Adventure in Sahara is a 1938 American adventure film directed by D. Ross Lederman, written by Maxwell Shane and Samuel Fuller, and starring Paul Kelly, C. Henry Gordon and Lorna Gray.
In Agadez, Niger, chaos prevails at the French military base situated deep within the Sahara desert. The situation escalates when the mutinous legionnaires following American Jim Wilson overthrow their detested commander Captain Savatt, only to encounter further assaults from Arab raiders and the returned Savatt, who is determined to bring all he mutineers to justice.
Tropes:
- Attempted Rape: The brutish Karnoldi attempts to rape Carla, forcing a showdown between him and Jim Wilson.
- Desert Bandits: The remote desert outpost of Agadez is under constant threat from Arab raiders. One of Lt. Dumond's legitimate complaints against Captain Savatt is that when Savattt takes most of the company for an 80 mile forced march through the desert for no reason except to punish them, he leaves the fort undermanned and vulnerable to attack.
- Determinator: Following the mutiny, the legionnaires turn Savatt and the few men remaining loyal to him loose in the Arab-haunted desert with only a fraction of the water and food needed to get back to civilization. Savatt is the only one to survive, making it back to Legion HQ and immediately collecting a new squadron of troops and immediately marching back to Agadez, determined to retake the fort and see the mutineers hang.
- Enemy Mine: When Arab raiders surround the fort, and Captain Savatt and his men who were besieging the fort, Jim orders the gates opened and Savattt and his men to allowed inside, where the two groups join forces to battle a foe that wants to see all of them dead.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: When Jim turns turns Savatt and the few men remaining loyal to him loose in the Arab-haunted desert with only a fraction of the water and food needed to get back to civilization, he gives each of them a revolver containing one bullet, so they can shoot themselves when the hunger and thirst becomes too much for them. One of the other mutineers comments that this clever, because they cannot be held responsible for the men's deaths if they killed themselves.
- Legion of Lost Souls: After his brother dies as a result of his cruel treatment at the hands of Captain Savatt, Jim Wilson enlists in the Foreign Legion and asks to be assigned to Savatt's command. At the remote outpost of Agadez, Jim stirs his fellow legionnaires into mutiny against Savatt.
- Mistaken Nationality: Captain Savatt survives his trek through the Thirsty Desert and arrives at Legion HQ with a ragged beard, wearing Bedouin robes and covered in dust. He is taken to be a mad old Arab and they attempt to drive him away. It is only when he makes it into his commanding officer's office that he is able to establish his true identity.
- The Mutiny: Legionnaires seize the fort and turn Savatt loose in the Arab-haunted desert with only a fraction of the water and food needed to get back to civilization.
- The Neidermeyer: Captain Savatt is a martinet who lives to make the life of the men under command hell. His punishments include making one soldier stand watch on the walls of the fort for two days straight; without relief and without food or water. The soldier goes blind and falls from the wall to his death. His cruelty eventually lead the legionnaires to stage a mutiny.
- Sea of Sand: The film emphasizes the sea of sand aspect of the Sahara. And Agadez is established as being the French Foreign Legion's most remote fort in the Sahara, with nothing but hundreds of kilometres of featureless sand in every direction.
- Thirsty Desert: Following the mutiny, the legionnaires turn Savatt and the few men remaining loyal to him loose in the Arab-haunted desert with only a fraction of the water and food needed to get back to civilization. Savatt is the only one to survive.
