''Escape from Sahara'' (German: ''Madeleine und der Legionär'') is a 1958 West German

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extr ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Wolfgang Staudte Wolfgang Staudte (9 October 1906 – 19 January 1984), born Georg Friedrich Staudte, was a German film director, script writer and actor. He was born in Saarbrücken. After 1945, Staudte also looked at German guilt in the cinema. Alongside H ...

and starring

Hildegard Knef Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef (; 28 December 19251 February 2002) was a German actress, voice actress, singer, and writer. She was billed in some English-language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff. Early years Hildegard Knef was born ...

Bernhard Wicki Bernhard Wicki (28 October 1919 – 5 January 2000) was an Austrian actor and film director. Life and career Wicki studied in the city of Breslau such topics as art history, history and German literature. In 1938, he transferred to the ...

and

Hannes Messemer Hannes Messemer (17 May 1924 – 2 November 1991) was a German actor from Dillingen an der Donau, Bavaria. Biography World War II Messemer served on the Eastern Front of World War II and was eventually captured by Soviet soldiers. He ...

. It was shot at the

Tempelhof Studios The Tempelhof Studios are a film studio located in Tempelhof in the German capital of Berlin. They were founded in 1912, during the silent era, by German film pioneer Alfred Duskes, who built a glass-roofed studio on the site with financial back ...

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

with

location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for e ...

taking place in

Cuxhaven Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has a ...

and in

Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the ca ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

. The film's sets were designed by the art directors

Andrej Andrejew Andrey, Andrej or Andrei (in Cyrillic script: Андрей, Андреј or Андрэй) is a form of Andreas/ Ἀνδρέας in Slavic languages and Romanian. People with the name include: * Andrei of Polotsk ( – 1399), Lithuanian nobleman * ...

, Fritz Lippmann and Helmut Nentwig. It was part of an upsurge of popular interest in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

about France's War in Algeria, particularly Germans serving there.Biess p.93

Synopsis

A French

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

assists a German serving in the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army ...

who has deserted.

Cast

as Madeleine Durand *

as Luigi Locatelli *

as Robert Altmann *

Helmut Schmid Helmut Schmid (1925–1992) was a German actor. He was the husband of actress Liselotte Pulver Liselotte Pulver (born 11 October 1929), sometimes credited as Lilo Pulver, is a Swiss actress. Pulver was one of the biggest stars of German cine ...

as Kilby, Pat * Joachim Hansen as Kurt Gerber *

Harry Meyen Harry Meyen (born Harald Haubenstock; 31 August 1924 – 15 April 1979) was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 40 films and television productions between 1948 and 1975. In the 1960s he also worked as a theatre director in West Ge ...

as Jean de Maire *

Leonard Steckel Leonard Steckel (18 January 1901 – 9 February 1971) was a German-JewishSiegbert Salomon Prawer, ''Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence in German and Austrian Film, 1910-1933'', Berghahn Books (2007), p. 213 actor and director of stage and scr ...

as Ben Achmed *

Werner Peters Werner Peters (7 July 1918 – 30 March 1971) was a German film actor. He appeared in 102 films between 1947 and 1971. Biography Peters was born in Werlitzsch, Kreis Delitzsch, Prussian Saxony, and died of a heart attack on a promotion to ...

as Brouillard *

Siegfried Lowitz Siegfried Lowitz (22 September 1914 – 27 June 1999) was a German actor. Born in Berlin, he played the Hauptkommissar ''Erwin Köster'' in the German television drama '' Der Alte''. Prior to his tenure as Hauptkommissar, he played a killer ...

as Kapitän Gerlach * Hanita Hallan as Miss. Price *

Manfred Heidmann ''Manfred: A dramatic poem'' is a closet drama written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Gothic fiction. B ...

as Perrier *

Friedrich Gnaß Friedrich Gnaß (13 November 1892 – 8 May 1958) was a German film actor. He appeared in 53 films between 1929 and 1958. Partial filmography * ''Beyond the Street'' (1929) - Der Matrose / The Sailor * '' Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness'' ...

as Germanini *

Ursula Diestel Ursula may refer to: * Ursula (name), feminine name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name * ''Ursula'' (album), an album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron *Ursula (crater), a crater on Titania, a moon of Uranus *Ursula (det ...

as Lucienne Germanini

References

Bibliography

* Biess, Frank. ''German Angst: Fear and Democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany''. Oxford University Press, 2020. * Broadbent, Philip & Hake, Sabine. ''Berlin Divided City, 1945-1989''. Berghahn Books, 2010.

External links

* 1958 films 1950s adventure films German adventure films 1954 drama films 1950s German-language films German drama films West German films Films directed by Wolfgang Staudte 1950s German films Films shot at Tempelhof Studios Films about the French Foreign Legion UFA GmbH films Films shot in Morocco {{1950s-Germany-film-stub