association with Jess Franco. Given the rather thankless role of saloon waitress Josepha, she is required to do little more than act demure and be rescued by the hero during the climatic gun battle. As a result, she displays none of the dark erotic menace that characterized her best per- formances for Franco.
American actor Jack Betts (aka Hunt Powers) was never the most distinctive of western stars but he acquits himself well with the comedic and heroic dimen- sions of his James Bond-like character. The film benefits well from the cinematography of Alejandro Ulloa (THE DIABOLI- CAL DR. Z) and Luis Bacalov’s score. The script (by Giraldi and Fernando DiLeo, amongst oth- ers) boasts a number of well- handled set-pieces, including an amusing bar-room fight in which Colt displays his boxing prowess while dressed in a pair of long- johns, and a scene with the newly released prisoners—pale, hag- gard and blank-eyed—advancing on their captor in zombie-like fashion.
This release from Germany’s Koch Media is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio with a choice of German, English and Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 sound- tracks, and optional German sub- titles. Bonus material consists of a pair of featurettes (German au- dio only), an English interview with Jack Betts, a poster and lobby card gallery, and German and Italian theatrical trailers.
SEA OF SAND
aka DESERT PATROL 1958, VCI, 94m 35s, $19.99, DVD By John Charles
This Rank World War II drama chronicles a group of British commandos in the country’s Long Range Desert Group, which
John Gregson and Richard Attenborough are trapped behind enemy lines in SEA OF SAND, a suspenseful war drama from THE MAGUS’ Guy Green.
battled Nazi troops in North Af- rica. Stuck with a new com- mander (John Gregson) he feels is lacking the necessary experi- ence for this sort of fighting, the group’s regular leader (Michael Craig) and his men (including Richard Attenborough, FRENZY’s Barry Foster and BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE’s Vincent Ball) soon find themselves trapped well be- hind enemy lines following a raid on an Afrika Korps fuel dump. Lacking a radio and (eventually) transportation, they struggle to survive the elements and avoid German troops long enough to make visual contact with their own forces.
The storyline will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in war films, but the per- formances are solid and cin- ematographer-turned-director Guy Green (THE SNORKEL, THE MAGUS) effectively handles both the drama and the action sequences (which include the sort of drive-by shooting battles that would be regularly show- cased a few years later on TV’s THE RAT PATROL). Location work in Tripolitania, Libya also pro- vides a fittingly bleak visualization
of the titular wasteland, which goes on seemingly forever with nary a landmark or hospitable component in sight.
Released stateside in 1961 by Universal-International in a 78m reduction entitled DESERT PA- TROL, SEA OF SAND is offered here in its original uncut British edition. Regrettably, that’s about all the good news there is. The film is presented at both 1.77:1 and what is claimed to be 1.33:1, neither of which are the original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The anamorphic version often looks rather tight, trimming the frame quite noticeably on top, while the alleged fullscreen version appears to be the same horizontally cropped transfer stuck inside a 1.33:1 frame. While largely de- void of wear, the B&W image is soft and sometimes insufficiently detailed. While certainly not ter- rible, the bland, overly contrasted presentation suggests that the print source was well removed from the negative. Both the origi- nal mono and a mildly enhanced 5.1 variant are included and prove adequate. There are no extras and the packaging lists an incorrect running time of 99m.
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