Hotel Sahara

Hotel Sahara is a 1951 British war comedy film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Yvonne De Carlo, Peter Ustinov and David Tomlinson.

The Hotel Sahara, situated in a desert oasis, quickly empties when the patrons learn that the Italian Army has commenced hostilities in the North African Campaign.

Later, however, the main Italian Army suffers a defeat, and Giuseppi's small detachment is ordered to retreat, destroying any structures that may aid the enemy – which will include the hotel.

Emad sabotages their truck to delay them, giving him the chance to disconnect their demolition charges just in time to save the hotel, as Yusef fires into the air to speed the Italians on their way.

Major Randall and Captain Cheyne both vie for Yasmin's attention, while Madame Pallas flirts with the enlisted men.

Emad informs the major that they prefer goods, rather than money, so he sends Cheyne and Private Binns to requisition supplies.

When Randall finds out, he sends Cheyne with Emad who has agreed to attend a conference with the local Arabs, if only to get the British to leave.

Then both the German leutnant and the British major come up with the same idea, to disguise themselves as Arabs (with Cheyne as a veiled woman) and reconnoitre, but by the time they arrive, the French have already moved on.

He had a chat in a Fleet Street pub about a hotel in the Western Desert Campaign which kept changing sides, and he arranged for a script to be written.

"[7] George Hambley Brown knew Peter Ustinov from their time together in the RAF Film Unit during World War II.

[13] According to Annakin the film "was a big success, especially in Germany, because it was the first time since the war that German soldiers had been portrayed as normal human beings.