The story is nonsense, and Gene Tierney couldn't act, yet this Henry Hathaway-directed a adventure picture set in North Africa is solid entertainment thanks to Hathaway's no-nonsense handling of the material, Miklos Rozsa's stirring score, and its splendidly chosen largely no-star or near-star cast: Bruce Cabot, George Sanders, Harry Carey, Cedric Hardwicke, Marc Lawrence. Cabot is especially good in the lead, and his work here makes one wonder why he didn't become a bigger name. Walter Wanger produced this one, which was a big hit, and also somewhat of a hybrid, a mix of Korda-and-Sabu style exotica with Nazi intrigue out of Fritz Lang and Hitchcock, with Tierney in the Lamarr-Lamour exotic princess role. Ersatz, and never for a minute convincing, but hard to resist.
