By Lee Pfeiffer
"A Twist of Sand" is a 1968 production currently streaming on Amazon Prime. You can be forgiven if you are not familiar with the film, as it was one of many made in this era that was not intended to be a blockbuster or win awards. It was made on a modest budget with the expectation of making a modest profit. The plot is the same time-worn scenario that had been seen in countless films: a group of misfits band together on a dangerous quest for gold. Even by 1968, the concept had enough moss on it to make penicillin but there is a reason the concept has repeatedly been recycled: it works. There is always dramatic tension among the participants and this particular tale is no exception.
The film opens with gunrunner Geoffrey Peace (Richard Johnson) and his partner and first mate David Garland (Roy Dotrice) smuggling a large batch of valuable rifles through the straits of Malta. They are intercepted by a British patrol boat and forced to dump the weapons into the sea to avoid arrest and prosecution. The ploy works but they are now destitute with their boat as their only asset. Along comes Harry Riker (Jeremy Kemp), a German fortune hunter who is accompanied by Johann (Peter Vaughan), a hulking, largely mute henchman. Riker spins a tale about having information that might lead them to a cache of priceless diamonds that is buried in an old shipwreck from hundreds of years ago. The shifting of the sands has now placed the vessel somewhere in the middle of the desert off the Skeleton Coast in South West Africa. Peace has an immediate dislike for the men but is desperate enough to agree to the expedition- and they are accompanied by Julie Chambois (Honor Blackman), whose late husband was a prospector who claimed to have unearthed and hidden the diamonds, revealing to her the exact location on the wreck. Adding to the drama is a sub-plot that reveals in flashback that Peace had been commanding a British submarine off the Skeleton Coast during WWII. A German U-Boat was disabled in a firefight and the crew was slaughtered by an errant member of Peace's submarine command who wielded a machine gun to kill all but one man, Johann, who has sworn to somehow take vengeance on the British sub commander. This rather contrived plot point is intended to add tension to the story but we all know that simply by introducing it, Johann will ultimately discover the truth and square off against Peace.
The disparate group of fortune hunters navigate through the treacherous waters off the Skelton Coast and director Don Chaffey manages to ring some momentary tension out of these scenes. I kept waiting for the cliched scenario that inevitably arises in any of these desert adventure films in which a lone attractive woman causes sexual tension among her male companions. However, screenwriter Marvin H. Albert keeps the characters rather disappointingly chaste. There's more lust to be found in an old Tarzan film than there is here. The movie improves when the motley group lands on the African coast and discovers the wreck of the ancient ship they are looking for now firmly settled into the desert sands. These are the movie's best scenes as the men desperately dig inside the wreck, facing death from being buried by sand or struck by a falling timber. The production design by John Stoller is especially impressive. Naturally, this part of a treasure hunter adventure is always when the double-crosses are introduced and this is no exception.
The script never directly divulges what year the story is taking place in, thus the viewer would be forgiven for thinking it was in contemporary times. I wondered how we were to believe that the characters would not have aged at all over a period of about 25 years. However, late in the film there is a reference to the fact that it is six years after the war, which would place the timetable sometime in the early 1950s. The rights to the novel "A Twist of Sand" by Geoffrey Jenkins had originally been obtained by Nunnally Johnson, who intended to write the script for a production starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr but for some reason the production never materialized. Instead, the film would eventually be made as this "B" movie production. Director Don Chaffey does a decent job, considering the budget constraints and he has a good cast. Richard Johnson plays against type as a grumpy and humorless protagonist. In real life, Johnson was one of the most humorous and charismatic people this writer has ever known. Jeremy Kemp steals his scenes as his scheming partner. Honor Blackman has very little to do and was obviously cast simply to add a bit of sex appeal.
"A Twist of Sand" is the kind of movie from this era that a I have a soft spot for. These films were competently made and entertaining, if rather forgettable. To my knowledge, the film has never been released on video in the USA, so its presence on Amazon Prime is especially appreciated.