Bengazi

A risibly dud script never gives Brahm's stylish direction or Joseph Biroc's fine camerawork a chance to make anything of this adventure set in postwar Bengazi. Conte and McLaglen, unscrupulous co-owners of a seedy café (shades of Casablanca), set out for a desert oasis to hijack a cache of gold, only to find themselves surrounded by hostile Bedouins (shades of The Lost Patrol). Also trapped are a pursuing police chief (Carlson) and McLaglen's anxious daughter (Powers), a colleen fresh from the Dublin convent: cue for both bad boys to outdo each other in heroic self-sacrifice. Conte is excellent, but McLaglen as usual overdoes his loveable Irish rogue bit, while Carlson ('I'm thinkin' of the wee village in Scotland where I was born') offers one of the screen's most excruciating accents.