Sea of Sand

The North African campaign. A small British unit is sent far behind enemy lines ahead of a major attack, to destroy a German petrol dump. It is a desert patrol story that stays away from the heroic register; what it actually shows is thirst, breakdowns, waiting and putting up with each other. Richard Attenborough, John Gregson and Michael Craig are in it, with Guy Green directing. In the United States it went out in a shortened version called Desert Patrol. For a film of 1958 it renders the desert not as studio backdrop but as a place that genuinely wears people down and can kill them.