The Black Tent (1956)

Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst; produced by William Macquitty

Charles Holland (Donald Sinden), a retired British Army colonel, receives a letter at his country estate, telling him of information received by the Foreign Office suggesting that his brother, David (Anthony Steel), believed killed in the World War, might be alive. Charles travels to Libya, and meets with a Bedouin sheikh (Andre Morell), who is polite but suspiciously unhelpful. When he leaves, Charles is given a roll of papers that holds the key to his sibling’s whereabouts.

A handsomely mounted motion picture, The Black Tent falls in between the categories of war movie and romantic drama, never really succeeding in either due to trying to be both. Certainly, the look of the film is impressive, for which those responsible for cinematography and location-casting are to be commended.

Filmed largely on location, the golden sand and the blue sky, the colourful Bedouin attire and, very interestingly, the Roman ruins of Sabratha - not famous these days - stand out, and give the picture a beauty that is probably more Hollywood - or, rather, Pinewood - than Libyan.

The look of The Black Tent is the best thing in the movie. The story, as stated, divides itself poorly, with too little action for a good war movie, and too much predictability for a good romance. There is nothing that persuades the viewer that David and Mabrouka (Anna Maria Sandri), the sheikh’s daughter, are really in love. He is handsome and she is pretty, and that is all the audience is really shown of their reasons for wanting to be together.

The characters are not involving. The Holland brothers are rather bland, the sheikh suitably dour, and Mabrouka as ordinary as the men. It is the minor character of Ali (Donald Pleasence), the town-bred Arab, who is the most entertaining.

The acting, too, is nothing outstanding. Certainly, Sinden has given better performances,  though he usually had more to work with; here, he plays more a sounding board for exposition than a major character. Steel is competent, while Sandri, in her only English-language film and her final film (she appears to have retired at the age of twenty), had her voice dubbed by an uncredited Nanette Newman, due to the Italian-born Sandri’s difficulty with English. (Newman was then married to Bryan Forbes, who co-wrote the screenplay and played a dying soldier, though his scene was cut.)

A mediocre movie that is rather beautifully shot, The Black Tent doesn’t really have enough of anything to be a winner.