Rope of Sand suffers from a surfeit of additional dialogue. The scenes are often so verbose, Dieterle has to break them up, giving them some sort of pace by filming in very short takes from a large variety of camera angles, as in the card game sequence. On occasion he combines these effects with unobtrusive camera movement. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work. There's just too much dialogue to overcome. The movie is all but buried under its weight.
Still, some of the players do manage to come across effectively, particularly Claude Rains as a Machiavellian mining magnate and lovely Corinne Calvet, making an impressive Hollywood debut as the seductive Suzanne. (Although she receives "introducing" billing, she had in fact already appeared in three French films. Her husband John Bromfield has three small but important scenes as a tempted guard).
Lancaster is somewhat stiff as the hero, but Henreid plays the sadistic commandant with unaccustomed gusto. On the other hand, Peter Lorre's part seems to have been conceived as an afterthought. Though mumbling his way through several scenes, he has really very little to do, his one big scene - an account of Lancaster's misfortunes - being made completely redundant by its repetition in a more vital flashback form later on in the picture...
In the censored print under review, there's no climactic fight between Lancaster and Henreid at all. The former simply pushes his opponent out of the jeep, thus destroying the whole point of the film and denying the audience the all-action climax that all the elaborate groundwork has led us to expect. Instead we have a rather tame confrontation scene with Rains repeating the kind of ambivalent characterization that made him so unforgettable in Casablanca. (He has some typically bitter sarcastic humor too, which he delivers with his usual relish).
Despite his prominence in the billing, Mike Mazurki has only a small bit. But Kenny Washington impresses, whilst Sam Jaffe plies his somewhat stereotyped stethoscope with his customary reliability.
As expected, producer Wallis has dressed up this re-union with first-class production values, including Lang's moodily atmospheric black-and-white lighting, striking art direction and attractive costumes.
Still, some of the players do manage to come across effectively, particularly Claude Rains as a Machiavellian mining magnate and lovely Corinne Calvet, making an impressive Hollywood debut as the seductive Suzanne. (Although she receives "introducing" billing, she had in fact already appeared in three French films. Her husband John Bromfield has three small but important scenes as a tempted guard).
Lancaster is somewhat stiff as the hero, but Henreid plays the sadistic commandant with unaccustomed gusto. On the other hand, Peter Lorre's part seems to have been conceived as an afterthought. Though mumbling his way through several scenes, he has really very little to do, his one big scene - an account of Lancaster's misfortunes - being made completely redundant by its repetition in a more vital flashback form later on in the picture...
In the censored print under review, there's no climactic fight between Lancaster and Henreid at all. The former simply pushes his opponent out of the jeep, thus destroying the whole point of the film and denying the audience the all-action climax that all the elaborate groundwork has led us to expect. Instead we have a rather tame confrontation scene with Rains repeating the kind of ambivalent characterization that made him so unforgettable in Casablanca. (He has some typically bitter sarcastic humor too, which he delivers with his usual relish).
Despite his prominence in the billing, Mike Mazurki has only a small bit. But Kenny Washington impresses, whilst Sam Jaffe plies his somewhat stereotyped stethoscope with his customary reliability.
As expected, producer Wallis has dressed up this re-union with first-class production values, including Lang's moodily atmospheric black-and-white lighting, striking art direction and attractive costumes.