KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Ploydsge just watch it!

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

frank-dm001 (Spoilers) I wholly disagree with the couple of reviews above. The movie portrayed the Mongols as civilised, intelligent, insightful and ultimately outsmarting all the others portrayed, by securing the safety of the US forces. They spoke their own language amongst themselves and were only shown using monosyllabic English when communicating with the Americans. Exactly what you would expect from people whose knowledge of English was very limited. OK, this not the best movie ever made, but shot in Technicolor and mostly on location, it is worth a view for that alone. As for being "triumphalist", that is just not the case. How does being saved by the Mongols come across as triumphalist? The Japanese were, if anything, portrayed as far more humane then their actual behaviour in WW2. As for the plot, it was based on true events. Any attempt to jazz it up for entertainment's sake would have been wrong.

Robert J. Maxwell I must say I enjoyed this a lot when I first saw it, but that was many years ago and I was a child. Today, after movies have been more or less modernized, it seems really crude. Careless may be a better word.Half a dozen Navy men are sent to a remote weather station in Inner Mongolia. They are joined at the oasis by a group of Mongol nomads, for whom they request saddles from the U.S. Army. A Japanese air attack drives off the Mongols, destroys the radio, and kills the officer in command, leaving Chief Boatswain's Mate Widmark to lead the men in an attempt to reach the sea, hundreds of miles away.The location shooting in Nevada depicts the arid grasslands of southeastern Inner Mongolia with some accuracy. The performances may be good too but it's impossible to tell because the script is so clumsy, as if aimed at kids who were my age when I first saw it.No kidding. It's written as if written by a computer with a low IQ. The Mongols are properly dressed and their housing is accurate but they are nothing more than generic "natives" with strange customs, full of suspicion, and puzzled by a camera. "Desert make Navy Chief Mad," says Sitting Bull -- I mean Murvyn Vye, the white man who plays the Mongol chief.There is one scene, though, that I find more amusing than I did on first viewing, and that's the scene in which Widmark has filled a large weather balloon with helium and is about to release it. It always reminds me of when I was a deck hand on a Coast Guard cutter at a weather station in the Pacific. The meteorologists used helium balloons with tails of radar-reflecting tinsel. One night, one of the snipes got into the weather shack, filled one of the balloons and brought it below where the crew lay stacked in their bunks, passing the balloon around and taking big hits off it. What you wind up with is cerebral anoxia because the more helium you breathe, the less oxygen you get. I can't help laughing when I remember those dozen sailors lolling around and saying in these squeaky Mickey-Mouse helium voices: "Man, I never been so stoned." Mais, je divage. Where was I? Yes, the movie. ALL of the dialog sound utterly trite, down to the wisecracks. There is the inevitable attractive native girl. "Well, it looks like you made a big hit with her; I don't know how you do it." "It's my training as a meteorologist, son. I can take one look at her and tell weather." (That's the best crack in the movie.) Richard Widmark's narration is up to the standard. "The heat swam up to you like too much batter in a waffle iron." That raises the question of whether the writer, Freeman, had learned how to write from reading lots of Raymond Chandler.The second half of the film devolves into a "journey" movie with bedraggled men hauling themselves across blinding-white sand dunes praying the next oasis may be just over the next hill. They acquire camels from the Mongols. Their riding camels is treated as an epic comic event, accompanied by an antic version of "Anchors Away." And when the men change out of their dusty khakis and don dark Mongol gear with those clown hats, why it's just a zany laff riot.The men are captured by the Japanese, imprisoned, stage an escape, steal a Chinese junk, and sail to Okinawa. I know it was directed by Robert Wise but he doesn't seem to have put much into it, and the writers were asleep at the helm. It could have been a comedy thriller if it had been handled right, with Burt Lancaster swinging from the shrouds.

MartinHafer The plot of this movie seemed to make little sense, so I did a bit of research on the web and it appears to actually be based on real events from WWII--some of the strangest events you could imagine. Richard Widmark stars as a leader of a group of US Navy personnel stationed in Mongolia--YES, Mongolia! It seems they are a very isolated weather station but why the Navy was sent there is beyond me! In case they are attacked by the Japanese, they enlist the help of local herdsmen by providing them with nice new saddles--YES, saddles. As I said, it's all very hard to imagine but based on real events.Unfortunately for our small but intrepid group, their base IS attacked by the Japanese Air Force and their equipment ruined. As they are in the middle of no where and the American commanders must assume they are dead, they seem to have no choice to to make their way east--though the coast is over 800 miles from their base.While this is certainly not a great film, it's a great one for someone who loves WWII history--as it certainly doesn't get any more unusual than this. Plus, the film is enjoyable, well-acted and likable. Truly an odd movie but reasonably well made with its mostly American-Indian supporting cast.

Spikeopath Destination Gobi is directed by Robert Wise and written by Everett Freeman. It stars Richard Widmark, Don Taylor, Casey Adams & Murvyn Vye. "In the Navy records in Washington, there is an obscure entry reading 'Saddles for Gobi.' This film is based on the story behind that entry--one of the strangest stories of World War II."An odd story makes for an oddly entertaining yarn as Widmark and co troop across the Gobi Desert after a Japanese air attack on their weather station base. Other problems exist too, as the Mongol tribe they have befriended may not actually be friends. Poor Widmark, he's a Navy man out in the desert and the motley crew under his command are getting rather restless. Amazingly based on a true incident, tho we can safely assume there's much poetic license used by the makers, Destination Gobi has a nice blend of action, drama, adventure and comedy. The cast work well as a unit and run with the oddity of the plot, while Wise directs with customary assuredness. It's not one you would sit thru too often once viewed for the first time, but while it's on it's never less than engaging . 6.5/10