Sands of the Desert (1960, Charlie Drake, Peter Arne, Sarah Branch, Raymond Huntley) – Classic Movie Review 11,481

Director John Paddy Carstairs’s 1960 Technicolor film Sands of the Desert is a woefully inept British adventure comedy starring Charlie Drake in his first lead role in a feature film as the titular Charlie Sands, a travel agent sent to run a desert holiday camp  in the Arabian Peninsula, where he is on the lookout for sabotage. His predecessor was killed because the camp is on a potential oilfield.

It also stars Peter Arne, Sarah Branch and Raymond Huntley.

Drake and director Carstairs co-wrote the lacklustre script and are responsible for the embarrassingly low-brow slapstick.

Low production values and a cast not at their most comfortable do not help the film’s cause.

Sands of the Desert is one for Charlie Drake fanatics only.

The cast are Charlie Drake as Charlie Sands, Peter Arne as Sheikh El Jabez, Sarah Branch as Janet Brown, Raymond Huntley as Bossom, Rebecca Dignam as Nerima, Peter Illing as Sheikh Ibrahim, Harold Kasket as Abdullah, Marne Maitland as Advisor to Sheikh, Neil McCarthy as Hassan, Derek Sydney as Mamud, Alan Tilvern as Mustafa, Martin Benson as Selin, Eric Pohlmann as Scrobin, Inia Te Wiata as Fahid, Paul Stassino as Pilot, and Beth Rogan as Air Hostess.

English film actress and model Sarah Branch (7 January 1938 – 10 November 2007) acted in two Hammer films, Hell Is a City and Sword of Sherwood Forest, as well as The Night We Dropped a Clanger (1959).

It is the first in a series of four films produced by Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) featuring Drake. Television fame with The Charlie Drake Show (with its opening catchphrase ‘Hello, my darlings!’) led to four films featuring Drake, none of them successful: Sands of the Desert (1960), Petticoat Pirates (1961), The Cracksman (1963) and Mister Ten Per Cent (1967).

Sands of the Desert is written by John Paddy Carstairs (screenplay), Charlie Drake (additional dialogue) and Anne Burnaby, Stafford Byrne Robert Hall (story).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,481

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