Rope of Sand

A forbidden diamond concession in South Africa, patrolled by the company that owns it. Mike Davis, a guide who once crossed into it and was beaten half to death on the way out, comes back, and he is the only person who knows where the stones he hid are. Vogel, the company's sadistic security chief, is waiting for him, while the manager Martingale would rather settle it without blood and puts a woman in the way instead. William Dieterle reunites three of the faces from Casablanca, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid and Peter Lorre, with a young Burt Lancaster at the centre. It is a sweaty, enclosed thriller played out in the desert, and the title says the whole thing: men trying to make a rope out of sand.