Escape from Zahrain

A not-bad desert adventure flick from Paramount, this one's notable for featuring Yul Brynner as the Arabic hero leading a rag-tag group on an escape from a fictional African country, Zahrain. It's very similar to all those British desert war flicks of the 1950s, such as the classic ICE COLD IN ALEX, although inevitably nowhere near the same quality.

I saw this movie when it came out back in the early 60's. Thought it was a very good movie with a splendid cast and lots of suspense.

Yul Brynner, Sal Mineo and Jack Warden star in this sort of revolutionary "Ice Cold in Alex" yarn about a wanted freedom-fighter and a rag-tag band of followers who try to escape from the tyrannical government of Zahrain by taking an ambulance across the desert. Any budget was spent on the stars (and, probably, the aircon) leaving little left for script or decent photography.

Released in 1962, "Escape from Zahrain" is a survival-in-the-desert flick that takes place in the fictitious Arabian country of Zahrain. Yul Brynner plays Sheriff, a righteous Arab revolutionary, while Sal Mineo plays his young disciple who sets him free from captivity and certain death.

This not a review per se. I saw it a long time ago when it first came out, at our local drive-in theater.

This is one of the movies that I saw in Paramount's theatrette, along with twenty or thirty of the city's other critics and opinion-makers. I stopped attending these screenings and elected to see new releases in a regular cinema instead, because the mood at the theatrette was nearly always negative.

With an obligatory bow for a few political polemics regarding the Middle East, Escape From Zahrain is essentially an action adventure film about the leader of a rebel faction being broken out of custody and escaping from a Middle Eastern principality. Zahrain is a mythical country along the lines of Muscat-Oman, Yemen, or Qatar or better still the more well known Kuwait.

Here's a movie that few have watched in which you can regale your old-movie- watching friends with the mention of this flick. Lots of action for a 1962 low budget film.

This was the third English movie that I saw as a kid, after "Jungle Cat" and "Absent Minded Professor". I thought that it was an excellent action adventure film at the time.