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.

And the donkey, the antelope, the zebra, not to mention the scorpion. It's all the locust's fault for getting in the way of the plane that leaves a group of people stranded in the African wilderness. Typically, the men go wild, killing more of God's creatures than they can either eat or wear. While that aspect of the story makes you angry, it also makes you think. Unfortunately, the promise of an entertaining message film quickly turns into a predictable rip-off of "And Then There Were None" where members of the group start to disappear as two of the men begin to fight predictably over the only woman. Colorful photography cannot overcome the tedious and unlikable characters. Some funny moments, particularly the cute donkey, but continuous animal cruelty gets to be too much. As "Planet of the Baboons", the over-all effect of the film is quite a let-down.

There's some common ground with both ZULU and THE SANDS OF THE KALAHARI . Both were financed by Hollywood executive Joseph Levine , both were co-produced by Stanley Baker and Cy Endfield and Enfield scripted and directed both films which were distributed by Paramount pictures and both have South African locations . ZULU is rightly regarded as one of the greatest movies Britain has ever made ( For the sake of argument ZULU is a British movie regardless of its Hollywood involvement ) and airs on British network TV at least once a year . However SANDS is almost totally unknown . I saw it one afternoon about 15 years ago and until today that was certainly the last time it was broadcast . A pity because although I had very vague memories of it being good I hadn't realized how great it was until today . I was actually speechless after " THE END " caption came up on screen . This is every bit as exciting and entertaining as ZULU

I would describe this movie as THE NAKED PREY meets 28 DAYS LATER . A strange combination I know but where as Alex Garland's script tried rather unsuccessfully to mix twin themes involving human nature and survival here Endfield's script explores how far human beings can go in order to survive . Monkeys are also important to the plot believe it or not ! Seeing as the script for THE NAKED PREY was Oscar nominated I can't help feeling that Cy Endfield was short changed at award ceremonies . THE NAKED PREY deserved its accolades but the script here is slightly more dramatic since there's more characterisation involved and there little digs at the human condition if you look closely enough you'll see lust , greed , ignorance and even the old excuse of " I was only following orders " come in for criticism . I would love to discuss the script in more detail but that would involve spoilers and I wouldn't want to spoil this movie for anyone who hasn't seen it . All I will say is ....

WATCH THIS MOVIE IF YOU GET THE CHANCE . It's intelligent , exciting , very well paced and criminally underrated . The fact that this page and its related message board is composed mainly of people crying " Please release this on DVD " should tell you what a great movie this is