Author: womo

Rope of Sand is a 1949 American adventure-suspense film noir directed by William Dieterle, produced by Hal Wallis, and starring Burt Lancaster and three stars from Wallis’s Casablanca – Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre. The film introduces Corinne Calvet and features Sam Jaffe, John Bromfield, and Kenny Washington in supporting roles. The picture is set in South West Africa. Desert portions of the film were shot in Yuma, Arizona.

Plot
Hunting guide Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster) came across a cache of diamonds in a mining area, located in a remote region of South West Africa. He was caught by the mine’s police, but refused to reveal the diamonds’ location, even under torture at the hand of the diamond company’s security chief, Vogel (Paul Henreid). He left South Africa for some time.

Davis returns to get the diamonds, which he still expects will be at the spot where he found them. The mining company’s owner, Martingale (Claude Rains), tries to find out where the diamonds can be found by guile rather than force. He hires a beautiful prostitute, Suzanne Renaud (Corinne Calvet), to seduce Davis, and get him to reveal the secret location. Davis plans an illegal entry into the diamond mining area, to retrieve the diamonds, and plans to escape to Portuguese Angola. Meanwhile, Vogel is attracted to Suzanne, and offers to marry her; but Suzanne is attracted to Davis, who is more interested in his diamonds than Suzanne. Davis finds the diamonds; but Martingale threatens to kill Suzanne, unless Davis gives him the diamonds. Davis gives up the diamonds, and ends up leaving the country with Suzanne, discovering that he loves her more than the diamonds.

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A G.I. finds himself the target of assassins when he is asked to assume the identity of a British Colonel.

Looking for more laughs? Check out http://www.youtube.com/c/Paramountvault

American GI Ernie Williams, admittedly weak-kneed, has an uncanny resemblance to British Colonel MacKenzie. Williams, also a master of imitation and disguise, is asked to impersonate the Colonel, ostensibly to allow the Colonel to make a secret trip East. What Williams is not told is that the Colonel has recently been a target of assassins. After the Colonel’s plane goes down, the plan changes and Williams maintains the disguise to confuse the Nazis about D-Day.

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Directed by William Dieterle. Starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones. Out of print on DVD.

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The Razor’s Edge is a 1946 American drama film based on W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel of the same name. It stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, and Herbert Marshall, with a supporting cast including Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore, and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham. The film was directed by Edmund Goulding.

The Razor’s Edge tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. The story begins through the eyes of Larry’s friends and acquaintances as they witness his personality change after the war. His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune.

The Razor’s Edge was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Motion Picture, with Anne Baxter winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

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The opening scene of the movie describes it best: “Once upon a time there lived in Denmark a great storyteller named Hans Christian Andersen. This is not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about the great spinner of fairy tales.”

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