One sort of hopes that Robert E. Sherwood was well paid by Warner Bros. for the rights to The Petrified Forest -- if they'd left well enough alone with the 1936 film adaptation, that would have been fine, as it did credit to the play and its author; but this film constitutes an awkward and unsuccessful effort to shoehorn Sherwood's original into a World War II propaganda piece, which was done ridiculously late in the war -- apparently, some German POW's escaped from a camp in December of 1944, and someone at Warners decided to rush this picture into production hoping to ride some of the publicity from the real-life incident; the problem was, by the time it was in theaters, Germany was just about to surrender. Philip Dorn tries hard in the role of the disillusioned hero, and Samuel S. Hinds gets a chance at something other than dignified, avuncular roles, as the grizzled old "Gramp." But the rest of the key cast is clearly light-weight, starting with female lead Jean Sullivan, and the whole first half feels like a poor community theater rendition of the Sherwood original. When the escaped Nazis show up things get more interesting, but this still has the look and feel of an ultra-low budget effort, and with none of the inventiveness that, say, Edgar Ulmer or John Reinhardt would have brought to such a piece at PRC. Indeed, Escape In the Desert seems so threadbare, that it barely leaves an impression, even on multiple viewings -- some people who've seen it (more than once) actually think it was their bad dream of The Petrified Forest.
by Bruce Eder
review
