The Black Tent (Anthony Steel, Donald Sinden)

Based on a script by Robin Maugham and Bryan Forbes, 1956 movie The Black Tent is a wartime romance mystery starring Anthony Steel as British officer David Holland who finds war and love in the Libyan desert.

When Holland doesn’t return to reclaim his vast estates in Britain after the war, his family presume he is dead and his brother Colonel Sir Charles Holland (Donald Sinden) travels to Libya to find out what happened to him. His investigations lead him from the British embassy in Tripoli to the encampment of a tribe of Bedouins. There he is given a diary by the daughter of the sheikh and he begins to piece together his brother’s strange history.

Steel had been separated from the British forces and was taken in by the Bedouins. While recuperating from injuries sustained in battle, Steel fell for Mabrouka (Anna Maria Sandri), the daughter of Sheikh Salem ben Yussef (Andre Morrell). Having cast his lot in with the Bedouins, he then persuades the sheikh to help him embark on guerilla warfare against the Germans. During an ambush Steel is killed. However, he and Sandri have given birth to a son, Daoud Holland (Terence Sharkey), and Sinden must consider what is to become of his nephew and his brother’s heir…

Cast: Donald Sinden as Col. Sir Charles Holland; Anthony Steel as Capt. David Holland; Anna-Maria Sandri as Mabrouka ben Yussef; André Morell as Sheik Salem ben Yussef; Donald Pleasence as Ali; Ralph Truman as Major Cross; Terence Sharkey as Daoud Holland; Anton Diffring as Senior German Officer; Anthony Bushell as Ambassador Baring; Michael Craig as Sheikh Faris; Frederick Jaeger as Koch; Derek Sydney as Interpreter;

Director: Brian Desmond Hurst

UK / 93 minutes / 1956

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