Jaffe seem wasted in their underwritten parts of, respectively, a philosophizing fence and an alcoholic doctor. Another liability is leading lady Corinne Calvet: while looking sensual enough as the femme fatale hired by Rains to seduce adventurer Lancaster and eventually falling for him, her thick French accent become decidedly grating after a while! Incidentally, the copy I acquired is taken from a German print - with the opening credits in that language but the film, luckily, in English! I suppose it would be interesting to compare Val Guest's film from another era that I also happen to have in my collection - KILLER FORCE aka THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES (1975) - which, apart from the similar theme, also makes use of a stellar cast (Peter Fonda, Telly Savalas, Christopher Lee, Hugh O'Brian and O.J. Simpson) but, unfortunately, I will not have time to do so at present. I do not know if the fact that I have been watching lightweight fare all Summer long has made me lose patience somewhat with more of the same but, clearly, I was expecting to enjoy ROPE OF SAND more than I eventually did. Or, perhaps I am just overly anxious to start the upcoming Halloween Challenge in October...

Mel11 I'm glad that I am not the only one who intensely dislikes Corrine Calvet in this movie. ;-) Unfortunately I have never seen the original English version. I only know the German dubbed one. But I doubt that Mrs. Calvet's voice could be any worse then her German voice which is absolutely terrible.I really like this movie but as Anne Sharp already wrote Mrs. Calvet makes it difficult to enjoy.Also I noticed two few mistakes:1. In the beginning sequence you see a large "warning" sign in three languages, Dutch, English and German. The German translation should have obviously been "Warnung, Sperrgebiet!" but on the sign it says "Sperroit".2. When Davis wakes up and finds that Ingrim has gone the horse you see is clearly a different one then the one he rides on in the next scene.