Action in Arabia ** (1944, George Sanders, Virginia Bruce, Lenore Aubert, Gene Lockhart, Robert Armstrong, H B Warner, Alan Napier) – Classic Movie Review 12,206

George Sanders stars  in RKO’s 1944 adventure thriller film Action in Arabia as a resourceful American newspaperman in Damascus unravelling a colleague’s murder while sabotaging a Nazi plot to destroy the Suez Canal.

Director Léonide Moguy’s 1944 RKO Radio Pictures adventure thriller film Action in Arabia stars George Sanders as a resourceful American newspaperman in Damascus unravelling a colleague’s murder while sabotaging a Nazi plot to destroy the Suez Canal.

Action in Arabia is a routine RKO wartime espionage suspenser, enlivened by Sanders’s performance and plenty of intrigue, and especially an action-filled desert climax with countless Arabs, horses and Caels. The spectacular footage was actually shot in 1933 by E B Schoedsack for an abortive film about Lawrence of Arabia.

The new footage was shot mainly on the RKO backlot, reusing stock sets and props.

Also in the cast are Virginia Bruce, Lenore Aubert, Gene Lockhart, Robert Armstrong, H B Warner, Alan Napier, André Charlot, Marcel Dalio, Robert Anderson, and Mike Ansara.

Action in Arabia is directed by Léonide Moguy, runs 75 minutes, is made and released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Philip MacDonald and Herbert J Biberman (original screenplay), is shot in black and white by J Roy Hunt, is produced by Maurice Geraghty, is scored by Roy Webb, and is designed by Albert S D’Agostino and Alfred Herman.

George Sanders’s contract with 20th Century Fox had ended and this was the first film in his three-picture deal with RKO.

Sanders of Arabia.

Filming started on 1 October 1943 as International Zone. The original setting of Algiers was changed to Damascus and the budget increased by $100,000 to raise the film’s status three weeks into filming, but it still remains a low budget B-movie. The title was changed to Action in Arabia during filming. Shooting was delayed a week when Virginia Bruce was ill.

RKO may have bought the rights to the story The Fanatic of Fez by by M V Heberden, but this is an original screenplay.

The cast are George Sanders as Michael Gordon, Virginia Bruce as Yvonne Danesco, Lenore Aubert as Mounirah al-Rashid, Gene Lockhart as Josef Danesco, Robert Armstrong as Matthew Reed, H B Warner as Abdul El Rashid, Alan Napier as Eric Latimer, André Charlot as Andre Leroux, Marcel Dalio as Chakka, Robert Anderson as William Chalmers, Jamiel Hasson as Eben Kareem, and Mike Ansara.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,206

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