StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

BasicLogic A film made in 1965 with such great idea about the desert, the plane crash, the survivors, 5 men and 1 woman. It showed to us one funny but quite realistic possibility: No matter how the situation might be tough, a single woman, especially a pretty one, among a majority of men, lust would be an even tougher thing to be suppressed when hormone and testosterone were once fulfilled with some food; once your stomach was full, the next thing you thought about was sex. But there always got some exceptions, the older guys, for example in this film, finding food and trying to get help from outside, not wanting to die in the desert, seemed to be more important than sex. The funny thing this film showed to me was there's still some guys would like to have sex first when they were facing the uncertainty of survival. This is a very good film, well scripted, directed and performed by some A-list actors in that era. It's also a very tough film to shoot by the production crew and to play roles in the desert and under the blazing sun. I totally enjoyed watching this film.

clanciai For once Stuart Whitman is allowed to play the lead and not only second to guys like John Wayne and James Garner, and he does it here with a vengeance indeed. This is really an account of man's relationship with nature and how he deals with it under extreme circumstances. Stuart Whitman does it the hard way and has to face the consequences. Harry Andrews is the only one who understands what baboons are all about but is not allowed to get his aged wisdom through. Susannah York as the only woman among these wild guys has to suffer for that but manages by accepting it. Theodore Bikel is the philosopher who rather humbly takes on the hard lot that is assigned to him than tries to fight it, which is wise. Stanley Baker finally, the only one severely hurt from the beginning, makes the best of it and finds his way as an observer until it's time for him to act. While the baboons are the real commanders of this situation.It's a tremendous adventure film, and it's far better than both William Dieterle's "Rope of Sand" with Burt Lancaster 1949 and "Twist of Sand" 1968 with Richard Johnson, which also both deal with the hardships of the sands of Kalahari. They are all three arduous and interesting, but this is certainly the best one and catches well the sinister character of the famous novel by Richard Mulvihill, which I read 50 years ago and which is even more grim than this colour film with some lighter ingredients not to put the audience off completely.

Leofwine_draca Now forgotten aside from an occasional airing on daytime TV – where I was lucky enough to catch it – SANDS OF THE KALAHARI is a B-movie version of Hollywood's FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX. Like that film, it concerns a group of plane crash survivors attempting to adapt to live in an inhospitable desert climate, but there the similarities end. SANDS OF THE KALAHARI is very much smaller scale in scope, concentrating on group dynamics over big plotting and looking at what happens when disparate personalities are forced to work together.The first half of the film is a little dull, I'll accept that. Spain stands in for Africa, and it works…I never questioned the bleakness of the surrounds for a second. But the characters are dry and dull and the film is saddled with an extremely lacklustre female lead, played by Susannah York. In the second half, the film throws us a decent twist and delivers an unexpected story which gets better and better as it goes on. By the end I had been thoroughly engrossed in and entertained by the story.Stuart Whitman is no Jimmy Stewart, but he enjoys a multi-faceted role here and commands the screen like few leading men. Stanley Baker, here reteaming with director Cy Endfield a year after ZULU, is also excellent value for money. Believe me, this film is no ZULU, but it is a nice surprise for a B-movie. Add in a couple of distinguished Brit actors (Harry Andrews, Nigel Davenport), some killer baboons and plenty of in-fighting and you have an unfairly forgotten little effort.

tryacinth I have to agree with Freddy from Melbourne. I saw this movie at the Route 3 Drive-in, East Rutherford NJ at age 16, and it made me forget my teenage hormones. The scenery and cinematography were still superb, considering the size of the Drive-In screen. It was one of those flicks that had to be watched without distraction. Yet,I have never seen it on TV, and except for those who saw it with me, and my younger sister, I have never met anyone who viewed it in any medium. I can't seem to find it on VHS or DVD, maybe I will have to do some more Internet searching. I saw "Flight of the Phoenix" at the same Drive-In, and I have to agree, the publicity for that was way more than "Sands". Durn shame. I am not hoping for a remake of it, though.