“Copyblancas”: that’s the word I finally came up with for all the films that try and fail to recapture the magic of Casablanca.  1949’s Rope of Sand has that film’s Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre.  It is also set in Africa; albeit, in South Africa this time.  Quite a bit of the action takes place in a backwater town’s one bar, though isn’t Rick’s.

And this isn’t Casablanca.  Not that Burt Lancaster, as the lead, doesn’t give it his best.  He is as dependable as always here in what I have come to think of as “The Burt Lancaster Role.”  The female lead is the French actress Corinne Calvet, presumably because they couldn’t get Ingrid Bergman, so it appears any European woman will do.

Everything takes place in some backwater town that only exists to serve the diamond company there.  That company is very protective of their property and the sadistic police chief played by Henreid enforces their no trespassing policy.  You get the feeling he enforces that rule with sadistic glee.

It is odd to see Henreid playing a villain but he is pretty convincing as one.  Wearing khakis, a pith helmet and jackboots, I got the feeling his character was a Nazi in the African campaign to decided to stay behind and serve wherever his cruel talents might be applied.  I think it says something about the diamond trade that he finds his calling at such an organization.

Two years prior, Lancaster and his partner had been lion hunting near the border of the diamond firm’s property.  One morning, Lancaster wakes up to find his partner has foolishly crept into that forbidden territory in search of diamonds.  Following footprints in the desert sand, he finds his partner dying, with a clutch of diamonds in his hand.  Lancaster buries the diamonds and tries to flee back to safety, only to be intercepted by security forces. 

Even after extensive torture at the hands of Henreid, he refuses to disclose the location of the purloined diamonds.  I’m not sure why he wasn’t killed outright, but he is instead exiled and his hunting license is revoked.  Now he’s returned to get his license restored and possibly get the diamonds, if only out of spite.

Claude Rains is the head of the company and he brings his usual laconic charm to the role.  He enjoys his petty torments of Henreid, such as repeatedly being the secret dissenting vote to have the chief of police added to the company board.  He especially looks forward to pitting Lancaster and Henreid against each other, and finds a potential source of conflict in the alluring Corinne Calvet.

All of these performances are just a hair off.  While I believed Henreid had the potential to commit great harm, I still perceived a veneer of artificiality over his performance.  Rains is as enjoyable to see as usual, but I had the feeling he believed his efforts here to be in service to a rather sub-par feature.  Peter Lorre is not put to good use, appearing in three scenes and not given much to do in this moments.  I was especially confused by his first scene, where he delivers a bizarre dump of rambling musings that must have taken up a whole page of the script.

This may sound excessively cruel, but Calvet is a mediocre actress and his movie is at her level of talent.  She leans a little too hard into the role of the seductress, without much sizzle actually appearing on the screen.  Also, her native French accent is thick enough to occasionally be indecipherable.  Oddly, hers and Rain’s best moments in this picture are when they are together.  After he turns her initial attempt to extort him into an offer for a paying job, she asks, “How do I know you’ll pay?”, and he replies, with the least sincere expression imaginable, “Have you ever seen a more honest face?”

I wouldn’t go as far as to Rope of Sand has any diamonds in the rough, but it has a few moments and elements the warrant a viewing.  It is always great to see the male leads in anything, even if they are underserved by this material.  A climatic fight between Lancaster and Henreid is fierce and enjoyable, even if the staging is a bit clunky.  There’s also some great desert footage, and sand dunes always look amazing when photographed in crisp black and white.

Dir: William Dieterle

Starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Corinne Calvet

Watched on Olive Films blu-ray