1962's "Station Six Sahara" ("Endstation 13 Sahara") a German-British coproduction with a cast to reflect both nations, plus top billed sex symbol Carroll Baker from the 1956 "Baby Doll" in the erotically charged central role. Peter Van Eyck is the imperious supervisor of an oil station located 200 miles from civilization deep in the Sahara (filming on location in Libya), the male workers signing on for a claustrophobic 5 year term, played by Ian Bannen, Denholm Elliott, Mario Adorf, and newly arrived Hansjorg Felmy. Petty animosity about coffee, letters, or poker come to a halt when a car speeds out of the darkness to crash on their property, the unscathed passenger a blonde bombshell (Baker), the injured driver her jealous ex-husband (Biff McGuire). Her arrival comes at the midway point, yet the predictable nature of events doesn't change, right up to the anticlimactic ending, the love starved men a fairly unlikable bunch all clamoring to earn some down time alone with Carroll, a strong willed temptress never even breaking a sweat. Most surprising are the considerable screenwriting credentials of Bryan Forbes and Brian Clemens, the director Seth Holt a promising talent coming off Hammer's Hitchcock-inspired Christopher Lee classic "Taste of Fear." Martin Scorsese is a longtime admirer of this title, but minus the promised nude scenes it must have seemed even longer than 99 minutes.
Review of Station Six Sahara
