Burt Lancaster

Paul Henreid

Claude Rains

Peter Lorre

Corinne Calvet

Sam Jaffe

John Bromfield

Mike Mazurki

Kenny Washington

Edmund Breon

Hayden Rorke

David Thursby

Josef Marais

Miranda Marais

Everett Brown

Russell Custer

Georges Renavent

Franz Waxman

William Dieterle

Charles Lang

Warren Low

Walter Doniger

Hal B. Wallis

John Paxton

Grace Gregory

Edith Head

Hans Dreier

Sam Comer

Franz Bachelin

Richard McWhorter

Robert McCrellis

Ed Fitzharris

Adventure

Drama

Thriller

Rope of Sand

Paramount Pictures

United States of America

CinemaSerf

Paul Henreid is actually quite menacing here, as the domineering commandant "Vogel". He is charged with making sure that nothing is smuggled out of the diamond mines under his charge. Burt Lancaster ("Davis") arrives back after a previous encounter with this nemesis, this time determined to retrace his steps and recover the large treasure he was forced to abandon previously. What now ensues delivers us a pretty well-trodden narrative as these two men try to outwit the other. The duplicitous mine manager "Martingale" (Claude Rains) alights on a cunning plan to get "Suzanne" (Corinne Calvet) to use her wiles on "Davis" to try and discover the location of the lode - but she has other ideas! With the seedy "Toady" (Peter Lorre) also whispering in his ear too, the scene is set for quite a tense battle of wills. The cast looks great on paper, and Lancaster and Rains are good, too - but somehow it doesn't quite click. The story takes far too long to get underway, and when the it does it rushes through a series of set-piece scenarios before an ending that I found rather too predictable.

Afrikaans

English

Rope of Sand (1949) Original Trailer [HD]