The film opens with an older Michael York setting the scene for the main events of the film which are seen in retrospective. His monologue begins;
" Too many years have passed since that time; and now, my memory fools me. My thoughts become lost in a confused jumble....".
And n'er a truer word were spake; I should have known....
I recently recorded 'The Secret of the Sahara' when it was broadcast on UK TV channel 'movies4men', as a movie of about 2-02" actual running time. I was expecting something pretty good; after all with a decent cast, epic desert scenery, an intriguing plot, and a Morricone score, how could you go wrong?.
Well, I think I know the answer to that now.
First of all you make a mini-series which runs six hours. Because it is to be broadcast on TV in 1988, you shoot it in 4:3, (even though you are using Panavision cameras). To fill the time, you work the plot so that you have lots of characters who are peripheral to the main thrust of the story. You shoot and reshoot in the exact same setups, so that 'the empty desert' is nearly always full of footprints already. You have lots of people with strangely pale skin and have them play desert dwellers alongside folk who have the complexion of old shoe leather. You have your lead man, who has the plummiest British accent in recorded history, attempt to play an American.
Then, you cut about four hours of what you have made, and attempt to cobble the rest of it into something that makes sense, all so that you can have 'a movie' with a vaguely normal running time.
Well I can say that as a visual spectacle, the 4:3 format does it no favours, and whatever film-to-video transfer was done, the result is sub-VHS quality. That isn't so bad, there are plenty of films like that; it is just a wasted opportunity. However, unless you meant to do it from the start, and plan very carefully, you just can't cut four hours out of something and still have it make sense; as another reviewer has mentioned, characters appear and disappear for little reason, and even the main thrust of the plot is made obscure by all this.
To my amusement, at one point Michael York 'pretends' to be an Engishman; 'ah-ha' I thought; 'this will be a plot twist where he will be revealed to have been English all along, and to have been pretending (badly) to be an American prior to this'.... No such luck....
Later on, the David Soul character asks 'what is this place?'. I couldn't have told him, and (based on the events portrayed) I don't see how anyone else could have, either.
I daresay that if you had seen and enjoyed the mini-series, the condensed movie version might well be like 'the greatest hits' to you. But if you haven't, it is very likely to seem like a load of garbled nonsense.
If you have a special interest in any of the lead actors you are probably going to want to watch this, but otherwise, I think there are better things to see.
" Too many years have passed since that time; and now, my memory fools me. My thoughts become lost in a confused jumble....".
And n'er a truer word were spake; I should have known....
I recently recorded 'The Secret of the Sahara' when it was broadcast on UK TV channel 'movies4men', as a movie of about 2-02" actual running time. I was expecting something pretty good; after all with a decent cast, epic desert scenery, an intriguing plot, and a Morricone score, how could you go wrong?.
Well, I think I know the answer to that now.
First of all you make a mini-series which runs six hours. Because it is to be broadcast on TV in 1988, you shoot it in 4:3, (even though you are using Panavision cameras). To fill the time, you work the plot so that you have lots of characters who are peripheral to the main thrust of the story. You shoot and reshoot in the exact same setups, so that 'the empty desert' is nearly always full of footprints already. You have lots of people with strangely pale skin and have them play desert dwellers alongside folk who have the complexion of old shoe leather. You have your lead man, who has the plummiest British accent in recorded history, attempt to play an American.
Then, you cut about four hours of what you have made, and attempt to cobble the rest of it into something that makes sense, all so that you can have 'a movie' with a vaguely normal running time.
Well I can say that as a visual spectacle, the 4:3 format does it no favours, and whatever film-to-video transfer was done, the result is sub-VHS quality. That isn't so bad, there are plenty of films like that; it is just a wasted opportunity. However, unless you meant to do it from the start, and plan very carefully, you just can't cut four hours out of something and still have it make sense; as another reviewer has mentioned, characters appear and disappear for little reason, and even the main thrust of the plot is made obscure by all this.
To my amusement, at one point Michael York 'pretends' to be an Engishman; 'ah-ha' I thought; 'this will be a plot twist where he will be revealed to have been English all along, and to have been pretending (badly) to be an American prior to this'.... No such luck....
Later on, the David Soul character asks 'what is this place?'. I couldn't have told him, and (based on the events portrayed) I don't see how anyone else could have, either.
I daresay that if you had seen and enjoyed the mini-series, the condensed movie version might well be like 'the greatest hits' to you. But if you haven't, it is very likely to seem like a load of garbled nonsense.
If you have a special interest in any of the lead actors you are probably going to want to watch this, but otherwise, I think there are better things to see.